For more on the fallout from the Epstein files, we can now bring in Murtaza Hussain, a national security and foreign affairs reporter for DropSite News
Thank you so much for joining us today on the program. Now, we've been discussing here the fallout in France with the former culture minister, Jack Lang
But to head back to the U.S. for a moment, you know, the Trump administration is continuing to face fierce scrutiny over its handling of the release of the files in the Jeffrey Epstein case
Elaine Maxwell is scheduled to testify tomorrow before the House Oversight Committee in Congress
Her lawyers have said, though, she won't be talking. So what do you make of that
I mean, I feel like she does have more to tell. And is her keeping silent
She's angling for a pardon. What's the strategy? here. Well, on numerous occasions, Trump has indicated that he could be open to giving a
pardon to Ghislaine Maxwell. The conditions of her incarceration have changed and become
eased over the past, over the time of his administration. And I do think that there's
still a fierce political fight to prevent further disclosures from this archive of documents
of which we still only have a fraction. And furthermore, to hide certain embarrassing
and incriminating details from people that Ghislaine Maxwell may know about. So I do think that this is still a live issue
And if you see statements from certain US policymakers like Thomas Massey and Ro Khanna
who've been very vocal about further disclosure of the Epstein files, they've said that this scandal and the crimes
as they put it, entailed or revealed in these documents goes far beyond what we know presently
implicates many, many more powerful people whose names maybe have been redacted at the moment
but are still known by certain parties. And in the words of Thomas Massey, it could go beyond Watergate and Iran-Contra
and many, many of the other most notorious scandals in contemporary American history
So I do think that there's strong reason to negotiate or make some sort of deal with Ghislaine Maxwell
on the part of the Trump administration to suppress some of those embarrassing details
or even criminal details, that she would be a person who would have, in all likelihood
some privy to. Excuse me, Mertoza, Hillary and Bill Clinton, too, are caught up in this
They've been asked to appear in Congress. Do you think the Republicans are using the opportunity to score political points
Well, you know, the irony that Donald Trump has repeatedly said that this is primarily
a Democrat issue, and he calls it a Democrat hoax in many terms like that, trying to imply
that the partisan framing of the issue is much more on the Democrat side
In a way, ironically, there is a grain of truth to that in that Epstein was somebody
who was very close with the Clintons. He was very involved in the Clinton Foundation
He was very much embedded in this sort of center-left liberal establishment, the Gates
Foundation, many and many of the figures. The problem is that Trump is also very implicated with Epstein personally
because he was a Democrat until relatively recently in his political career
He became a Republican only somewhere in the last decade and a half or so. So, you know, I think that he is trying to use it for partisan purposes today
But the problem is that he himself is clearly very implicated in this for that reason
And I don think that framing it that way is very compelling to most people because today it a Republican administration that he is serving in which is working to suppress or obfuscate or downplay these very very grave allegations
So ultimately, I don't think that strategy will be successful for a number of reasons. Murtaza, over here in Europe, the British government is in turmoil over Lord Mendelsohn's links to Epstein
And that's putting pressure on the British Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, because he had appointed him to be the U.S. ambassador, the British ambassador to the U.S
So this seems to highlight an appalling lack of judgment there. What do you think the long term fallout would be
Well, you know, seeing it from the U.S. perspective is very ironic because to date there hasn't really been any political fallout on that scale in the U.S. where most of these crimes took place
It's interesting seeing that in the U.K. there's been some limited, you know, retribution or some limited fallout politically
And it may be a bit more than that. But to date they've succeeded in suppressing that sort of consequence in the U.S. political system
And I do think that if you look in the UK perspective, you know, there were warning signs for many, many years
People have warned about Peter Mandelson being appointed to this role. And if you look at the Epstein files, he was not just someone who had passed in contact with Epstein
He was an intimate confidant over a number of years. And he was also involved in Epstein's own political intelligence activities
He was a frequent – his name comes up frequently in many of those emails. So I do think that him being removed is probably a foreseeable outcome of the scandal
But I don't think it stops there at all, either in the U.K. context or in the U.S. or even globally, where Epstein really did have a tremendous web of connections over many, many years
Now, Mertoza, one of the things that's been reported on a lot, of course, is the fallout regarding young women being trafficked
But another big revelation has been the scope of Epstein's connections, his contacts
Some people have described him as a collector of people. And these connections, they reach into government, as we've just been discussing, but also into intelligence agencies
And I understand you've been reporting on his links to the Israeli government
Could you tell us more about that? So Epstein was not just a social, not just a, you could say, a networker with elites
but he was actually an actor in many ways. He was actively working to facilitate diplomatic intelligence and economic deals around the world
And one individual with whom he had a particularly close relationship was former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak
We've done a number of stories which actually predated these Epstein file releases
which were based on a separate hacked email inbox from Barack, which shows thousands of messages with Epstein over many, many years
And it wasn't just they were talking about meeting or their personal lives
or elite networking and so forth, although they were, but they were also talking about specific intelligence deals
political negotiations that Epstein and Barack were engaging with, many cases for the benefit of the state of Israel
And a couple of stories we did, you can see them on Dropside News, the whole series, we're still working on it
But Epstein helped arrange a back-channel diplomatic negotiations between Barack and Russian officials
including Vladimir Putin to find a way to end the Syrian conflict to have a regime change in Syria and change the leader to a pro leader amenable to Israel in 2013 He also helped set up talks between Israelis and the Mongolian government the Cote d many many other countries as well too
And those talks later became the seeds of formal security deals later signed by the government
So Epstein was involved in managing these deals, helping them lay the groundwork for them
