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The Rest Is Classified
117. Epstein Files Declassified: Mossad, Israel and Ghislaine Maxwell (Ep 2)
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When you're ready, your new car shows up right at your door. It doesn't get better than that. Buy your car the easy way on delivery fees may apply. Welcome to the Rest is classified. I'm Gordon Carrera.
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And I'm Babin Mikwaski.
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B
And welcome to the second episode in our two part series which is really examining one question I guess David, which is was the financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein working for or with an intelligence service? A simple question, but a really interesting and complicated one as well, isn't it?
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A
Well, last time we we left off with a Discussion of, I mean, really who Epstein was. This theory, which has different flavors to it, of how he may have been connected to or working for an intelligence service. And we in particular went deep on what I think is the most, maybe most common, but certainly the most salacious version of that theory, which is that he was working probably for the Mossad, Israel's foreign intelligence service, to run a, essentially a blackmail ring out of some of his properties, gathering compromise on influential politicians and business leaders. And so we, we, we went into that theory. I think we both offered our view that that theory doesn't hold a lot of water. And there's a lot of reasons to look at the risk reward calculation that a foreign intelligence service would, would have, would have to do when evaluating him. And kind of saying this doesn't make a lot of sense put aside also the fact that there isn't, there aren't any facts to back it up. But we left Gordon, with me reading some, some messages from former CIA officers who were asked this question of if you put the criminality aside, which is.
- [04:26]
B
A big thing to do.
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A
Which, which is, which is if you put the criminality aside, is he an interesting target for an intelligence agency? And I think this time we're going to go deeper to evaluate, you know, how he could have been valuable to an intelligence service and more importantly, whether there's any evidence that he actually did work with or for an intelligence service.
- [04:54]
B
Yeah, because we should be clear, it's a theory. You know, the absence of facts is one of the issues with this, that nothing has really been proven. So we are really just kind of exploring some of the theories which are, which are out there, and they're certainly out there and they're kind of arguably gaining more currency. And you're right, I think we looked at that theory about running a blackmail ring, but there is a kind of wider question is which, which I think the comments you collected from, from, from, from other people in the intelligence world, you know, are interesting, which is, might there be some kind of other relationship or he'd have with the intelligence world and what could that have been? And as I said, we're going to kind of look at it as a theory. And it's interesting because, you know, a lot of the theory relate not so much to him as to Ghislaine Maxwell, who we talked about last time, his sometime partner associate, someone who was also deeply involved in his activities, as we know.
- [05:48]
A
Accomplice. I mean, criminal accomplice.
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B
Yeah, exactly. And she becomes a very interesting figure in this because in that theory, as I said, let's just, you know, remind people it's a theory. The idea that he might be linked, particularly to Mossad, the Israeli intelligence services often goes through her and the reason is her father. It's worth looking at, I think, in a bit of detail who he was, because he did have ties to the intelligence services. And then it's sometimes that connection which leads people back to Jeffrey Epstein. So let's spend a few minutes, I think, on this remarkable figure who was Robert Maxwell? He probably isn't that well known in the us and I think in my days he was very well known in the uk. I mean, he was on a parent with Rupert Murdoch as one of the great press barons, but a much more kind of colourful and dangerous character, I think, than Rupert Murdoch, as we'll see. And the really good book to read on this is called Fall and the title will become clear later. The Mysterious Life and Death of Robert Maxwell by John Preston. It's an excellent biography which came out a few years ago, so I think, just to set him up, extraordinary character, larger than life. Born into a different name. Jan, in a poor Yiddish speaking Orthodox Jewish family in Czechoslovakia in 1923. He's big, he's tough, he's smart. During the Second World War, he's still young, though it's occupied by the Nazis. He joins the underground to help people flee to the West. Still a teenager, claims he kind of escapes after being captured. There's a lot of myth making around his early life, it's fair to say. He arrives in Britain and reinvents himself, gets married, changes his religion, changes his age, as John Preston says, changes religion, age, nationality and name in a very short period of time, which, you know, it's quite a lot to do. Joins the British army during the war, sees action in Normandy. He turns up at one village in Normandy dressed up as a German major because he's going to kind of try and do reconnaissance work behind enemy lines or close to enemy lines, you know, he often wore disguises, changed names, spoke many languages. He ends up getting presented with the Military Cross by Field Marshal Montgomery. So he is a kind of something of a war hero. But then at the end of the war, he learns his mother, his grandfather, three of his siblings, his father all died in Auschwitz.
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A
Wow.
