By Johnny Vedmore via NEWSPASTE Original
Jeffrey Epstein was a man of a thousand faces. He is best known today as a prolific pedophile child trafficker, but the public has been presented with this very simplistic depiction of his complex operation for a reason. Epstein wasn’t only grooming girls, he was also grooming potential future leaders in business, politics, and intelligence. With targets such as Bill Clinton, Ehud Barak, RFK Jr. and Prince Andrew in his sights, it’s clear that Jeffrey Epstein was playing a game of espionage and dynasty.
N.B. This series has been adapted from the notes I made while helping with the research for “One Nation Under Blackmail Volume 2” by Whitney Web
As was discussed in part four of the Epstein 101 series, Jeffrey Epstein felt that he had significantly exposed his entire operation in 2002 when he began traveling around the world publicly with former-President Clinton. At the time, Epstein may have seemed flippant about the sudden increase in public attention and speculation, however, this exposure signaled the beginning of the end for not only his more public ventures and associations, but also his life, too.
In this article, we will be examining Epstein’s close relationships with some of the high level prey which his influence operation targeted, powerful players such as potential future president Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and the troubled British royal, Prince Andrew. We will also examine some of his close ties to Israeli and American intelligence agencies and their operatives, people such as Ehud Barak, Nicole Junkermann and Peter Thiel.
Jeffrey Epstein was a significant piece on a 3-dimensional chessboard. Regardless of his eventual comeuppance, he had become a grand master at all the various games in which he involved himself, and his actions were not limited to child trafficking.
Epstein, Junkermann and the Mossad
Epstein and Maxwell may have based themselves mostly in the United States of America, but the fact remains that they were both heavily linked to Israeli state intelligence. As well as their courting of the former-president of America, Epstein and Maxwell had also forged significant bonds with Ehud Barak, the 10th Prime Minister of Israel.
Barak had previously forged a career as a lieutenant general in the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF). From the early 1990s, Barak became the Chief of General Staff, serving until 1995, and later that same year he became Minister of Foreign Affairs. Barak was elected as the Prime Minister of Israel on 6 July 1999, leaving the office on 7 March 2001, also making himself Minister of Defense during this period. When the attacks on 11 September 2001 rocked the world, Barak was one of the first people to appear on television immediately after the attacks to name Osama bin Laden as the prime suspect, making the Al-Qaeda leader public enemy number one.
The former-Israeli Prime Minister also appeared in Epstein’s ‘little black book’ alongside other political grandees such as Tony Blair, Donald Trump and Bill Clinton. However, Epstein’s relationship with Ehud Barak appears to be as close, if not closer, than any other relationship he had previously formed.
There is one very wealthy and powerful female in particular who had joint business ties to both Jeffrey Epstein and Ehud Barak. This powerful German business woman was also recorded on the Lolita Express during the periods we’ve been examining in the Epstein 101 series. Three weeks before Epstein and Clinton flew out to Africa, his private plane’s flight logs recorded the second flight that year to include Nicole Junkermann, who is now also known as Countess Brachetti Paretti since marrying the Italian head of API Oil, Ferdinando Brachetti Paretti. During the mid-90s, Junkermann was a super model represented by Elite Model Management – the same modeling agency in which Epstein and Maxwell’s friend Naomi Campbell also worked for – but Junkermann was also a very talented business woman who had a peculiar amount of access to the wealthy elites from a young age. It is unclear when the glamorous German model-turned-business-woman originally connected with Epstein, but Junkermann had attended Harvard during a period when Epstein was attempting to financially tie himself to the elite university.
One of the reasons for Nicole Junkermann’s second trip on Epstein’s party plane being so notable is that, for once, Epstein’s ‘Lolita Express’ appeared to be missing not only the ‘Lolitas’, but the party too. In fact, the available flight logs for the period between 1999 and 2003 reveal that Epstein nearly always flew with members of his usual entourage. He mainly used his infamous airplane to take himself and his team to a range of locations, or he sometimes had the plane pick up a friend or colleague, such as Alan Dershowitz, so that they could be brought to wherever he was located at the time. Normally, Epstein was accompanied by Ghislaine Maxwell or another of his close associates whenever he had a guest on the plane, but Nicole Junkermann was different.
On 31 August 2002, Epstein and Junkermann were recorded flying on their own from Paris, France, on to Birmingham in the United Kingdom, returning two days later on the 2 September 2002. In a series of articles starting from 2019, where I investigated the relationship between Jeffrey Epstein and Nicole Junkermann, I first revealed some of the details of a previously unreported meeting at a Wexner property in England, between Epstein, Junkermann, another unnamed woman and two sitting United States senators.
