THE revelations from the Epstein files continue to gush like the illegal discharges from Britain’s water company sewage outlets.

And while the abuse of young girls is horrendous, that is merely the back story to the whole saga. Few, if any, in the mainstream media are asking the obvious question: why was Jeremy Epstein running this high-class brothel and who was financing it?

He certainly wasn’t offering young women to the many powerful men, who pounced on his prey like lions on fresh meat, as acts of selfless generosity.

These men were chosen and targeted by the Epstein organisation — and most were powerful politicians or businessmen — for a specific purpose which was not simply for the enrichment of Epstein and his cronies. What that purpose was, has remained obscured and little discussed.

We know that so-called honey-traps have been used often in the past by secret services as a means of blackmailing politicians. While Lyndon Johnson was US vice-president and then president, his side-kick Bobby Baker was running an exclusive brothel, the Quorum Club, on Capitol Hill, probably in collusion with the FBI, to entrap senior political figures.

John F Kennedy was one of them and only escaped scrutiny by the skin of his teeth after an intensive affair with Ellen Rometsch, a German-born hostess who was suspected of being a GDR spy.

Epstein came from a very ordinary background and early on showed little promise of a stellar career. In 1974, at age 21, he began working as a maths teacher in a school on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, despite his lack of qualifications.

In 1976, however, he joined the investment bank of Bear Stearns as a low-level junior assistant, and swiftly moved up to become an options trader, working in the special products division, and then advised the bank’s wealthiest clients on tax mitigation strategies.

James Cayne, the bank’s later CEO, praised Epstein’s skill with wealthy clients and complex products. In 1980, Epstein became a partner.  

When his more dubious activities began is difficult to say, but during the 1980s, he possessed an Austrian passport under a false name, an indication, surely, of clandestine activity? The passport showed his place of residence as Saudi Arabia.

In 2017, “a former senior White House official” reported that Alexander Acosta, US attorney who had handled Epstein’s criminal case at the end of the George Bush administration, stated, in interviews to President Donald Trump’s first transition team: “I was told Epstein ‘belonged to intelligence’ and to ‘leave it alone’,” and that Epstein was “above his pay grade.”

During that period, one of Epstein’s clients was the Saudi Arabian businessman Adnan Khashoggi, who was the middleman in transferring US weapons from Israel to Iran as part of the Iran-Contra affair during the 1980s. Khashoggi was one of several defence contractors that he knew.

The only publicly known genuine billionaire client of Epstein was Leslie Wexner, chairman and CEO of L Brands (formerly The Limited, Inc) and Victoria’s Secret. He is a powerful billionaire, heavily involved in politics.

In 1991, with another billionaire, Charles Bronfman, Wexner formed the Mega Group, a club of some of the country’s wealthiest and most influential businessmen. As a pro-Israel group, the organisation has tried to influence US foreign policy in the Middle East and mobilise support for Israel.

In 1986, Epstein met Wexner through mutual acquaintances. A year later, he became Wexner’s financial adviser and served as his right-hand man. Epstein sorted out Wexner’s entangled finances. In July 1991, Wexner granted Epstein full power of attorney over his affairs. The power of attorney allowed Epstein to hire people, sign cheques, buy and sell properties, borrow money and do anything else of a legally binding nature on Wexner’s behalf.

At this time, Epstein represented himself as a global talent scout for Victoria’s Secret and used this powerful position to sexually manipulate young women.

Epstein was acquaintances of, or friends with, leading public figures including Donald Trump, Bill Clinton, Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, Steve Bannon, former Prince Andrew, Peter Mandelson, Bill Gates, Les Wexner and Mette-Marit, Crown Princess of Norway, and many others. These names read like a shortlist of some of the most powerful and wealthy men in the world.

The Epstein files, a collection of documents which has been partially released as part of the Epstein Files Transparency Act, provides a glimpse into the vast network he had cultivated over the late 20th and early 21st centuries, but much still remains hidden.

In this activity his chief aide and procuress was Ghislaine Maxwell, who is the daughter of disgraced former newspaper magnate, Robert Maxwell, who was probably a Mossad agent. This may not be unconnected to Epstein’s ties to Israel.

One of the most interesting and significant people intimately involved with Epstein was Ehud Barak. After his first arrest, Epstein began an interest in the surveillance industry, and maintained a close relationship with the former Israeli prime minister and defence minister, exchanging private emails with him and meeting more than 30 times between 2013 and 2017. 

He also facilitated Barak’s interactions with prominent figures, including right-wing billionaire Peter Thiel.  

In business, Epstein leveraged his relationship with Barak to obtain access to Thiel. In 2015, he invested in Reporty Homeland Security (later rebranded as Carbyne), an Israeli start-up company headed by Barak which developed advanced emergency communication technologies.

The company’s management included CEO Amir Elihai, a former Israeli special forces officer, and director Pinchas Bukhris, a former Defence Ministry director-general and commander of the IDF cyber unit 8200.

Between 2012 and 2014, Epstein assisted Barak in what began as a private business initiative involving internal security-related projects in Ivory Coast, according to documents released by the US house oversight committee from Epstein’s files and leaked emails from Barak. 

Epstein played an operational role in advancing the effort: he co-ordinated Barak’s meetings, connected him with Ivory Coast President Alassane Ouattara’s chief of staff and other officials, and helped arrange connections with the president’s family.

At the same time, Barak, commissioned former Israeli intelligence officers to produce technical plans for nationwide phone and internet monitoring. This private initiative was later the basis of a 2014 defence and internal-security agreement between Israel and Ivory Coast.

Epstein performed similar facilitation work as in the Ivory Coast for Barak in Mongolia. He assisted in the promotion of Israeli surveillance technology for the Mongolian government. During this period, the Israeli intelligence officer Yoni Koren (a longtime associate and former aide to Barak) stayed multiple times at Epstein’s Manhattan residence, including while serving in Barak’s office in 2013 and again during extended visits in 2014 and 2015.

In 2008, Epstein was convicted of soliciting a minor for prostitution, and was indicted in 2019 for sex trafficking minors in the 2000s. He died in custody awaiting his trial, the cause of his death was given as suicide.

At the time of his death, Epstein’s estate was valued at $600 million, from which hundreds of millions have been paid to victims in legal settlements. Victims also received settlements of $290m from JP Morgan and $75m from Deutsche Bank after lawsuits alleged they had enabled Epstein’s abuse by keeping him as a client.

There are undoubtedly very powerful forces both in the US and Israel determined to underplay these links and Epstein’s role on behalf of Israel. Whether we will ever know the whole truth is a moot point, but there is certainly much more to unearth.