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B
And this will be a part of his story. He's then in the intelligence corps for the British military, serves in Germany, uses a pseudonym to protect his identity. So you can already see this kind of. He's in that kind of spy world to Some extent, although officially. And, you know, for six months he's Captain Stone, who is part of a team interrogating German prisoners of war and others who'd worked for the Nazi regime. Now, you know, there's going to be rumors that he's. He's a spy for the Russians, for the Israelis, but at this point he is kind of an intelligence officer for the Brits, military intelligence. And he's doing missions, it appears, back into Czechoslovakia, you know, his former homeland, which is now under Communist control. John Preston makes this point, you know, everyone knows that film the Third man by Graham Greene, one of the classics.
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A
Evocative of Harry Lime, isn't he?
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B
Exactly, yeah. That's the kind of character he is, that kind of slightly slippery character. And also perhaps, you know, moving on the edges of the kind of black market in that world, wants to make his fortune. So after he's left the military, gets into scientific publishing. Now, there are claims from one former MI6 officer, never confirmed in his memoir, that MI6 might have even played a role, a helping hand with his early business life. Because, you know, through this scientific publishing, which is kind of across Europe, he's able to travel around Europe, you know, he's able to travel to Moscow and meet interesting people and he's going to become incredibly rich as well, thanks to this publishing empire.
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A
I'm in the wrong genre, Gordon.
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B
Scientific publishing, David Scientist.
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A
Who would have thought? Scientific publishing is where the cash is, man.
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B
I think it might have been in the late 40s and 50s and 60s, I'm afraid. I think your chance may have. Might have gone, but December 1961, his wife gives birth to. I mean, she's going to have nine children and all. They're not all survive, but the youngest daughter is Ghislaine, and soon after that, you know, her father, Robert Maxwell, becomes an mp. A Labour Party mp. I mean, I quite like the detail. He decides it's probably best not to be chauffeured round in a Rolls Royce during the campaign, because it might not. If you're a Labour Party mp, it might not make it look like you're a man of the people. So, you know, he only does six years in Parliament before he loses his seat, but he's becoming a press baron. He actually battles with Rupert Murdoch to buy the News of the World newspaper, loses out to Murdoch, but eventually buys the Daily Mirror, which at that time is one of the big. Still is a big. But, you know, was a hugely influential paper. So he's a. He's a media publishing magnate. You know, at least on paper, he's a billionaire. He's traveling around Eastern Europe, he's meeting Soviet Eastern Bloc leaders. And again, this is one of the interesting parallels, I think, with Epstein is this guy is a networker. You know, he is a brilliant networker who's moving among world leaders. You know, prime ministers in Britain all know him, including Thatcher. Even though he's a kind of Labour figure, he's incredibly well connected. And with people like that, people do go, well, maybe he's a spy. You know, it's one of the things that happens.
- [11:13]
A
So what is Robert Maxwell's connection then to kind of his. His Jewish heritage?
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B
Well, that's what's interesting, is that he seems to go on a trip to Israel around 1984, which changes his life because he effectively rediscovers his Jewish background. He also maybe feels some deep sense of not just remorse, but guilt about the fact he'd survived and much of the rest of his family had died in the camps. And so that trip seems to change him. And he rediscovers his kind of link to his Jewish past and to his faith. And he starts to go into business with Israeli partners, he invests in newspapers there for pharmaceuticals, high tech in Israel, and according to the John Preston biography, starts to pass on useful information that comes his way to Mossad, to the Israeli intelligence services. So it's around that point in the mid-80s, previously, having been rumoured to be a Russian agent, which I don't think he was a Soviet KGB agent or a British intelligence agent, now, you know, the rumours start that, no, he's linked to Mossad and to the Israelis and there is clearly some kind of connection, although it's different, I think it's worth saying, from being a kind of formal agent, if you like.
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A
That's the part of this that it's worth stressing it, because when we hear, oh, somebody's a spy, you immediately think of some kind of formal relationship in which there's a handling officer, there's tasking, there's money changing hands. The picture that Preston at least paints in the biography is that if Maxwell came upon something that he thought would be useful to the Israelis, he would pass it along. Right. Not that he was a recruited and handled agent.
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B
Yeah, exactly.
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A
A real distinction, I think, between those two. The verbiage can overlap, but they're different things.
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B
Yeah. And what you get is a picture of an influential globe trotting businessman making deals. And as we kind of put it, I think in the first episode, spy Adjacent, you know, he's in that world. I mean, there are some weird stories as well about where, you know, at one point the foreign editor of his newspaper is supposedly involved in gun running along with a former Israeli spy, which, you know, I think it's fair to say is fairly unusual, speaking as a former journalist myself, that, you know, the foreign editor. I don't think many foreign editors get involved in gun running, but that was one of the claims.
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A
What is the BBC, Gordon, other than a massive gunrunning operation for British.