And what you can call these track two negotiations, and what I mean that he would lay the groundwork with intelligence and economic deals and so forth, helping embed Israeli surveillance technology firms in many of these countries
And thereafter, those talks would blossom in the course of a year or two into formal state visits and then formal agreements that were signed between the two states
And that happened in many, many countries over a long period of time. So I do think that this is a window in the fact that Epstein was not merely just someone who was a gadfly between all these different states and individuals
He had ideological interests. He had specific relationships and specific deals he was making
He was very much an active player in these deals. And his relationship with Barack are a window into his role in Israeli politics and Israeli security making
Now, some maybe conspiracy theorists have said, oh, he was an agent for Mossad, or he worked for U.S. intelligence
But, I mean, do you believe that? And what he was doing, how different was it than actually working for an intelligence agency
Because it does sound like he's, you know, with his connections, he's sort of acting in such a manner, like a spy
Yeah, I don't think that Jeffrey Epstein worked for the Mossad or worked for any intelligence agency per se
As far as all the information we have, it doesn't suggest that. But that said, he did seem like he was somebody who maybe was above that per se
Because if you look at these communications with Barack and the way that they were operating, it was much more like the Mossad was working for him in these cases
Which I mean is that he and Barack would discuss the deployment of Israeli
Israeli, in this case, surveillance technology firms, which are linked to Unit 8200 and Unit 81
and other parts of the Israeli security establishment. And they would deploy them
into these countries to set up shop and to make economic deals and embed themselves with certain
governments. But it wasn't by no means was he in a hierarchy where he was taking orders from the
head of Mossad or anything like that. The communications at least don't suggest that. It seemed like he was above that and he was part of the strata. And I would say that he was sort of
in this world of non-state actors, you can call it the billionaire class
or whatever, how you would describe it, who are very important political actors
in their own right. And they have global connections and very expansive powers and interests
but they're not embedded in any formal state hierarchy or answerable to that. They're kind of the product
of a post-Cold War neoliberal world where institutions themselves have been sort of downgraded in importance
and the power of private capital and private individuals has grown by leaps and bounds
And Epstein was really a product of that world. So he had ties to Israeli intelligence and Russian intelligence, seemingly
and American intelligence as well, too, and many, many other countries. But he was by no means
someone who was a card-carrying member of any establishment. He was above and beyond that
but then he was very powerful, not in spite of that, but because of his status as a powerful
private, wealthy individual. Now, Mertosa, some former Israeli officials have publicly denied that Epstein worked with Mossad So how should our viewers weigh those denials against the evidence that you uncovered Because you also had access to other emails correct Not just stuff that been revealed in the Epstein files dump
That's correct. As I mentioned earlier, a lot of our stories have actually been based not on the files dump
although those have been helpful in many ways, but on these private emails, in this case with Barack and Epstein over a number of years
And I saw that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed these emails numerous times
But it's fascinating because he's trying to place it into the context of Israeli domestic politics and partisan politics where Netanyahu and Barack are rivals
And Netanyahu is really trying to use Epstein and his relationship with Barack as a weapon against his political rivals, including Barack
and people who are more on the center-left in Israel whom he does not like and he would like to associate with Epstein
and while separating himself. The problem is that some of these documents and some of the lawsuits
that have come out have shown that, at least on one occasion, Epstein also helped broker a meeting between Netanyahu
and officials from J.P. Morgan. It seems to help discuss a certain gas deal that later came to fruition
the Leviathan gas deal and financing for that. So it did have connections kind of across the board
to some degree at least in Israeli politics and society. But I think more importantly than that is that
while maybe for Netanyahu it's a domestic partisan political issue, I think for the majority of people watching this
whether in the U.S. or Europe or even in Israel itself, they would note that this really was a situation where Epstein was acting
in his own view, for the betterment of the state and its interests and so forth
which he had some ideological tie to, and not for the benefit of a particular faction or group within Israel
And again, it wasn't just Israel who was involved, and he had ties at very high levels in many countries around the world
But certainly the communications we have show a very extensive and unique interest and effort
in furthering the state of Israel, Israel's interests for many, many years on the part of Epstein
in part to his relationship with Barack, but not limited to that. Now, in your view, why has this particular aspect of Epstein's network
been less covered by the media than his other crimes or his political connections
Well, you know, initially, one could say that perhaps people didn't want to want to cover it
because the emails we were based on were based on a different document set. They're based on this
hack. And, you know, we went through an extensive verification process, but it was our verification
process. And maybe a few other small outlets also did the same. But now I think that excuse
does not really hold water because now many of these emails that we reported on have been validated
by their inclusion in the Epstein file releases by the federal government as well, too, or the
Department of Justice in the U.S. So I think there's not really an excuse
practically or journalistically to ignore it any longer. So I think that it has to be political then
in this case, because, you know, there are these very, very glaring and egregious examples
of this sort of coordination reconstructed over a very long period of time
And we're reporting on it as there and it's validated as well, too. And yet, you know
we have kind of been alone in reporting that for the most part. And, you know, there's a degree of complexity
to the stories and so forth. But, you know, I think we're going to keep reporting
And we do encourage other outlets with larger budgets and resources to also look at it, too
But in the loop of that, we're glad to continue doing the reporting. And we have more stories to come, which have been aided by these new Epstein releases as well
Murtaza, thank you for speaking with us today. That's Murtaza Hussain, national security and foreign affairs reporter for DropSite News