The charges against financier Jeffrey Epstein for sex trafficking are of course one of the biggest stories in the country these days, and Israel and its friends have been an ongoing theme in the case.
Epstein, a 66-year-old former hedge fund manager, supported many Jewish causes and Zionist organizations, and was on the board of the Wexner Foundation, which is devoted to Israel. He had friendships with many Israel supporters, from Alan Dershowitz to Howard Rubenstein to Ehud Barak to Larry Summers. And there is speculation that Epstein, a mysterious international figure, had links to Israeli intelligence.
Dershowitz, Epstein’s former lawyer, says Israel is a factor in the case. Two days ago Dersh published an op-ed for Newsmax aimed at preempting the New Yorker’s anticipated expose of his role in the case (one of Epstein’s victims says that she was compelled to have sex with Dershowitz. He denies the charges, but he has admitted getting a massage at Epstein’s mansion.). Dershowitz says the New Yorker is trying to hurt Netanyahu.
Here is Dershowitz’s blockbuster lead:
I recently learned, from a source close to The New Yorker magazine, that its editor, David Remnick, has commissioned a hit piece against me for the explicit purpose of silencing my defense of President Trump, Prime Minister Netanyahu, and the State of Israel. Remnick despises Trump and Netanyahu, and is well known for his strong anti-Israel bias. Remnick explicitly told people that I must be silenced because mine has been the most persuasive voice in favor of what Remnick feels pose dangers to values he holds dear, and that he will use the credibility of The New Yorker to accomplish this goal.
This doesn’t seem very plausible. Remnick can be very critical of Israel but he is a liberal Zionist. Connie Bruck is said to be the reporter on the case and though she has a pretty good track record (exposing Adelson) she is married to an Israel devotee, former Rep. Mel Levine.
Also, if Netanyahu is so hurt by the case, why is he pushing for an investigation of Epstein in the election campaign, so as to hurt his rival, Ehud Barak?
Epstein’s relationship with Ehud Barak, the former PM who is now trying to stage a comeback in Israel, has become an issue in the Israeli campaign, the New York Times reports. Epstein made what appear to be shadowy investments with Barak.
Ehud Barak, 77, a former prime minister and defense minister, received some $2.3 million in payments from [the Wexner] foundation associated with Mr. Epstein from 2004 to 2006, and Mr. Epstein invested a reported $1 million in a limited partnership established by Mr. Barak in 2015 . . .
“I never took part in any party or event with women or anything like that,” Mr. Barak said, adding that in Mr. Epstein’s house he had met the heads of leading American universities, philanthropists, Nobel Prize winners, older women from academia, business and law, and political figures from the Clinton, Obama and Trump circles . . .
Mr. Barak does not dispute having received some $2.3 million in three installments from the Wexner Foundation, an Ohio-based nonprofit, and its founder, Leslie H. Wexner, a retail mogul and a former close associate of Mr. Epstein’s and an investor in his financial company.
Mr. Epstein was a trustee of the Wexner Foundation and one of its main donors.
The payments were registered as compensation for research, but Mr. Barak has refused to divulge any details about the research, saying that doing so could harm his future business…
Rabbi Elka Abrahamson, the president of the Wexner Foundation, which provides development training for Jewish volunteer leaders and Israeli public figures, has declined to say what the research payments were for.
One of Epstein’s investments in Barak, in 2015, would seem to have intelligence applications.
Israeli news media has reported that the investment was about $1 million. Mr. Barak’s company, Carbyne, formerly known as Reporty Homeland Security, specializes in emergency response geo-location and live video-streaming…
This brings up the intelligence angle. Federal investigators found an Austrian passport in Epstein’s NY mansion with a fake name and listing an address in Saudi Arabia that Epstein reportedly used to enter four countries, “France, Spain, the United Kingdom, and Saudi Arabia.”
The scandal at the heart of the new prosecution is that Epstein served only a year or so in jail on Florida solicitation charges in 2007-2008, even as his lawyers cut a non-prosecution plea deal from the feds on more serious charges. Dershowitz was a lawyer on that team. Former US attorney Alexander Acosta cut that deal, and resigned as Labor Secretary last week when it became an issue.
As the Daily Beast reports, Acosta said he went light on Epstein because of an intelligence connection.
