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amy goodman: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.
As the House moves closer to forcing the department to release the Epstein files, we turn to a new series from Drop Site News that examines Epstein’s relationship with Israeli intelligence and how he secretly brokered numerous deals with them.
On Tuesday, the drop site revealed that an Israeli spy had been in Manhattan with Epstein for several weeks. The drop site also looked at Epstein’s role in brokering security agreements between Israel and Mongolia and in establishing back channels between Israel and Russia regarding Syria.
All this was revealed today by CNN, according to newly released emails from Democrats on the House Oversight Committee, which say Epstein mentioned Donald Trump’s name multiple times in private correspondence over the past 15 years.
In the email, reported by CNN, Epstein alleges that President Trump spent significant time with women who Overwatch Democrats say are victims of Epstein’s sex trafficking. Murtaza Hussein from Drop Sight joins us this time, reporting on Epstein with colleague Ryan Grimm.
Murtaza, welcome to Democracy Now! Explain what you feel the media is not covering. What is Jeffrey Epstein’s role in US foreign policy?
Murtaza Hussein:While much legitimate focus has been placed on Epstein’s very serious crimes and aiding and abetting the crimes of others related to sex trafficking and sexual abuse, one important aspect of this story that has not been reported on is Epstein’s own relationships with foreign governments, the United States government, and in particular foreign intelligence agencies.
Now, this information is not completely private. In fact, much of it is included in the House’s disclosures as part of the lawsuit against Epstein and his activities over the past several years, and in several databases of leaked emails from specific individuals around the world that show extensive contact with Epstein.
So I think a lot of the coverage of him to date, at least to date, is still focused on the sordid details of his life and the crimes he was involved in relating to minors and women, but the other side, the political side, who he is and the role he played at a very high level in facilitating deals and interacting and working with intelligence agencies around the world is not being reported.
While it is not known exactly who Epstein was in a position to commit his crimes, our story aims to highlight and shed light on one particular aspect: Epstein’s extensive relationships with Israeli intelligence, U.S. intelligence, and even other countries’ intelligence services. He was a very elite-level dealmaker and fixer, making deals that in some cases ended up being signed as formal security agreements between the Israeli government and other countries.
That’s what our series is currently focused on, and it comes naturally to us when we look at the information contained in the publicly available data about his communications in the past, from 2013 to 2016.
amy goodman: So please tell me who Yoni Koren is. You revealed that this senior Israeli intelligence officer lived in one of Epstein’s apartments and had close personal ties to the former Epstein. C.I.A. The director is Leon Panetta. Can you talk about the specific intelligence-gathering operations you believe Koren was conducting from Epstein’s apartment? Jeffrey Epstein’s relationship with former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak has also been documented many times.
Murtaza HusseinSo, a lot of the information that we’re uncovering now about these intelligence relationships comes from private communications between Barak and Epstein that were leaked by hackers several years ago and posted online, but have never been analyzed in detail, but they shed deep light on Epstein’s relationships not only with Epstein and Barak, but also with officials around the world and foreign governments in Africa, Central Asia, Europe, and Russia that Epstein helped connect with Barak.
What is interesting is that even though Barak was a very powerful figure in the Israeli security establishment, Barak was dependent on Epstein’s support rather than the other way around. And these emails, in addition to the House disclosures showing similar information, show that the operative, a longtime military intelligence officer in Israel and longtime chief of staff to Mr. Barak, lived in Mr. Epstein’s home for weeks at a time for significant periods during this period from 2013 to 2015.
He was staying at Epstein’s house. The correspondence doesn’t tell us specifically what they were working on, what his role was, or why he was staying at the home. Barack also sometimes stayed at his home for meetings and business in New York. That was encouraged. But we do see that they corresponded, and at one point Epstein sent money to Koren.
And there’s also a communication between Barak and Koren in the inbox, which appears to be an encrypted communication, perhaps referring to a dead drop of information or something about their involvement in New York City. Part of the reason this communication is interesting is because we knew from the Snowden revelations years ago that Barack and Koren were being surveilled. N.S.A. At this time in New York, at this time in America.
So what they were doing with Epstein, in his house, in New York, with each other, spending money, sharing information, data, packages, etc., was happening during this period. Again, what’s interesting is that this information is included in the House’s disclosures, even if you don’t see the emails and keep them separate. Jeffrey Epstein’s calendar shows Koren’s visits to and from his home, the dates of his departure, and the length of his stay.
