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David McCloskey
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- [02:39]
David McCloskey
Well, welcome to the Rest is classified. I'm David McCloskey. And I'm Gordon Carrera and we are starting Gordon a two part series looking at a single question which I think is very elevated in the public consciousness right now as we'll talk about. And that question is was financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein working for or with an intelligence service? And I think we should say right up front a little bit about why we're going to look at this And I think the answer, at least, I don't know how the story has resonated in the uk, but in the us, the overall kind of Epstein affair or drama has taken on. It has an enormous gravitational pull here at the States. I can anecdotally say that at every single book, event and talk I did this fall during the Q and A, I got a question about Epstein. Wow. And his connection to Mossad, to CIA, whatever. Just every single time there, there was a question. It's having real political repercussions, kind of creating some cracks in the Maga movement. And I mean, even this past week with the events in Venezuela, we should say, you know, we're recording this episode just a few days after Nicolas Maduro was apprehended in Operation Absolute Resolve. In some ways, the operation in Venezuela may have been an attempt by the Trump administration to sort of distract the public from. From not releasing aspects of the Epstein files.
- [04:19]
Gordon Corera
It's wild, isn't it?
- [04:20]
David McCloskey
An idea, by the way, that I think neither of us give any credence to. But we mention it because any sort of global event there is an effort, I think, to sort of tie it to Epstein. The story is it has really outsized importance right now in the American political consciousness. I don't know how it's going or how it's sort of seat of the uk.
- [04:42]
Gordon Corera
Oh, it certainly played big over here, obviously relating partly to the royal family, the prince formerly known as Andrew, who certainly had a social, you know, acquaintance with Jeffrey Epstein at various points, although he's obviously denied any role in criminality. But that question about intelligence services and the links to Epstein is one that's kind of moved, I suppose, from the fringe to the mainstream. And I think it is one which is important to look at, but in a kind of sensible rest is classified way, rather than in a conspiratorial way. And what we're not going to do, though, we should say as well, is we're not going into the. The whole bigger drama of who is or isn't implicated in the files, whose names are in there, how they knew Jeffrey Epstein. We're not going into the connections with any royals or with President Trump. You know, we're not going deep into some of the questions about whether he killed himself or the kind of legal, criminal dimensions to this. Instead, I think we're taking a kind of specific lens, which is to look at that question you posed about whether it's plausible, as some have claimed, that there are links between Jeffrey Epstein and.
- [05:49]
David McCloskey
The intelligence world that's right, Gordon. And I mean, I guess it's also probably wise up front to offer this sort of disclaimer or to flag that very often the theories, and dare I say conspiracy theories about Epstein's connections to intelligence services often drift into or frankly are motivated by just blatant anti Semitism. That obviously is not a stance that, that we're going to be taking on. The rest is classified. And we're going to be looking at this question with a very kind of sober and fact based lens to try to understand whether, whether there's any truth to the idea that he may have had connections to a foreign intelligence service.
- [06:30]
Gordon Corera
I think it is also worth saying that we're not going to be focusing deeply on the victims and their stories. But I think it is important to acknowledge up front at this point the terrible suffering that some people endured at the hands of Jeffrey Epstein and some of those around him, which is truly awful and horrific and some of those details really are horrific. So even though we're not going to be kind of delving deep into those stories, we just think it's important to kind of acknowledge how awful it is and some of the things that happened around him and to people, you know, who were used and abused by him really were.
- [07:09]
David McCloskey
Gordon, with the table set and the caveats out there, maybe it's helpful we just start with a brief setup of who Epstein was, a bit of his biography. This will not be comprehensive, but we've crafted this with an emphasis on the sort of experiences and connections and, and assets he would potentially have brought to an intelligence service. As we're sort of talking about the man. So Jeffrey Epstein, born in Brooklyn, raised in a middle class Jewish family. In the mid-70s he begins working as a teacher at the Dalton School, which is an elite private school in Manhattan. In the 70s and 80s, Epstein transitions to work in finance. He works briefly at Bear Stearns for establishing his own firm, which he liked to claim managed money and exclusively for billionaires. And the money, surprise, surprise, is one piece of this story that has fed a lot of the conspiracy theories around Jeffrey Epstein and his connection to the spy world.
