Was Jeffrey Epstein a Spy?

The Internet is rife with conspiracy theories about the Epstein Files, including a suspicion that the man was a spy for a foreign country, namely Israel. The rationale behind the theory is that Epstein had access to lots of important people, and that’s one of the things spy agencies like. The supposedly important people may not have had any decision-making or policy-making power, but they might know people who did.

A lot of “ifs” must be true to make any conspiracy theory work. If this happened, then that could have happened, and if that happened, then the next thing could have happened, and so on. The logic is disarming, unless you understand that every “if” along the way must be proven before going further down the rabbit hole.

Not all conspiracy theories in history are wrong, but many are preposterous and most are unproven. Was there a conspiracy to kill John F. Kennedy in 1963? Unproven, and quite a stretch if you believe it, though not impossible. Was there a conspiracy to kill Abraham Lincoln in 1865? Not only “yes,” but the surviving conspirators were quickly caught and executed.

I don’t dismiss the possibility that Epstein was a spy – it’s possible – but if so, which country would have been his most likely backer? We’ll assume it was an intelligence agency, whichever country may come into the spotlight. That’s a reasonable and non-partisan assumption.

Which country had the power to give Epstein a sweetheart plea deal in his 2008 conviction for child prostitution? The US Attorney in charge of the case at the time, Alex Acosta, offered to drop federal charges against Epstein if he pled guilty to lesser state charges, which he did. This was the nonprosecution agreement. I don’t see how the State of Israel or its Mossad intelligence agency could have swung this, but the Central Intelligence Agency, Office of the Director of National Intelligence or another American spy agency might have been able to arrange it. I have no knowledge that they did so, but they certainly were better placed than any foreign entity.

Epstein died by suicide in a New York jail in 2019, or so it was reported. (See how conspiracy theories work? “So it was reported,” but I wasn’t there. Were you?) Two prison guards who were assigned to watch him were off playing cards or otherwise amusing themselves when this happened, and several cameras in or near the man’s “Special Housing Unit” in the jail were not monitored and the video from some was either off-angle or corrupted. Does Israel or any other foreign spy agency have that kind of penetration inside a New York jail? Could their agents just show up and give orders to the warden or other officials to “make it happen?” Any US intelligence agency would have been better positioned to arrange all this, that is, if this is what happened.

If it’s assumed that Epstein was murdered, it must have been to keep him from talking, whatever immunity he had been granted in the 2008 plea deal.

Epstein had a lot of money to throw around and it helped him make important contacts. And he clearly dangled teen-age women in front of horny older men to get close to them. This is where the key spy charge comes in – his handlers, if there were any, wanted access to important people. Could be true, but exactly which country had the most to gain from Epstein’s growing list of contacts?

It is the United States itself. Former Israeli Prime Minister and retired general Ehud Barak’s name comes up a lot, and he certainly would have known about Israeli intentions regarding its military and designs on the Palestinian Territories. But every Israeli top leader already knew (and knows) what Barak knows. There would be no edge there for Israeli intelligence at all. But US intelligence agencies absolutely, positively would have wanted to know what was going on behind closed doors in Tel Aviv. And US intelligence agencies would have wanted to know what was going on in the United Kingdom, our closest partner in the “special arrangement,” one that is sometimes on shaky ground, ergo Peter Mandelson’s and the former Prince Andrew’s involvement in Epstein’s circle. Also, Epstein’s reported feelers about making contact with leading Russian figures would support perpetual US concerns about that country. (The Russians know a lot about spying, of course, so Epstein wasn’t ever going to get very far with them).

And the alleged cover-up, if that’s what it is. The Biden Administration didn’t want to publicly dive too deeply into the Epstein Files and this made it a leading campaign talking point for Donald Trump in 2024. But he gets into office and his Administration stonewalls as long as possible, too. Each side is accused of covering up wrongdoing by their own, but what if they’re both covering up for the same entities – US spy agencies? Any evidence that we were spying on Israel, the United Kingdom or Russia in this particularly vulgar way could harm relations with these countries, that is, if Epstein were a spy. That’s the common denominator between both the Biden and Trump Administrations – they might not have wanted to show their hand to these other countries.

I have no knowledge that Epstein was a spy. The Israel hypothesis has not been refuted. The relationship with Bill Clinton does raise a red flag: A US intelligence agency would seem to have no interest in going after him, but Israel might want to know what Clinton was up to. But so would Russia. And so would China, for that matter - it’s a stretch, of course. The relationship between Ehud Barak and Epstein has raised the most eyebrows in America, but why would an Israeli intelligence agency use such a high profile person as Epstein’s handler? They would want to draw intention to themselves? Until there’s better evidence available, it’s still. conspiracy theory.