So this is something that could have been covered by the broader media, but it just escaped attention for reasons that can be guessed at, or that are hard to say exactly. But we will continue to dig into this issue without shying away from the political implications of his activities, Epstein’s activities, and his relationships with powerful people like Barak and intelligence agents like Coren.
amy goodman: Leaked emails show former Prime Minister Ehud Barak bookmarked a personal engagement with Oracle’s Larry Ellison. Could you talk about the significance of this initiative?
Murtaza Hussein: So, what we see from the emails is, in effect, that Epstein and Barak were corresponding and that Barak himself was continuing to have separate meetings with Larry Ellison at the time that Coren’s operations were taking place at Epstein’s home in New York. Now, Larry Ellison is a very famous pro-Israel donor. He is a billionaire and the founder of Oracle. Currently, he and his son are involved in acquiring many of America’s media outlets.
We did a separate report on Ellison that extracted not from this database, but from another communications database that was also leaked and posted on a website called Distributed Secret Denial. They show that Ellison was deeply involved in other aspects of the Israeli government and, in some ways, helped shape the American political system for Israel. He was helping vet political candidates at the behest of Israeli officials, who assess their favorability toward Israel to decide who to fund.
Therefore, our correspondence with Barak does not tell us what Barak was discussing with Ellison at the time or what his personal initiative was. Nothing more. Not everything was discussed over email, much was discussed over the phone, so not everything is documented as such. But we know that Ellison was very closely involved in promoting what appeared to be Israeli interests in the United States at the time, and that Barak was doing the same.
And interestingly, Epstein did the same thing. Mr. Epstein has helped Mr. Barak promote Israel’s interests in various countries around the world, helped him refine his proposals, and connected him with people to help the Israeli government pursue its geopolitical interests, all as part of this. So in the meeting between Mr. Barak and Mr. Ellison, one can imagine that it has something to do with the ongoing efforts he has been making.
amy goodman: And while a leaked email showing that Jeffrey Epstein and Barak secured a private meeting with Vladimir Putin in 2013 to engineer the removal of Bashar al-Assad was unsuccessful, in an email exchange Epstein wrote to the former Israeli prime minister: you? Mr Barak replied: “That’s true in a sense, but converting that into cash flow is not easy. That’s the topic for Saturday.” Finally, can you talk about the relationship between Jeffrey Epstein and Ehud Barak who are trying to profit from the Syrian war?
Murtaza Hussein: Now, that email that you just read is a very important email because it explains the broader theory that Epstein and Barak were operating in and what exactly they were doing.
They were traveling around the world making pitches – Epstein was pitching Barak as someone who could solve the security problems of various countries, introducing him to powerful people in those countries – which we’ll cover more in the coming weeks and months – and telling them that Barak, particularly through his connections with Israeli intelligence and surveillance technology companies that worked with Israeli intelligence, could help introduce him to these countries, embed them, and then secure formal contracts with Israel.
We talked about this and how it manifested itself in Ivory Coast and Mongolia as well. This is very interesting because in this relationship with Russia, Epstein was the one who was setting up a back channel between Barak and Putin to discuss this deal to remove Bashar al-Assad and replace him with a pro-Russian dictator that Israel also agrees to.
Although that didn’t happen, I think this exchange shows that Epstein enjoyed significant access not only to Israeli and U.S. officials, but also to Russian officials. According to his own communications, he is capable of meeting with President Putin and has met with President Putin himself many times. And how did it come about? What was behind it? I don’t understand.
But at least we know that Mr. Epstein was someone who believed he had access to senior Russian officials. As I mentioned, he claimed in the email that he had met Putin or that Putin had asked him to meet. This is a depiction of Epstein’s own interactions. But he definitely had the drive to get Barak into the room with President Putin, and the funny thing is that Barak had to rely on Epstein to create a back channel. This shows the enormous influence and power that Epstein had, which is not actually the case. We haven’t fully explained it. It is not explained in the public understanding of this event.
We want to shed more light on that with our own reporting, but we need the government and we need other news organizations to pick up on this and put together the pieces of who Mr. Epstein is and the role he played as an international trader.
amy goodman: Drop Site News national security reporter Murtaza Hussain, thank you for joining us. Link to new article about Jeffrey Epstein’s relationship with Israeli intelligence.
A new documentary about Gaza by acclaimed Iranian director Sepideh Farsi, Walk with a Soul in Your Hand, is coming soon.
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amy goodman: “Blackwaters” played Nora Brown and Stephanie Coleman on Democracy Now! studio.