- [08:08]
Gordon Corera
Yeah, we should say, I think we'll come back a little bit later to the precise source and scale of his wealth because there is some mystery around that and that is part of, you know, some of those claims about intelligent services links. But yeah, we'll come back to that. The money and the fact he's managing wealth for, for incredibly wealthy people means he's incredibly well connected and he builds on those connections doesn't he? Not just in the financial world, but across politics, business, you know, even academia and entertainment and wider sectors.
- [08:39]
David McCloskey
Yeah, he is very, very well networked and connected. And I think the most important of those connections in that period was a. A billionaire named Les Wexner, who Jeffrey Epstein met in the mid-1980s. Now, at the time, Epstein is a relatively obscure financier. Well, Wexner is one of the wealthiest businessmen in the U.S. he's the founder of L Brands, which is the retail conglomerate that includes Victoria's Secret, Bath and Body Works and a lot of other chains. Now, Epstein quickly becomes deeply embedded in Wexner's kind of personal and financial affairs. We should say that the accounts of this, you know, have been confirmed by Wexner himself. So this is not about any of Epstein's criminality. This is about his sort of financial relationship and personal relationship with. With Epstein.
- [09:31]
Gordon Corera
Yeah, Which Wexner has said he, I think, regrets, but. But they're kind of confirmed that he had those relationships and that he did hand over some of that influence to Jeffrey Epstein.
- [09:41]
David McCloskey
Yeah. Which included, you know, giving Epstein broad power of attorney. Right. Giving him control over large portions of Websner's finances. Things, when you look back on it, seem, you know, almost. Almost inexplicable. In the early 1990s, Epstein meets another key character in this story, Ghislaine Maxwell.
- [09:58]
Gordon Corera
Yes, And Ghislaine Maxwell is also going to be an important part of our story. And again, we're going to come back to her a bit later because she's a fascinating character in her own right, and her father is a very interesting figure, but she becomes the kind of girlfriend, doesn't she, of Jeffrey Epstein at this point in the 1990s, and. And a close confidant and companion from then onwards.
- [10:18]
David McCloskey
Yes. And the relationship, you know, it blends. Personal intimacy, business, eventually criminal coordination. Ghislaine Maxwell is and will become Epstein's principal accomplice. She's responsible for recruiting, grooming, and facilitating, you know, the abuse and trafficking of underage girls. She's also. She's living in Epstein's residences. She's managing aspects of his household. She's acting as a gatekeeper for him. So, you know, she's a very important and influential figure in his life. And she is the daughter of Robert Maxwell, who has his own role to play in the story. And we'll look in more depth at him in our next episode.
- [10:57]
Gordon Corera
That's right, because he's a really interesting figure and who certainly did have ties to the Intelligence world. And I think that is also part of the theory and the claim about Jeffrey Epstein is, is that link, if you like, through Robert Maxwell, through the Ghislaine and into Jeffrey Epstein. But that friendship, which starts around 1991, which is when Robert Maxwell, the father, dies, Ghislaine is moving to New York and she becomes friends with Jeffrey Epstein and you know, also connects him to more people. In turn, as Jeffrey Epstein builds up these kind of, these circles of connections with business leaders, scientists, academics and the like.
- [11:34]
David McCloskey
With the help of Ghislaine Maxwell and his own connections, Jeffrey Epstein builds a pretty wild roster of social and financial connections. There's a long list of influential politicians, business leaders, scientists, academics. I mean, connections to Bill Clinton, to Donald Trump, to Alan Dershowitz, to Prince formerly known as Andrew, to Woody Allen, to Ehud Barak, I should say Ahud Barak, the former Prime Minister of Israel. So it's a, it's a long and varied list of social connections. Right? Again, yeah, we're not making any statement here about the links that those people have to the criminality. Right, yeah, exactly.
