XPost: soc.culture.israel, soc.culture.jewish, alt.politics.trump   
   XPost: talk.politics.misc   
   From: thickirish@cunt.com   
      
   Amid an intensifying Capitol Hill fight over Jeffrey Epstein   
   disclosures—led by Representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene, Thomas   
   Massie, Ro Khanna, and others—House Democrats last week published   
   three email exchanges involving the disgraced financier, and then   
   House Republicans released 20,000 additional documents.   
      
   The selectively released emails from House Democrats, like the   
   corporate media’s own reporting around the Epstein files, has focused   
   almost exclusively on salacious aspects of Epstein’s life, with   
   pundits attempting to determine whether and to what degree President   
   Donald Trump knew about or engaged in sex crimes with Epstein.   
      
   Very much like corporate media attention around the Monica Lewinsky   
   scandal and subsequent Ken Starr investigation, which nearly derailed   
   the Clinton presidency, outlets like The New York Times focus almost   
   exclusively on the tabloid aspects of Epstein’s life, a search   
   Democrats and their corporate media allies believe will finally   
   deliver “the goods” on Trump, implicating him the ultimate   
   presidential sex scandal. None of the emails released this past week   
   outright confirm their hypothesis.   
      
   An email dated April 2012, in which Epstein wrote that “the dog that   
   hasn’t barked is Trump. [VICTIM] spent hours at my house with him,”   
   was immediately seized on by online liberals as supposed proof that   
   Trump had engaged in sex crimes. Yet X users quickly noted that the   
   redacted victim was Virginia Giuffre, who later recanted some of her   
   allegations, raising serious questions about her credibility relative   
   to Epstein’s many other victims, which may be why House Democrats   
   chose to redact her name from the email release.   
      
   Epstein was someone whose sexual behavior was proven in court to be   
   criminal. It is entirely possible that powerful elites, including   
   Trump, engaged in those crimes with him. But if evidence of Trump’s   
   crimes really does exist in those files, one wonders, why haven’t   
   Democrats already released it?   
      
   That Trump abruptly on Sunday encouraged House Republicans to back   
   further Epstein disclosures suggests he is confident nothing in those   
   materials implicates him—or, at least, that whatever emerges will   
   prove more damaging to prominent Democrats than to himself, and less   
   damaging than perceptions of a White House cover-up.   
      
   However, a provision in the disclosure bill likely to pass this week,   
   as journalist Michael Tracey notes, grants Attorney General Pam Bondi   
   sweeping discretion to redact any content she deems invasive of   
   victims “privacy.” It is not difficult to imagine such unilateral   
   power being abused to protect administration officials from scrutiny.   
      
   Many of the most important Epstein revelations have come not from the   
   files released by House representatives just last week—and extensively   
   covered by corporate press—but from independent media.   
      
   For starters, investigations into Epstein’s operations in the U.S.   
   Virgin Islands and the political network that enabled and protected   
   them have been systematically ignored or suppressed by corporate   
   media. Documents uncovered by independent journalist Lee Fang showing   
   that Albert Bryan Jr., the current governor of the Virgin Islands,   
   used his office to advance Epstein’s interests for several years,   
   lobbying for tax exemptions for Epstein’s businesses and pushed for   
   waivers that allowed the convicted sex criminal to evade local sex   
   offender laws.   
      
   Other recent reporting from Fang exposes U.S. Virgin Island’s   
   non-voting delegate in Congress and MSNBC darling Stacey Plaskett’s   
   deep ties to Epstein (and reveals her previous denials about those   
   ties to be complete lies). Epstein not only raised money for   
   Plaskett’s campaigns, but also introduced her to key Democratic donors   
   in New York, helping secure early funding that jump-started her   
   political career. More than that, from 2013–2014 Plaskett worked for   
   Erika Kellerhals, Epstein's tax attorney and personal adviser.   
      
   Plaskett’s close political relationship with Epstein was further   
   exposed by the Washington Post, which published video and text   
   messages showing Epstein coaching the delegate in real time during a   
   congressional hearing for Michael Cohen—instructing Plaskett on what   
   to ask Trump’s former lawyer.   
      
   What these new emails do not address are the questions with   
   geopolitical implications: Was Jeffrey Epstein some sort of   
   intelligence agent and, if so, which government or governments was he   
   working for?   
      
   A recent investigative series from Drop Site News journalists Ryan   
   Grim and Murtaza Hussain provide the clearest answers to those   
   questions so far. Together, they extensively document Jeffrey   
   Epstein’s ties to the Israeli government and its intelligence sphere,   
   confirming his long-suspected key role as an international political   
   fixer, often in service of Israeli interests.   
      
   For example, the outlet reveals how Epstein worked on behalf of Israel   
   with Ehud Barak and the Mossad to open a covert backchannel to the   
   Kremlin during the Syrian civil war, with the ultimate goal of   
   removing Israel’s enemy Bashar al-Assad from power. Using his   
   contacts, such as oligarch Viktor Vekselberg, Epstein secured a   
   private audience for Barak to meet with Russia’s President Vladimir   
   Putin in order to push for that outcome.   
      
   Additional reporting from Grim and Hussain exposes how Epstein and   
   Barak operated as emissaries for Israel’s intelligence services in   
   Cote d’Ivoire, using Epstein’s private network and Barak’s political   
   status to broker meetings with foreign leaders to advance Israeli   
   interests.   
      
   Prior to his West Africa trip, Barak commissioned an   
   intelligence-style dossier from the private firm Ergo—a link I and   
   journalist Jack Poulson exposed this summer—on Cote d’Ivoire’s   
   President Alassane Ouattara’s inner circle and his country’s security   
   apparatus. Barak later arranged a “non-security” pretext through his   
   son-in-law’s medical-equipment company to mask the operation’s true   
   purpose. After meeting Ouattara and senior officials in West Africa   
   using that cover, Barak received a Signals Intelligence (SIGINT)   
   blueprint from former Israeli intelligence chiefs to construct a   
   nationwide cell phone and internet interception apparatus; that plan   
   became the basis for a 2014 Israel–Cote d’Ivoire security and   
   surveillance agreement.   
      
   Drop Site’s reporting demonstrates the operational role Epstein served   
   in securing that deal for Israel, coordinating Barak’s meetings during   
   the UN General Assembly that fall and connecting him directly to the   
   Cote d’Ivoire president’s chief of staff.   
      
      
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