- [13:46]
B
I shoot that allegation entirely. There's never been and never will be. But anyway, back to Robert Maxwell. I mean, also, you know, this is another one of those details which has these kind of. There are interesting echoes between, I think, Robert Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein, because we talked about Jeffrey Epstein wiring up his properties. Well, Robert Maxwell did that and he actually bugged the Daily Mirror offices and the heads of department of the Daily Mirror and his own offices with concealed microphones, which could help him with negotiations. I note, Alastair Campbell once worked for the Daily Mirror and I think in the days of Robert Maxwell, just right at the end. So I don't know if he ever had. If he ever was bugged. But Alastair, if you're listening, you could, you could, you could let us know whether you ever had any of your sensitive conversations listened into by Robert Maxwell. It'd be quite interesting. But he recorded all of these on a 90 minute cassette, you know, with a tape recorder hidden in his desk.
- [14:36]
A
This was back before Alastair looked like Yevgeny Prigozhin.
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B
Right? Yeah, yeah, he's. He's another thing. Which he's refused. It's another one of your wild accusations, which he's definitely was. Was not. I don't think he was. I don't think he was that impressed by it. But, you know, he's got a sense of humor.
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A
No, I mean, he was. He was not. He was merely unimpressed. He seemed, I would say, agitated by the.
- [15:00]
B
By the claim, you. A little mess. Yeah.
- [15:03]
A
By the claim that he was there, he bore any resemblance to warlord slash chef Yevgeny Prigozhi. Although. Although. Hold on, Gord, because I, you know, I may be missing this from Texas because our intrepid progress producer, Becky has noted in the chat that Alastair agreed eventually there was a little bit of resemblance, force of resemblance, so we wore him down.
- [15:23]
B
Yeah. So maybe. Maybe you were right. So Maxwell was there. He was kind of bugging his own staff, you know, using it to help him with business Negotiations, you know, I love this detail that he would. He would then listen to the tapes alone in his penthouse apartment. And he would listen to them obsessively. And he was, by this stage, you know, later in life, a kind of massive physical presence, but also quite odd. One of the things we should. We'll come back to. He was a kind of bully. Very, very bullying of his staff, of his family. Very aggressive, very unpredictable. And this is, you know, vision of this guy just listening to surveillance tapes in a lonely way in his penthouse, I think, you know, while supposedly being a billionaire. But the supposedly is important because all the time, you know, particularly by the late 80s, he is looting the Daily Mirrors pension fund. All the money that belongs to the pensioners or the people who are going to get a pension from that newspaper. He was looting millions and millions and millions to kind of prop up his businesses, which were on the verge of collapse. And people were starting to find out.
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A
That'S why Alistair had to do the rest of his politics. Right. Because he lost his pension.
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B
Because he lost his pension again. You could ask him that.
- [16:34]
A
His Daily Bearer pension was gone. Yeah. I'm gonna get. I'm gonna get sued. I'm gonna get sued by Alistair.
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B
By Alistair. And I mean, he also makes that move to try and go to New York. I mean, he buys the New York Daily News, I hadn't realized this. And has a big party on his boat in Manhattan. And the boat called the Lady Ghislaine, named after his daughter. And the decor was described as 1970s Playboy Baroque, which is, you know. Yeah. Here's a style, not one I'm accustomed to. It's not how the Carrera house is decorated, I think that's fair to say.
- [17:10]
A
Yeah. But actually, the video we're looking at now, for those watching, this is the only part of your house, Gordon, that's not decorated in 70s Playboy Baroque. Yeah.
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B
The books behind me.
- [17:21]
A
Yes. The bathtub with the golden, you know, bare. Bare feet. That's not in the frame right now.
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B
Although this detail that when he has this big party on the Lady Ghislaine, when he's bought the New York Daily News is actually. Donald Trump is invited but doesn't come to the party. It's kind of interesting party, but it gives you a sense that this is a guy who's moving in those circles. But soon after that, November 1991, he's on his yacht. He's on the Lady Ghislaine off the Canary Islands, early on the morning of November 5th, people are calling him they can't reach him. The crew go into his room on the boat. They find his bed empty. They search the yacht. There's no sign. Later that day, search teams will find his body in the water, floating face up, his hands clenched together. Now, this will also start a kind of flood of conspiracy theories. Frankly, the fact, the way you don't.
- [18:13]
A
Say, Gordon, you don't say.
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B
So.
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A
They also, in the center, the conspiracy theories, many of them center on, you know, again, surprise, surprise, the idea that he was murdered by Mossad after they had tried to blackmail him. And to be honest, I can't quite make sense of the theory.