- [12:14]
Gordon Corera
And they've, they've denied any role in the criminality, but you know, it's acknowledged that they knew him. This was also in these kind of glamorous properties, I guess he had, and he had this Manhattan townhouse which I think was sometimes said to be the largest private residence in New York. I mean that seems extraordinary. And you know, residents in Florida, ranches and private island of his own in the Virgin Islands and his own Boeing 727 which he could fly people around on, you know, his own yacht. So he's got a world which also entices a lot of people into it thanks to this very, very fancy lifestyle.
- [12:51]
David McCloskey
Julie K. Brown, who's written a great book I think about, about Epstein and, and his criminality, a little bit of armchair psychology here, but you know, thinks that Epstein's probably a sociopath. He's got a sexual obsession with underage girls. And in 2008, Epstein pleaded guilty in Florida State court to charges relating to soliciting prostitution from a minor. Here he receives what has become a very controversial plea deal that resulted in an 18 month sentence of which he served about 13 months, most of it under work release privileges. So he's actually not in jail for a lot of that time. And it's essentially a non prosecution agreement that Epstein's lawyers secretly cut with federal prosecutors at the time. It takes the gas out of an ongoing FBI probe into whether there are more victims and other powerful People who took part in Epstein's sex crimes. The deal required that Epstein plead guilty to two prostitution charges in a state court and agree to serve those 13 months. It essentially makes the case that Epstein is only paying for sex when he actually stood accused of sexually abusing minors. So he kind of get out of this with his reputation still intact.
- [14:06]
Gordon Corera
Semi.
- [14:06]
David McCloskey
Semi.
- [14:08]
Gordon Corera
Well, at least it could have. It could have been worse. I think that's the way to put it. But then he gets arrested again, doesn't he, in July 2019, which is significant and almost brings his story to an end.
- [14:17]
David McCloskey
I guess that's right. So he's arrested in the summer of 2019. He's charged in federal court with sex trafficking and conspiracy to traffic minors based on allegations involving dozens of underage girls over many years. He pleads not guilty. But then on August 10th of 2019, Epstein is found dead in his jail cell in New York City. It is ruled a suicide by hanging, though of course his listeners are doubtless aware. That has sparked widespread controversy, investigations and conspiracy theories about whether he actually killed himself.
- [14:53]
Gordon Corera
So that gives us a pretty useful summary, doesn't it, of the man and his life. But let's now just set up some of the theory. And we should say it is a theory and a claim that he might have had intelligence connections. And we should say that in many cases the facts are pretty loose, aren't they? The claim is he was acting as an asset or a fixer some way working for an intelligence agency. And I think it's worth breaking it down into a few different points, isn't it, David? One is, you know, did he in his early days receive financial support? Was he being backed by an intelligence agency? Does that explain the kind of, the wealth and the access stories about, you know, whether he was a fixer for intelligence agencies who brokered deals? In the kind of security arena, there are claims that perhaps he had some kind of protection. So that when you go Back to that 2008 prosecution of sorts that happened in the plea deal, was that the result of some kind of protection or deal from intelligence agency? I think, you know, there's also the way he acted and behaved, isn't there? There's elements of the way he moved around the world which again, have made people go, that looks like a spy.
- [16:13]
David McCloskey
One of the most cited alleged facts in this case is that the prosecution or the non prosecution deal that was struck in 2008, that the sort of legal leniency came about because Epstein was sort of vaguely connected to intelligence services. And so he was let off the hook. That's a kind of central claim, I think, as part of this theory. And interestingly enough, the official that was said to have claimed this has since said, didn't say anything of the sort. And so there's a whole. I mean, we were talking, you know, as we were putting this together, there's 30 minutes of very dry content we could do on sort of the back and forth there. But the point is, is that whether they're facts or not, they get injected into the discourse around Epstein and then build this set of claims. Right. Not facts, but claims that he's got this kind of connection to the intelligence world.
- [17:15]
Gordon Corera
Yeah. And that. That explains events. Yeah.
- [17:17]
David McCloskey
One of the interesting tidbits of just kind of things that seem a little bit tradecrafty. Prosecutors have discovered that Epstein in the 80s had an Austrian passport in a fake name which he used to enter several countries back in the 80s, including the UK, Spain and Saudi Arabia. It has his photograph, very clearly his photograph, but lists his name as Marius Fortelny. So again, it's like that doesn't. Doesn't prove he's working for an intelligence service. There's ways to get fake passports. But again, it kind of feels spy adjacent.