He’d cut the non-prosecution deal with one of Epstein’s attorneys because he had “been told” to back off, that Epstein was above his pay grade. “I was told Epstein ‘belonged to intelligence’ and to leave it alone,” he told his interviewers in the Trump transition, who evidently thought that was a sufficient answer and went ahead and hired Acosta. (The Labor Department had no comment when asked about this.)
The speculation about Epstein’s connections includes the fact that he was associated closely with a woman who allegedly helped bring him girl victims, Ghislaine Maxwell, who (as this news aggregator notes), “is the daughter of Robert Maxwell, the media mogul who died under mysterious circumstances in 1991. Investigative reporter Seymour Hersh alleged in his book The Samson Option: Israel’s Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy that Maxwell was tied to the Israeli Mossad. Hersh was sued for the allegation, but then received an apology.”
Gabe Sherman mentions Mossad in Vanity Fair:
One theory circulating among prominent Republicans is that Epstein was a Mossad agent. Another is that the George W. Bush White House directed Acosta not to prosecute Epstein to protect Prince Andrew on behalf of the British government, then the U.S.’s closest ally in the Iraq war.
In Epstein’s 2004-2005 address book (published by Gawker) Israel has a listing among several countries (including Switzerland, Italy, France, Kenya, and Brazil). The Israel file includes future-prime-minister Ehud Olmert.
Several Israel supporters are in that address book, including former Murdoch news exec Gary Ginsberg, who wrote speeches for Netanyahu and is on the board of the Genesis Foundation, which gives prizes to Israel’s friends. Also Ron Perelman, a financier and supporter of Israel.
The only thing we can be sure of in this case is that more names are likely to come out, and more speculation about how Epstein became such a wealthy international player when his financial chops were questionable to say the least.
Thanks to David Samel, Donald Johnson, and Adam Horowitz.
“So, Acosta, according to himself, backed off on prosecuting Epstein back in 2007, despite the possession of ample evidence proving his guilt, because he “belonged to intelligence.” Whose intelligence, exactly? is the first of many questions that arise here.
This claim was met with an appropriate degree of skepticism, and Acosta had a chance to explain what he meant in a press conference this afternoon. On camera, Acosta maintained that he did the best he could with that case, while admitting that it hardly looks like a fair punishment now.
The intelligence issue came up, and Acosta’s response was bizarre. He punted on setting the record straight, instead proffering this strange word salad when asked about Ward’s reporting:
So there has been reporting to that effect and let me say, there’s been reporting to a lot of effects in this case, not just now but over the years and, again, I would hesitant to take this reporting as fact. This was a case that was brought by our office, it was brought based on the facts and I look at the reporting and others, I can’t address it directly because of our guidelines, but I can tell you that a lot of reporting is going down rabbit holes.
To anyone acquainted with our nation’s capital, that’s a non-denial denial of an epic kind. Given the chance to refute Ward’s report, specifically that the Epstein case involved intelligence matters, Acosta did nothing of the sort. Indeed, he functionally admitted that it’s true.”
https://observer.com/2019/07/jeffrey-epstein-spy-intelligence-work/
You got your carrot or your stick. So, it may not be all about the “Benjamins,” it also might be about the blackmail.
Dershowitz is using the standard AIPAC strategy of “discredit the messenger” instead of addressing the actual facts of the case. As a profession lawyer, Dershowitz certainly knows he is doing this.
I wonder why they’re throwing Prince Andrew under the bus rather than Bill Clinton? Perhaps the Clinton case would reveal too much about Israel’s influence on American politics?
Thanks for this summary of the Epstein case so far. Another worthwhile article is
“Report: Alex Acosta Said He Was Told Jeffrey Epstein ‘Belonged to Intelligence’ And ‘To Leave It Alone'”
http://www.informationliberation.com/?id=60461
Also, historian Francis Boyle discusses the Jeffrey Epstein case in some depth, including the Mossad connection. Excellent. Starts at 4:00 in the video.
https://consortiumnews.com/watch-the-replay-nils-melzer-aaron-mate-mike-gravel-on-cn-live-premiere/
Why is this not surprising in the least? Freaks and perverts stick together, I think it’s in the by-laws.