- [18:33]
B
Yeah, no, no, I, it took me a while to understand it. Supposedly the theory was he had been running a must. This is a theory. And just to be absolutely clear that the claim behind this conspiracy theory was that he'd been selling some kind of software for the Israelis, which secretly allowed access to kind of information. So it was a kind of Israeli intelligence operation. But then eventually his finances are on the verge of collapse because of the pension fund. Everything's going to be exposed. He's in deep trouble. And so the theory goes that he threatens Mossad with publicly disclosing this operation unless they bail him out. They don't. And they kill him. Now that. I want to just kind of put it out there that that is the theory, but I don't think anyone seriously buys it. I mean, there are lots of, you know, reasons why that's not possible. I mean, the theory is that Mossad agents somehow get onto his yacht, inject him with a poison and tip him overboard. I mean, ah, it, let's be honest, it's not how you do it anyway. If you were, if you were Mossad, I think, and even if there was any kind of substance, the idea that they might have done it, it just doesn't make sense.
- [19:43]
A
He's also given, I think he's. I mean, he's given a state funeral, isn't he? And, and I mean, he's, he's buried on the, on the Mount of Olives, so I, I don't know. It doesn't, doesn't seem like you would do that if you had just murdered him. I don't know. I mean, it seems, I guess, most likely, Gordon, that he fell. Right. I mean, it's.
- [20:05]
B
Yeah.
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A
Or, or that, or that he, you know, realizing that he was sort of at the end and that his looting of the Daily Mary's pension fund was going to come to light, that he decided to take matters into his own hands.
- [20:19]
B
Yeah. Those. I think those are the more two plausible theories which. Which have, you know, it's never been resolved. Which one is, you know, he. He killed himself because he knew the end was coming. It's, you know, business. His reputation was collapsing and that he was kind of fragile. I mean, there is also this theory that he might have have fallen because, you know, he was massive overweight and supposedly he liked to pee off the back of the boat. It was something he used to do. He had a kind of weird things about peeing and toilet habits, which I don't mean to need to get into.
- [20:48]
A
Was it the opposite of Escobar?
- [20:50]
B
Escobar loved his clean, golden toilets. I think. I think Maxwell is less so from. From what I can tell. But, you know, and so one of the theories is he's peeing overboard in the middle of the night and he just kind of loses his balance as the boat's swaying and he falls. So who knows? I mean. But the reason why this is interesting is, is, I mean, one. There's lots of interesting kind of connections. I mean, one is the fact that a bit like Jeffrey Epstein, you've got a mysterious death, which. Which as soon as you have a mysterious death and questions about suicide, it leads to kind of fuels the conspiracy theories. But I think also it's this link in through Ghislaine Maxwell, because Ghislaine was the child who was closest to her father. And yet it does seem to have been a pretty abusive relationship, which he was with pretty much everyone else. I mean, everyone, all his family members seem to have been in kind of fear and terror of him. And, you know, he. He really loved humiliating people and kind of sadistically crushing them. But she supposedly thought he'd been murdered and it is around the time of his death in 1991 that she, you know, Oxford educator Ghislaine is pitching up in New York and first meets Jeffrey Epstein and soon after begins to date him and starts to introduce people in her social circle. So there is this interesting connection through Robert Maxwell into his daughter Ghislaine and then into Jeffrey Epstein, which people have used to make the claim that this is a Mossad operation running all the way through. Now, one website says, you know, that the idea is Robert Maxwell somehow groomed almost Jeffrey Epstein to take on his role. Now, the problem with that is there's no evidence for it. So, I mean, there's lots of reasons it doesn't work. I mean, one is Robert Maxwell's relationship with Mossad is not quite as it suggested in that and secondly, there is no evidence about the kind of grooming and the onward relationship. It just doesn't feel right to me.
- [22:48]
A
But we can say despite all of the sort of, you know, wild conspiracy theories around, around his death and, and things like that, but Robert Maxwell did have a relationship with Mossad. It was an ad hoc, probably off and odd relationship insofar as we can tell from the available evidence. But he was in contact with, with Mossad and, you know, was a sometime sort of contact and source of information for, for Israel's Foreign Intelligence Service. Right, but that feels like a fairly sober take on this story. Would you agree with that?
- [23:26]
B
Yeah, I would. So, David, that is the kind of theory I think, or one of the elements of the kind of conspiracy theories or the theories, if you want to put it in those terms about Jeffrey Epstein and the intelligence world is that it runs through Robert Maxwell, Ghislaine Maxwell and Mossad into Jeffrey Epstein. So maybe there. Should we take a break and afterwards we'll look at how far that stacks up and what else there might be to either suggest that Jeffrey Epstein did or didn't have some kind of relationship with the spy world. Hello, 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 Mitrokhin, the 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.