- [17:52]
Gordon Corera
It does. Spy adjacent is exactly the word. And you know, that fits in with this idea that he was able to move across borders, you know, in his private jet, get to interesting places with little friction, which again fits into this theory that, you know, he had kind of protection or support from somewhere. So a lot of that is very, very kind of vague and suggestive rather than, you know, hard fact. But I guess one of the central claims is that his value, if you like, as an intelligence asset. So the claim is precisely because of his use of those residences for some kind of compromat or collection of blackmail information against some of those influential people. And I think that's one of the ways in which it's argued that he might have or could have been a spy.
- [18:46]
David McCloskey
So maybe there. Gordon, having established some of the claims related to Epstein and his alleged links to the spy world, let's take a break. Break. When we come back, we'll explore whether he was collecting that kompromat on the rich and powerful. We'll see you after the break.
- [19:00]
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- [19:29]
Gordon Corera
It'S Gordon here from the rest is classified. A quick message for American listeners to let you know the news that my new book, the Spy in the Archive, is now finally available to buy in the US it is the story of Vasily Mitrokin, the man man who was the archivist of the KGB but who went on to steal its deepest secrets. But after shockingly being turned away by the CIA, he ends up in the hands of MI6 and exfiltrated from Russia in a wild, dangerous, almost comic operation. It's also the story of how his attempts to destroy the KGB ultimately failed and how that paved the way for the rise of Vladimir Putin and the return of the KGB men who now rule Russia. That's the Spy in the Archive available from all good bookshops stateside now.
- [20:29]
David McCloskey
Welcome back. We are looking at this question of whether Jeffrey Epstein had connections to the intelligence world or a foreign intelligence service. And I think, Gordon, the most prominent theory, in part because it's the most salacious, is this idea that Epstein was running essentially a blackmail ring to gather kompromat on influential, you know, politicians and business leaders. Think it makes sense to maybe start here because that kompromat theory is the one that I think has. It's generated, you know, an incredible amount of. Of interest, we should say. Compromise. It's a Russian term. The central claim, you know, is that is that Epstein is supplying young women to sort of elite targets and then is know, filming them in compromising acts and passing that along to whoever his handlers might be.
- [21:36]
Gordon Corera
In some ways, you can see why this is, is potentially a more plausible part of the theory because there is historical precedent for this and we know about kompromat, as you said, it's a Russian term. Collecting compromising material against influential people is well established in lots of countries. But, you know, we think of it particularly in Russia. I mean, the diplomats in Moscow, famously, if you go back to the 60s, you had a British ambassador honey trapped by his maid. You had a conservative mp, Anthony Courtney, who was honey trapped by a tourist guide while he was in Moscow, French officials and abasters being kind of honey trapped. And in one case, one actually who took their own life after they had compromising material collected on them by, in that case, the kgb, who then basically tried to blackmail them and say you know, you work for us or this material will be exposed and it will be the end of your career. So it is an established kind of technique, isn't it?
- [22:34]
David McCloskey
Another piece of information that gives, on the face of it, some, maybe fuel for this theory is that Epstein's residences, I think in particular the residents in Manhattan and his island were really wired up for audio and video, it's believed. And so, I mean, we'll come back to that, I think detail later. But that, that gives some energy to this idea that, you know, he could have been taping people for the purposes of collecting blackmail.