Epstein rose from a lowly trader for “Ace” Greenberg of Bear-Stearns fame, to become mentored by Wexner, with ties to Bronfman , Brunel (who has modeling agency in Tel Aviv), Dershowitz and of course Gislayne maxwell, the pimping madam who just happens to be Robert maxwell’s daughter. This is one rabbit hole that goes deeper than the PTB are comfortable with for sure.
First a few more aouple of articles:
1. https://theduran.com/the-epstein-epiphany/ – a little biased at the start, but the facts and the names are beyond dispute
2. https://www.mintpressnews.com/shocking-origins-jeffrey-epstein-blackmail-roy-cohn/260621/ Interesting background leading through the Bronfman and Lansky mob connections and to the present day. A thorough investigative report from Mint Press (which is, Btw, censored on many MSM outlets. That alone should tell us something), The link is the first in a series.
3. https://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2010/11/bronfman-201011 More on the Bronfman sister, of the NXIVM infamy
Next, the puzzle pieces – looking at the list of personalities who are known to have funded and were connected to Epstein one can’t help but get this funny feeling as if we are looking through a distorted hall of mirrors where nothing is quite like what it seems to be. The pieces include (by no means a comprehensive list):
1. A hedge fund manager that no other hedge fund company knew about or interacted with.
2. Wealth that cannot be traced to a source. It just kind of “pops out of the blue”…
3. Pre-occupation with under-age girls who are pimped to all manner of powerful and/or well-off guys throughout the world.
4. A network of very rich and very well connected individuals who are both Jewish and known to be generous supporters of israel through any number of funds and “foundations”. So very “philatropic’ they all are!
5. Following the initial arrest and charges, a plea-bargain that miraculously leads to a sentence that was one of the lightest ever for a pedophile sex offender. Remember scort Ritter? they sure threw the book at him for some “computer child pornography” (that may have been cleverly planted, but never mind…).
6. A mystery “girl-friend” who is supposed to be a “socialite’ (what’s that exactly? is it an actual occupation?) who is in fact a pimping madam for underage girls, and goes free as a bird without charges, as if she were some kind of an innocent bystander.
7. Membership in the notorious CFR for both Epstein and Bronfman. How on earth did they get there and for what service?
8. What was the Epstein operation really all about? just giving rich men what they want? how come they all suddenly like young barely post-pubescent girls? or is this a more common affliction than we have realized?
9. That “little’ investment in the barak company that just happens to be in the security business. Really, now – couldn’t they at least cover their tracks a bit?
10. Finally, why now? who threw Epstein under the bus and why?
Ah, the creepy crawly things that lurk in the heart of darkness!
Then again, there are those dots…..there’s what Acosta said way back then about something “above his pay grade”. There are parties which could be interested in hanging on to power, and others that are addicted to control and feel they need the power anyway they can get it.
There’s also Trump who perhaps is not so guilty of just this one thing. A Trump who seemed to like his women a little more “mature” (though not too much, mind you). Perhaps this was a Trump card played by him or for him (cf. dershowitz, whose involvement is as unclear as anyone else’s). Heck, anything is possible…..
Could this have been the Democrats’ desperate gambit, twisted as they are by a deadly TDS (Trump Derangement Syndrome), who thought (hoped?) they could finally “get trump” on some sleeze-ball actions with under-age girls? Could it be a gambit gone spectacularly wrong, as it not only will fail to snare Trump (who possibly has compromat all over the place, just not with under-age girls), but will instead trap many a guilty-as-sin democrats and spread terror in the hearts of those well-connected “friends of israel’? what if this all was an elaborate blackmail scheme, worthy of good old hoover himself, meant to keep the powerful of the world “under control”?
Well, one thing is clear – a blackmail operation is the only thing that makes sense in explaining Epstein’s ill-begotten gains, a man whose riches has clearly no basis in any unusual talents of money management, or any other lucrative endeavor.
Why – our Epstein makes one Bernie Madoff and someone called “Harvey Weinstein” look practically like a boy scouts when it comes to getting the goods and stashing them away in full view of a curious world and the tacit approval of a Hollywood celebrity crowd that decided to take a break from “Metoo” just this once.
So, it’s back to my #10 – why now? and what happened that caused Epstein to outlive his usefulness (perhaps like Robert Maxwell?). And could it be that elements of the CIA decided to “strike back”? if so, at whom?