After Jeffrey Epstein’s arrest on sex trafficking charges in 2019, former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak said he had no idea that his longtime acquaintance had engaged in inappropriate relations with underage girls. But newly leaked emails reviewed by Straight Arrow News show Barak had been told numerous times about accusations against Epstein years before he disavowed knowledge of the billionaire’s activities.
The emails, part of a cache of more than 100,000 messages hacked from Barak’s inbox last year, even include a message about the allegations from Epstein himself.
SAN reviewed the messages after they were made public on Wednesday by the nonprofit leak archiving organization DDoSecrets. The discussions between Epstein and Barak, who was Israel’s prime minister from 1999 to 2001 and its defense minister from 2007 to 2013, were first reported by Reason.
Continued ‘debauchery’
SAN reported Wednesday that those emails also included discussions on visits to Epstein’s private island in the Caribbean, Little Saint James. In one email, Barak referred to the island as “impressive.” In another, he discussed efforts to visit the island without his security detail.
Barak has acknowledged visiting the island and Epstein’s New York home. However, according to The New York Times, Barak said after Epstein’s 2019 arrest that he had not known about sex-trafficking allegations. In 2008, Epstein pleaded guilty to state prostitution charges in Florida in a deal that allowed him to avoid federal prosecution.
An email from March 2016, however, shows Epstein forwarded to Barak a correspondence between attorneys Alan Dershowitz and Roy Black, as well as a New York Post columnist. Dershowitz did not respond to a request for comment from SAN.
The columnist, Richard Johnson, informed the lawyers that he intended to publish a story that would accuse Epstein of “not letting his conviction for soliciting a teenage girl interfere with his debauchery.”
Johnson wrote, “a recent visitor tells me Epstein has a houseful of young women in his East 71st Street mansion.”
Unbiased. Straight Facts.TM
Sex offender Jeffrey Epstein maintained a personal and business relationship with former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak long after he pleaded guilty in 2008, leaked emails show.
The alleged visitor cited by Johnson reportedly said that “while all the women appeared to be at least 17, the age of consent in New York State, they were all several decades younger than 63-year-old Epstein.”
Johnson also suggested that a man pictured outside Epstein’s mansion in January 2016 could be Peter Listerman, a Russian who, according to The Daily Beast, was known for supplying Russian and Ukrainian girls to billionaires such as Epstein.
Dershowitz forwarded the email to Epstein, saying he had “refused to talk to Johnson.” Epstein then forwarded the email to Barak, asking: “guess who is in the fur hat?”
The data cache does not show a reply from Barak. It remains unclear whether the man in the fur hat was Listerman and why Epstein mentioned the hat to Barak.
Johnson did not respond to a request for comment from SAN.
Accusations in 2011
In a separate email dating back to March 2011, Dana Zaidman, who has worked as an assistant for Barak, forwarded an email linking to two articles from The Daily Mail.
Both articles detail allegations from Epstein accuser Virginia Giuffre, who, according to court filings, also accused Barak of sexual assault. The former prime minister has repeatedly denied wrongdoing, describing Guffrie’s claims as false and “uncorroborated.”
Giuffre died by suicide in April.
One of the two articles, titled “Teenage girl recruited by paedophile Jeffrey Epstein reveals how she twice met Bill Clinton,” even mentions Barak by name as an acquaintance of Epstein.
Four years after the email from his assistant, Barak accepted a reported $1 million investment from Epstein in a limited partnership he established to back a technology start-up.
Barak did not reply to inquiries sent by SAN.
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Author: Alan Judd
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