- [23:01]
Gordon Corera
Yeah. And I think it's that that fact of having a kind of an established location being wired and then being used for collection, intelligence, collection of blackmail, again has a kind of historical precedent. I mean, the most interesting one came to my mind was something actually that the Nazis ran in the late 30s, early 40s, which was known as Salon Kitty. And this was a high class brothel in this case, which the Nazi secret service used to entrap foreign diplomats and their own elite. And it was run by this. It's a really interesting story. It's run by a woman called Kitty Schmidt, Katerina Schmidt, who'd worked as a governess and a piano teacher and briefly lived in England and then ends up running a brothel in Berlin. And then once the Nazis take over and they're kind of aggressively trying to clamp down on immoral activity, as they would put it, she realizes she's in trouble. She's trying to get some of the money smuggled out to England, you know, by some of the girls. But then she gets arrested by the Gestapo and made an offer she can't refuse, who, you know, tells her basically, you're going to keep running this brothel, but you're going to run it as an intelligence gathering operation for the Nazis. And it was run out of a four story building on a quiet residential street in quite a fancy quarter of Berlin. You can see almost a parallel there, can't you, to, you know, Epstein's Manhattan house. This place where people would go. Technically it was a boarding house. Discreet, luxurious place. Chandeliers, silk, grand piano, German elites, foreign diplomats, all entertained there by women and lots of booze. But it's thought that maybe as many as 50 microphones were installed throughout the property, in the bedrooms and in these salons, concealed in chandeliers, behind headboards, in the upholstery of the armchairs. And all of that led into a cellar where technicians worked in shifts to record everything on wax discs. And there were just tons of conversations that they were recording. Most of it, it seems to be, was gathering intelligence about what people were saying, Rather than necessarily compromising, though, with the fact that they'd gone to this brothel. I think it was pretty successful in its own way as an intelligence operation.
- [25:08]
David McCloskey
One key piece of this, which I think stands in stark contrast to the Epstein story, is that there was a special selection of women in this brothel who were, I mean, essentially trained almost as intelligence collectors. There were, you know, this kind of special book of 20 additional women who were shown only to clients who used a secret password, which I come from. Your German is better than mine, Gordon. Is it? Rotenburg.
- [25:38]
Gordon Corera
I come from Rothenburg.
- [25:40]
David McCloskey
Rotenburg.
- [25:41]
Gordon Corera
Rothenberg, I think. And that's the password.
- [25:44]
David McCloskey
And these women were trained in languages and to elicit information and conversation from people, to understand military, sensitive military information if they overheard it. Also trained in techniques to steer conversations towards sensitive topics without arousing suspicion. So how do you elicit information from somebody? So that's very different from the Epstein story.
- [26:05]
Gordon Corera
It is, it is.
- [26:06]
David McCloskey
But in this case, because you. You essentially have these women trained as intelligence collectors to go after diplomats and military officials who happen into this brothel.
- [26:14]
Gordon Corera
Yeah, you get people like the son in law of Mussolini, the Italian leader, who's also the Italian foreign minister, who kind of comes in and speaks and is quite critical of Hitler. You also get a lot of people from the Nazi elite, including Goebbels, who kind of turn up at this place and, you know, it allows the people running the operation to find out what they really think. And there's even claims that this was, you know, from the guy running it, that it provided valuable information about Spain, for instance, which had a real impact. I mean, you know, it's kind of slightly unclear how big an impact it had. And it only lasted a few years at the early part of the war, though it does seem to have kind of continued after the war. And Kitty herself kept her secrets, taking them to her grave. But it's an interesting example of what you can do with a. Premises used in this way as a kind of glamorous location for the elite to come into and for it to be wired. But it was more about eliciting information through conversation than it was through Kompromat in the sense of video and audio blackmail, which I think is the allegation with Jeffrey Epstein. We do know that these kinds of operations are things that intelligence agencies, you know, have done in the past. I mean, there are other places where they've wired premises. I Remember visiting a Hotel Viru in Tallinn in Estonia. And it's the. It's really interesting. You can go there now, and if you ask nicely at the hotel, they'll take you up to the top floor for a tour. This was the tourist hotel during the days of the Soviet Union where any visiting foreigners would be taken. And when the KGB left Estonia in a hurry, they basically left all their kits behind. So if you go to the top floor of the hotel, you can see the way in which they'd wired the top floor of the hotel with audio and video equipment and with bugging devices all over again to collect information, including compromising information, from people who are in it. So there's definitely this precedent here for intelligence agencies to run this kind of operation.
- [28:10]
David McCloskey
It also recalled to me, Gordon, just this nexus of, you know, a brothel and intelligence services. That series we did on MK Ultra, where the agency had bankrolled, essentially, a brothel out in. First in New York and then out in San Francisco, for the purposes of observing, not for Compromont, but for the purposes of observing the effects of lsd. But I guess, Gordon, I mean, this brings us to Epstein. I mean, what are the similarities between Salon Kitty and the facts of Jeffrey Epstein's life and times?