- [25:02]
A
Welcome back. We've been looking in this episode at the very interesting connections, very interesting life and death of Robert Maxwell, father of Jalaid Maxwell, and in particular his, his connections to the Israeli Mossad. And I guess Gordon, after looking at this, I mean, what do you, how does it stack up? What's your take on the connection? I mean, first off, I guess there's what was Robert Maxwell's relationship with Mossad? And I guess there's the second one which is really integral to a lot of the, the sort of Epstein as spy theories is somehow that Robert Maxwell groomed or brought up Epstein to also work with or for Mossad?
- [25:50]
B
Yeah, I mean, on the first one, I mean, Robert Maxwell doesn't look like a Mossad agent, but he looks like the kind of person who was a kind of contact who's working in this kind of, you know, as he was with Britain, it looks like in the early Cold War, doing business deals, doing other things, and, you know, has contacts in the spy world, which is different from, if you like being a run as an operation, as an agent in. In that way. And it certainly doesn't mean that his daughter was. And it certainly doesn't lead over to the fact that Jeffrey Epstein does. You know, there's a kind of quite a few hops you have to make to make that claim, and you could see why people might make it. But there's not evidence to support those moves, those kind of links in the chain. There isn't the evidence that, you know, Ghislaine Maxwell was a kind of contact of Mossad. I mean, actually, in a conversation with the Deputy Attorney General, Todd Blanche, transcripts of which were released recently, you know, Ghislaine Maxwell is actually asked about this, about her and Epstein's alleged intelligence ties. And she's asked, you know, have you ever had contact with a Mossad agent? And she replies, will, not deliberately. Pardon me, the question asked. And she repeats, not deliberately. Which is kind of an obvious answer, isn't it? It's just like not knowingly, you know, I mean, I might have done without knowing it. And then, you know, she's asked, actually, do you ever. Did you ever think that Mr. Epstein was getting any money from any intelligence agency, including Mossad? And she said, I don't believe so, but I wouldn't know. I mean, I would be very surprised if he did. I don't think so, no. So I think certainly not proven this kind of idea of the kind of grooming through Mossad. Robert Maxwell, Ghislaine Maxwell, Jeffrey Epstein. I think, you know, there just isn't the evidence to support that. And it does feel. I don't know what you think, but Robert Maxwell was more of that kind of fluid contact broker, fixer, figure who had ties into the intelligence world. And I guess that also feels a bit like Jeffrey Epstein, doesn't it? So there is a parallel there, in a sense, isn't there?
- [27:41]
A
Well, and, you know, Epstein does have contacts and links, you know, similar to Robert Maxwell to. To Israeli officials and former officials. And one of the most well documented ties links Epstein to Ehud Barak, who served as The Prime Minister of Israel from 1999 to 2001. Later he was the Defense Minister. We should say up front, Barack has, has acknowledged his relationship with Epstein and told the Wall Street Journal that over years of meeting with Epstein at his various mansions, he quote, never participated in any party or any other inappropriate event with him and had never met him with girls or minors, not even with adult women in the context of any inappropriate behavior. Barack has said he first met Epstein in 2003 at an event attended by American dignitaries that was set up through the late Israeli president and statesman Siobhan Perez.
- [28:41]
B
So again, business partners, basically.
- [28:44]
A
Yeah, business partners, you know, and I think as we've seen for some of Ehud Barak's leaked emails, you know, they were, they were friends and the two of them have this kind of long standing personal and business relationship. They meet dozens of times between 2013 and 2017 in New York and elsewhere. And these, these leaked emails, Ehud Barack's email show the two men coordinating on business proposals, setting up meetings, talking strategy. Ehud Barack is, he's a frequent guest at that residence. He receives millions in investment from Epstein linked entities. Again, this does not have anything to do with Epstein's criminal behavior. This is Epstein supporting and investing in companies that Ehud Barak was sort of involved with. Financial records show Epstein brokering meetings between Israeli security startups, things like that. So again, you can kind of see how this feels, maybe spy adjacent, intelligence, business adjacent.
- [29:53]
B
Well, look, we are talking about a former official. We should say AHU Barak is a former, former officials. So it's slightly different from direct ties with current officials, it's worth saying. But certainly it's people moving in the worlds of kind of business and security. That's, that's what we're saying.
- [30:08]
A
Yes, exactly. And so, and there's some interesting, I guess, facets to the relationship between Barack and Epstein that have come out in, in the sort of tranche of email traffic that has been made public. And it's a very interesting mix of things, again, that are, I would say fit much more under this category of Epstein being a kind of fixer as opposed to working, you know, formally for any intelligence service. So it looks like Epstein was actually involved in helping relocate planes that had been used to ship arms during Iran Contra. And he would help to sort of facilitate the movement of those planes to Ohio where they, they were then repurposed to be used as part of Les Wexner's retail supply chain. So maybe they were shipping lingerie, lingerie secret or something like that.
