Jeffrey Epstein Ran Sex Blackmail Operation For Intelligence Agencies, New Evidence Suggests Epstein
and Ghislaine Maxwell used a puppet to entrap Prince Andrew, victim claims in unsealed court documents
by @galexybrane & @shellenberger
Ehud Barak, former Israeli Prime Minister and head of military intelligence (left);
Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell (center-left); Prince Andrew (center-right);
and William Burns, Director of the CIA (right). (Getty Images)
The release of new court documents from a lawsuit related to Jeffrey Epstein yesterday “provided little, if any, new fodder for conspiracy theorists who remain fixated on Mr. Epstein’s dealings more than four years after his death,” according to the New York Times. The documents, the Times claimed, reinforced what the public already knew, namely that pedophile financier Epstein and his associate Ghislaine Maxwell made young and often underage women available for sex to powerful men.
In fact, the documents offer new evidence and insight into how Epstein and Maxwell appeared to be blackmailing powerful individuals, albeit to mysterious ends. A judge ordered the release of the court documents, which were from a case brought by Epstein victim Virginia Giuffre against Maxwell in 2015. The parties settled in 2017. Maxwell is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence.
It’s true that some of the information released yesterday had already come to light. Last April, for example, the Wall Street Journal reported that the current director of the Central Intelligence Agency, William Burns, had scheduled three meetings with Epstein in 2014. At the time, Burns was deputy secretary of state. According to the Journal, they met in Washington, D.C., and at Epstein’s townhouse in Manhattan. The Journal based its reporting on Epstein’s own emails and schedules.
In 2019, reporter Vicky Ward for the Daily Beast wrote a story about the Justice Department’s 2007 “non-prosecution agreement” with Epstein. Where others might have gone to prison for similar crimes, Epstein made a deal with the US Attorney’s office and avoided federal prosecution for sexually abusing young girls by pleading guilty to state prostitution charges in Florida. Under this agreement, Epstein avoided a potential life sentence and served only 13 months in a work-release program.
That same year, another of Epstein’s victims alleged that he had cameras in his house to monitor people. That claim lent further credence to the theory that Epstein was collecting compromising material on influential figures.
But the newly unsealed documents include powerful new evidence that Epstein and Maxwell were deliberately blackmailing people. Johanna Sjoberg, another one of Epstein’s victims, recounted that he and Maxwell had created a Prince Andrew puppet for Prince Andrew. They presented it to him and used it to guide him into taking sexual photos with Sjoberg and Giuffre.
“They put the puppet on Virginia’s lap,” Sjoberg testified, “and I sat on Andrew’s lap, and they put the puppet’s hand on Virginia’s breast, and Andrew put his hand on my breast, and they took a photo.”
It is a remarkable passage since Maxwell and Epstein appear to be engaged in a kind of psychological operation, framing Andrew, to himself, as their puppet. Maxwell and Epstein apparently played it off as a joke to Andrew, and he played along, copying his puppet’s behavior and groping Sjoberg.
Epstein’s sex blackmailing also required coercion. Sjoberg testified that Maxwell directed her to have sex with Prince Andrew. Another filing alleges that Jane Doe #3 was “forced to have sexual relations with this prince when she was a minor in three separate geographical locations” and that Epstein told her to “give the prince whatever he demanded and required Jane Doe #3 to report back to him on the details of the sexual abuse.”
The court documents also contain allegations against billionaires Glenn Dubin and Tom Pritzker. Prizker currently serves as the CEO of the Pritzker Organization and as executive chairman of the Hyatt Hotels Corporation and is a member of the Aspen Institute. Giuffre alleges that she had sex with both Dubin and Pritzker under the direction of Maxwell and Epstein.
Johanna Sjoberg, one of Epstein’s victims, said Epstein told her that former President Bill “Clinton likes them young, referring to girls.” White House visitor logs show that Epstein had visited the White House 17 times while Clinton was president, often accompanied by attractive young women.
Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz is also named by Epstein’s house manager, who stated that Dershowitz was at Epstein’s home in Florida “pretty often” and received massages there. Dershowitz has repeatedly denied allegations of misconduct in connection to Epstein and Maxwell.
Other individuals include magician David Copperfield, celebrity hairstylists Frederick Fekkai, deceased former New Mexico governor Bill Richardson, and former president Donald Trump. Trump appears in a document in which Epstein allegedly said he invited Trump to meet him at a casino. In another document, a witness states that she did not see Trump in Epstein’s home.
The Epstein scandal has implicated many powerful people. Melinda Gates told reporters last year that her husband Bill’s connections to Epstein had been part of the reason for her decision to seek a divorce from him. "I did not like that he'd had meetings with Jeffrey Epstein, no," she told Gayle King.
Bill Gates said Epstein tried to blackmail him. “Mr. Gates met with Epstein solely for philanthropic purposes. Having failed repeatedly to draw Mr. Gates beyond these matters, Epstein tried unsuccessfully to leverage a past relationship to threaten Mr. Gates,” a spokeswoman for Gates told the Wall Street Journal last year.
Epstein and Maxwell appear to have been running a large and well-funded blackmail operation. Why would they?