- [28:45]
Gordon Corera
Yeah, I think there's some similarities and some differences. I mean, I think one of the similarities is it does look like Jeffrey Epstein's place was wired for audio and video in the modern way compared to Salon Kitty. And a lot of that comes from a testimony of a victim, Maria Farmer, who spoke to CBS in 2019, who says she was assaulted by Epstein in the mid-1990s. She was also, she says, given a tour of this house. And, you know, she says Epstein told her it contained hidden pinhole cameras. And that was what he called a media room, which was stacked full of TV monitors with feeds from across the house, including bedrooms and bathrooms. Maria Farmer says she was told by Epstein that everything was recorded. She said at one point to him, what do you do with this? And he said, I keep it. I keep everything in my safe. Now, we don't actually know what happened to any of those recordings. I mean, the FBI has seized multiple computers and hard drives and other media from Epstein's property. But it's not really clear what might have happened to any of that kind of material. That's the bit which, if you like, feels similar, the kind of collection of Kompromat by someone. And we talked about some of the rich and powerful people who'd have gone through these properties, the kind of Gossip he'd got off people, let alone the kind of potentially blackmailable material, would have been extraordinary. Does explain things. But, you know, I think one of the differences, as we said, is that in this case, the women were young women and were victims. You know, this was not a brothel. This was a, you know, a place in which underage girls were being abused and certainly, you know, did not have any kind of role in it in the way that the salon kitty story talks about and who suffered some, as we said, pretty awful things. So there's a parallel there, but it's not quite exact, is it?
- [30:27]
David McCloskey
Well, most of the time, the claims or the theory that Epstein is running this blackmail operation, it ladders into Israel's foreign intelligence service, the Mossad, that is frequently the intelligence service that's listed as working or handling Epstein. In this case, we should say. I mean, the former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett has flatly denied claims of Israeli involvement in Epstein's crimes. And he said the accusation that Epstein somehow worked for Israel or the Mossad running a blackmail ring is categorically and totally false. He wrote on X Epstein's conduct, both the criminal and. And the merely despicable had nothing whatsoever to do with the Mossad or the state of Israel. And I have to say, I really don't think an intel agency would set up an operation or work within an operation that is very much involved in the trafficking of underage girls, at least not, not the Central Intelligence Agency, nor, nor the Mossad. I think the, the risk reward, I mean, even if you. Even if you put aside the ethics and morality of that. Let's just look at this from Mossad standpoint. The risk reward calculus is really off. I mean, Mossad, they do conduct espionage operations at the US they sometimes work against Americans or try to recruit Americans. But this would just have incredibly devastating consequences, not just in the security relationship between Mossad and CIA, but up to the political level in a way that I don't. I just don't see the value at the end of the day to, to the Israelis. I also think it's worth mentioning at this point, there's no facts, right? I mean, there's, there's no fact connecting Mossad to any of this period.
- [32:21]
Gordon Corera
Yeah, I mean, we'll come back, I think, a bit. A bit more maybe in the next episode to some of the reasons why there are these claims about Mossad. But I think the risk reward calculus is a. Is a really interesting one when it comes to, to this, this operation. Because, I mean, yes, Israel has Once or twice, hasn't it has spied on the U.S. you know, Jonathan Pollard and cases like that.
- [32:40]
David McCloskey
Yeah.
- [32:40]
Gordon Corera
Who was a kind of US I think, you know, naval officer, wasn't it, in intelligence. Passed quite useful intelligence to the Israelis and it's become a big core celebrity and. But actually a lot of fallout from that one very narrow case. But if you imagine, you know, doing an operation like this effectively against the US with someone that high profile and with that much risk of exposure, I mean, that is a real stretch even before you get into the morality, as you said, of using underage girls and what's involved in it. So, yeah, I think, you know, that's where the kind of, the leap comes with that. I mean, to me, the fact that he's wired these premises, it's plausible Jeffrey Epstein was doing it for his own weird pleasure.