- [31:02]
B
Bizarre.
- [31:03]
A
He was involved in helping to, you know, broker makes it. I actually think after having looked at these emails and the reporting on this, and I would just say that the reporting on this that's been done so far has been done by a group at Dropsite News that has published the analysis of these documents and many of the documents.
- [31:25]
B
And we should say that these are emails which were hacked and leaked, it's thought, potentially by the Iranians, aren't they?
- [31:32]
A
In some of these cases? The easy way to describe what he's doing is, for example, there's a pretty significant natural gas deal that's been struck between Israel and Egypt where the Israelis are going to actually ship natural gas in this field off of. Off of Haifa, through. Through Egypt. And it would be easy to say that Epstein, looking at the emails. Oh, is he helping to broker this deal? Well, not really. He's kind of involved in helping to set up. There's obviously like a decade of negotiations and back and forth meetings between a huge number of, you know, Israeli officials, Egyptians, bankers. And Epstein is kind of involved in little bits and pieces along the way, helping to arrange meetings and offer advice to Ehud Barak. So he's involved in this kind of political sphere, security sphere, but very much in the background and very much as a kind of informal advisor and. And fixer for. For Ehud Barak, again, in this kind of social broker, making connections vibe. You know, he tries to help Ehud Barak establish a back channel to Russian officials during the Syrian Civil War with the idea that that might help enable the Russians to convince Assad to step down. Of course, nothing came of it, but Epstein was kind of helping Barak get meetings set up by leveraging some of Epstein's contacts in Russia. So again, this kind of role as a fixer that he's playing for Barack. So he's kind of using this network. Again, it's very Robert Maxwell, I guess, in some ways, as he's kind of using his huge Rolodex to make connections and to bridge networks, which is, you know, a valuable thing for Ehud Barak or potentially, in theory, for a spy service.
- [33:38]
B
Yeah. But if we go back to our kind of central question, does it prove he was working for a spy service? I think the answer is it doesn't prove it, you know, because a, you know, a relationship with an Israeli former, you know, minister official is not the same as a relationship Mossad. And also this kind of work, as you said, is brokering, fixing in that kind of slightly murky world where security business collide internationally. But it isn't. It isn't spy work, is it? I think that's worth saying. You know, it doesn't kind of support that idea that he was certainly an intelligence asset. But it does give us an insight into the kind of. The circles he moved in and the contacts he had and what he was able to do with his kind of Rolodex of contacts, which I think is interesting. So was Jeffrey Epstein working with or for an intelligence service? I mean, I don't think we provided any proof that he has, even though there's some kind of interesting conjecture about where he might have been of value or what he might have done. More in certain areas, certainly, than others, though.
- [34:44]
A
Yeah. Well, I mean, you know, I think we both probably violently agree, Gordon, it's very unlikely that Epstein's was using the. The sort of sex trafficking ring as a big blackmail operation for an intelligence service.
- [35:00]
B
Yeah. As. As opposed to on his own behalf. Yeah, sure. Yeah, sure.
- [35:04]
A
And, you know, it's interesting, when I. When I spoke with a lot of these, you know, former CIA officers over the past few days, as we've been putting this together, there was unanimous agreement that that very click baity, salacious piece of the theory is extremely unlikely. The other type of sort of source is someone who's collecting what we'd call FI or foreign intelligence. You know, think. You know, the series we did last year on Adolf Tolkachev, the billion dollar spy. You know, he's a Soviet, you know, engineer working at the heart of the military industrial establishment in the mid-1980s. He is passing the agency plans for avionics systems and Soviet fighter planes. He's got access to fi. He's got state secrets.
- [35:53]
B
Right, he's got access to secrets.
- [35:54]
A
Yeah, right, exactly. I mean, you know, we. We did the Venezuela episodes. This CIA source, the source the agency seems to have had, that was very close to Maduro and was passing information on his pattern of life. That is not the sort of information that Epstein would have had. I mean, he might have had little bits and pieces of stuff. Right. But he's. He doesn't really have ongoing access to sensitive state secrets. But there are types of contacts and sources beyond FI producers. And I think this is where, again, in theory, Epstein could make more sense. I mean, there's people that are called social brokers. Right. So it's someone who agrees to create a scenario where an introduction looks casual. So, for example, you know, something that the agency might do, let's say, in Hollywood, would be to develop a relationship with a big Hollywood producer. Director, actor, and when they throw a party to get the right people invited so that a contact could be made between the agency and, you know, and a potential target for foreign intelligence. Right. So there's, there's social brokers, there are assessment collectors, so people who collect information on, on targets and help assess them for development or recruitment. Right. So this could be someone who has access to huge networks of, of other humans and can say, okay, who's having an affair, who's secretly gay, so that an eventual case officer, when they're making their approach or target, could sort of understand where the cross cracks in that person might be that they could exploit.
- [37:40]
B
Yeah. And I mean, I think back some of the other kind of people, you know, in history who've done that, who had a social network through which they could pass gossip. And you think about the Cambridge spies and Guy Burgess, we'll be, I think, you know, talking about him soon on the podcast. But also, you know, I remember the story we did very early on about Anna Chapman, who was moving in elite circles in Manhattan on behalf of the svr, the Russian intelligence service, you know, until she was picked up in 2010. Now, she didn't have access to secrets, but she did have access to a lot of interesting people on the kind of high end elite party scene in Manhattan. And I think we both agreed that had its value for Russian intelligence to collect details on people, to know who's up, who's down, you know, what the gossip is. There is a value to that for intelligence agencies, which is different, as you said, from kind of state secret stuff.
- [38:28]
A
Yeah. And the other one, and I love this, this term is a deep pockets guy. Which is, which is how the, how the, these former case officers will refer to it. It's a deep pockets guy. Right. It's, it's an access agent with deep pockets.
- [38:43]
B
And you should say an access agent is someone who provides access to something else, to, to a facility, to a place or to, to something else. Yeah. Rather than the intelligence themselves. Yeah, yeah.
- [38:52]
A
And a lot of times these deep pockets guys would be, you know, a rich person who's bored and who, you know, wants to do something that to them feels more meaningful. Right. Than just making money. And so in this case, it could be we've got some equipment we need moved across a border or from point A to point B. Could you help us? Could you loan us a boat or a plane? You know, Epstein had both of those. They could move money, they could hide money. Epstein was also good at those things. Could you buy a building Somewhere our government would have a hard time buying a building in denied country. A could you help us do that? Interestingly, you know, if they have access to an organization family office, you know, could you provide cover to some of our intelligence officers or Knox through that, that organization or family office? Could you help link these kind of two networks that, you know, that you can connect, that we want connected to enable this kind of operation? Right. So Epstein's a spy. Well, it's like, okay, that's not a helpful tagline because it ignores the different ways in which someone could actually work with or for an intelligence service. But having kind of laid that out, I think what does seem substantiated as we get to the end of our two episode exploration of this, this question about whether Epstein was working with a foreign intelligence service. What seems substantiated is that Epstein used his network, some of which did rub kind of, you know, up close to the intelligence world. They're kind of spy or intelligence adjacent. As we've said, he used those networks to promote the financial interest that he and his friends had.
- [40:43]
B
Yeah.
- [40:44]
A
And that there was probably an overlap in some of these cases between his own financial interests, the interests of his friends and Israeli security. But it looks like he was probably kind of a social broker in deep pockets guy for Ehud Barak. Right. From, from these emails. At least while operating in that sphere he might have bumped into intelligence officers. But again, there aren't facts out there to substantiate any kind of relationship between Jeffrey Epstein and Mossad or another intelligence service. I think that's where I've. That's where I've come down at the end of this.
- [41:31]
B
Yeah. And I mean, I think it's really useful. The way you talk about. It's not as simple as being an agent or not, or a spy or not. There are lots of people who kind of bump along side the intelligence world and occasionally have contacts in the intelligence world and whom the intelligence world might be interested in and want to know what they're doing. But that is slightly different from actually being A a spy or B being tasked by or working for that intelligence service. I mean, I've come across murky characters in my time, believe it or not, David, you know, the kind of world of kind of arms dealers and you know, people who are in that world and dare I say certain types of international businessmen who also seek to cultivate sometimes relationships with intelligence agencies because they hope it might buy them protection, access confidential information, entrances to the right places themselves. And sometimes those intelligence agencies are also Curious what those people are up to, you know, and they can be useful sources of kind of gossip or information and maybe can be of use for something or other. But it is slightly different from there being a kind of formal, established relationship. And it just feels to me like Jeffrey Epstein moved in those murky circles in which, as you said, he will have bumped into lots of intelligence services. They will have known about stuff about him. I don't doubt he would have maybe cultivated contacts with them, maybe in the hope it might protect him in some way. But that is slightly different from actually saying he's a spy.
- [43:07]
A
Yeah, yeah, exactly. And I think, you know, it's probably worth, at the end here just reiterating and kind of going back to the Kompromat angle. Right. This really the, frankly, I think conspiracy theory that is most commonly linked to the Epstein as a spy theory. Right. There's, there's no credible evidence that Mossad had anything to do with that. CIA would not have touched it with a 10,000 foot.