- [33:23]
David McCloskey
Why do we need to layer on an intelligence service behind this when we know that Epstein is a sort of pedophiliac sex addict control freak who. I mean, right there you have the sort of necessary and sufficient conditions for someone to maintain an audio visual surveillance apparatus in their property.
- [33:46]
Gordon Corera
Of his property. Exactly. So he can be doing it for his own pleasure. I mean, you could also buy the idea. Well, I could plausibly put out the idea he was doing it to collect Kompromat for himself, you know, not. Maybe not compromat, but influence, leverage over these people for his own benefit and for his own protection, you know, which is different from doing it for another state. He's almost in that world running almost a small private kompromat stroke intelligence gathering operation himself. And that I find more plausible than doing it on the. On behalf of a kind of an operation from another state.
- [34:20]
David McCloskey
It is worth, I suppose, thinking, I mean, the risk side of it is very apparent. What is the reward side? What are you really. What are you really getting? I mean, I guess. I guess the idea would have to, in this theory would have to be that you're not just getting some secrets, right. Or gossip, right. That you're getting. You're getting control of people. I think is where this is, where this theory goes is it's. It's an effort to get control of a massive number of sort of, you know, business and academic and political leaders through this, exert this and then, and then exert influence and rather than just.
- [34:59]
Gordon Corera
Collecting gossip, you know, rather than the salon kitty model.
- [35:02]
David McCloskey
That's right. And again, I guess it's just. It's just worth saying again, there's just no evidence. Right. I Mean, there's just, there's just no credible evidence we were putting this together to say, okay, the Mossad was involved in this.
- [35:14]
Gordon Corera
Might make sense at this point just to, you know, step back and think about how, how would a spy service look at Epstein from your perspective, you know, you know, this world. How do you think, you know, intelligence service would, you know, would see him?
- [35:28]
David McCloskey
Gordon, it's interesting. In preparing for this, I actually put this question to a whole bunch of former CIA case officers. And I basically said, you know, would Epstein prior to that first sort of non prosecution agreement or that indictment, I guess, down in Florida in 2008, what Epstein prior to that have been an interesting target for an intelligence agency? And I'll read some of the replies because they, they had a very similar flavor. And again, this is just a sample. Yes, he would be easy to manipulate and also clearly has no morals. Those are the type we look for.
- [36:08]
Gordon Corera
Very honest intelligence officers. Next quote.
- [36:11]
David McCloskey
Definitely would have been a prime target. Next quote. 100%. He has intel on people. He has direct access to targets of interest. Last one. Hell, yeah. Access and info on movers and shakers. All right, so there were more mixed responses in some cases. But the reluctance to kind of go all in and say, yeah, he would have been a target of interest prior to the actual indictment. The reluctance came from two sources, one mentioning Epstein as a CIA contact. Right. Not that of another foreign intelligence service, which. That would have sort of legal complications, potential for jurisdictional overlap with the FBI. Right. So there's a, there's a host of different reasons why the CIA might have been more reluctant than Mossad. But also a lot of the sort of mixed responses came from people who were blending criminality into the mix. And I think it's safe to say that after he had been on his kind of work release program down in Florida in 2008, that plenty of intel services would have soured on him. Right. As having that record.
- [37:20]
Gordon Corera
They would have been interested in him.
- [37:21]
David McCloskey
Right. You would have been interested in particular prior to 2008. It really begs this very interesting question, which is, okay, if the answer is yes, how would an intelligence agency use someone like Epstein, and for what purpose?
- [37:38]
Gordon Corera
So maybe there with that question hanging, that very interesting question hanging about the potential at least, you know, value of, of someone like Epstein, let's stop and next time we'll delve into that a bit deeper and look at some of the further evidence and some of those claims regarding the fact and the idea at least that he might have had some kind of relationship with the spy world.
- [38:02]
David McCloskey
And don't forget listeners, if you want to get that episode now, go and join the Declassified club at the rest is close classified.com you get early access, you get a whole host of other goodies, and you get to hear me and Gordon yammering at you for one more episode a week with our bonus content that we put out on Fridays. So we hope to sign up and we'll see you next time.
- [38:26]
Gordon Corera
See you next time.
- [38:32]
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