- [43:39]
B
I don't think the Brits would either.
- [43:41]
A
The Brits wouldn't have either. Right. And so what I, what I think is interesting and why I think it's helpful we've unpacked this, you know, for, for listeners, and I hope listeners have found it useful, is that what does seem clear, though is that Epstein was floating in spy adjacent networks and was involved in fixer work that did have political and security sort of connections to it. He's just not doing that. At least there's no evidence that he's doing that kind of work at the behest of or for any intelligence service. And frankly, the very clean. I think given what we know about Epstein, the very clean sort of lens to use to interpret all of this is the value that he created for himself was leveraging his massive Rolodex and his networks and he was very driven by, it seems, financial motivations. Here you don't have to layer in an intelligence.
- [44:47]
B
Yeah.
- [44:47]
A
To explain his desire to be a sort of fixer or social broker for, for his friends. That was, that was his life in existence.
- [44:59]
B
Yeah. And I think, you know, you can see it as him using the connections. Yeah. For his financial support, but more for his pretty dark predatory and criminal sexual behavior. And you do wonder how far he was also running almost like a personal intelligence agency and compromise operation for his own service of his own dark ends, rather than doing it for a formal foreign intelligence service. And I think that with the video recordings and everything else also seems kind of at least plausible to Me and one of the reasons why it is just such a kind of dark and in many ways awful story. But yeah, I think that's a great place to leave it, isn't it, David? And I think hopefully we've unpacked some of those questions because they are floating around a lot. And we, you know, we do hear people asking this question, as you said, they've been kind of asking it of us. What do we think of the Epstein files? But I'm sure there's more to come out on those files. I think from what I hear, there's a lot more files which, you know, lawyers are looking at. So who knows what else will come out and we'll come back to it if there's anything new or anything that changes that assessment. But I think that gives an idea, I think, of what we think of it at the moment, at least.
- [46:08]
A
Yeah, that's right. No, and we should say we'll do more on this if, you know, if events change and it makes sense to do so. Next week we will be starting a very exciting four part series on someone, Gordon, who was actually and very we've confirmed was a spy, and that is Kim Philby. We're doing four episodes on really the young Kim Philby, who I think we'd probably both agree is Britain's greatest traitor.
- [46:42]
B
Yeah, the man who betrayed MI6 to the Russians, to the KGB, probably did more damage psychologically, you know, as well to Britain than any other spy in its history. And actually we've been talking about Jeffrey Epstein. I think in a way, Kim Philby is an interesting parallel because it's an example of a very patient, very long term, classic spy operation of the type that the Russians were and are capable of operating, where you do send someone into the heart of the establishment. And Kim Philby, along with some of the other Cambridge spies like Gaia Burgess, were able to kind of move around the British establishment in a kind of Epstein like way and do enormous damage because they really were spies working for the kgb. So I think, you know, it's a, it's a chance to kind of explore what that looks like and the psychology, I think, of what leads a very young man to make that commitment. So, yeah, we're starting that four part.
- [47:38]
A
Series next week and you know, longtime listeners to the podcast will of course know that Gordon Carrera has an inexplicable fondness for, for treason. And so we'll, we'll get to experience, we'll get to experience that over the course of a couple weeks as, as I systematically dismantle his misconceptions and, you know, and bizarre, bizarre obsessions with, with traitors. So we also have that to look forward to. And if you, if you want all of that at once, just to gorge on it, as soon as those four episodes drop, do go and join the Declassified club@the restisclassified.com, where you get early access. You also get access to bonus content. We've got some great bonus content coming as part of that Philby series, including a tape that Gordon Carrera dug out of the Stasi archives, I believe. Isn't that right, Gordon?
- [48:36]
B
Yeah. Of Kim Philby talking himself about his career. So, yeah, that'll be there for Declassified Club members. So do join up, but otherwise, we'll see you next time.
- [48:46]
A
We'll see you next time.
- [48:53]
B
The Volkswagen Beetle started out as Hitler's dream car.
- [48:56]
A
It wound up as a beloved hippie.
- [48:58]
B
Icon and the best selling car of all time.
- [49:01]
A
How did that happen?
- [49:02]
B
I'm Jacob Goldstein. And I'm Robert Smith. On business history, we tell the surprising stories behind the inventions and entrepreneurs that shaped our economy.
- [49:09]
A
And the story of the Beetle is truly surprising.
- [49:12]
B
It has so much in it.
- [49:13]
A
He says you should be able to.
- [49:15]
B
Mount machine guns on it.
- [49:17]
A
Sure.
- [49:17]
B
Not for the family vacation, but, you know, for other things, other plans. Listen wherever you get your podcasts and for full video episodes, search business history podcast on YouTube.