I had initially revealed the extremely interesting career of Nicole Junkermann in an article entitled, The Epstein Associate Nobody’s Talking About: The IDF-Linked Bond Girl Infiltrating the UK NHS. Junkermann had become a tech entrepreneur partly with the help of a man named Robert Louis-Dreyfus who was the boss of Adidas, a brand the Louis-Dreyfus family controlled. It was the second in my Junkermann series, where I was able to unravel parts of the mysterious and previously unreported visit by Epstein and Junkermann to the UK.i
The pair are shown on flight logs arriving at Birmingham Airport on Friday, 31 August 2002, where they were flown by a Bristow’s helicopter to the Foxcote House hunting retreat in the countryside of North Warwickshire. The property was officially purchased in around 1999 by Abigail Wexner and was previously owned by a major UK-based retail magnate.ii Its location is also close to the heart of the British Establishment, nearby the North Oxfordshire countryside, where many of the UK elites live.
Jeffrey Epstein and Nicole Junkermann were accompanied at Wexner’s UK hunting retreat by another unnamed female, two unidentified US senators, as well as having hired help, so they were plenty of witnesses. There was also a security detail at the country house made up of a hodgepodge of off-duty and retired Metropolitan Police officers, some private security, as well as an official US Secret Service detail there for the protection of the US senators. After tracking down and making contact with one of the employees who was present during Epstein and Junkermann’s visit to Foxcote House, I was able to obtain an insiders view of the event.
At the time, if someone at Foxcote House wanted internet access they were limited by a very slow dial-up modem connection. During the visit of the US senators the internet had stopped working and they were left unable to stay in communication with Washington and, in turn, this forced the security detail to call out an internet engineer. The meeting, which was clearly supposed to remain a private affair, was now surrounded by hired outsiders who were kept relatively distant from the actual event, but who witnessed the gathering of these very special guests.
A witness who was present on the evening of Saturday 1 September 2002, told me that Jeffrey Epstein came to meet the senators alongside two females. The source claimed that Epstein walked into the meeting with the senators that the evening with one lady on each arm. Both ladies—one being identified as Nicole Junkermann and the other described as an unnamed tall brunette—were glamorously dressed and were escorted by Epstein to the waiting senators. What was actually discussed behind closed doors is unknown, at least to the people who were working that evening, but, while the security personnel were unable to hear the details of the event, they were able to see the participants in almost every room.
When the internet engineer arrived in the evening, he was escorted to the “computer room” of Foxcote House where the security team were located. It was here where he’d have seen a specially built wooden unit comprising of a monitoring system which was setup to capture every room in Foxcote House’s main building, including the bedrooms. Although there weren’t any reports of video recording technology visible, it was clear to everybody present that this was a comprehensive CCTV system capable of chronicling everything that happened at Foxcote House that night.
Junkermann’s association with Epstein didn’t end after they flew out of Birmingham on 2 September 2002. By 2017, Nicole Junkermann had become a big investor in futuristic technology, and she was invested alongside Jeffrey Epstein and Peter Thiel in Ehud Barak’s dystopian Carbyne911 project.iii Carbyne911 described itself as a: “next generation Call Handling platform, supported by a full ecosystem, encompassing advanced IP based communication features, global infrastructure and caller solutions,” and the company is aiming to become a hi-tech proxy call handling contractor for the emergency services in various countries. The Barak-led operation gives the employees at Carbyne911—mainly made up of former members of the IDF’s 8200 cyber-intelligence unit—unfettered access to some of the most sensitive data available to US emergency services.
Originally called Reporty Homeland Security, the companies board members included people such as the neocon Secretary of the US Department of Homeland Security from 2005 to 2009, Michael Chertoff, alongside the former-Commander of the IDF 8200 cyber-intelligence unit, Brigadier General Pinchas Buchris. Although they had originally called themselves Reporty Homeland Security, this name may have resulted in too many questions about why a heavily-linked IDF front company was aiming to take over US homeland security responsibilities, so the company was re-branded Carbyne911 in 2017.iv Soon after, Nicole Junkermannv became a member of the Board of Directors for Carbyne911, remaining in that position until my initial Junkermann exposé brought attention to her and Jeffrey Epstein’s relationship which, by then, was almost two decades old.
Junkermann. Barak, Chertoff, and Thiel seemed unperturbed about doing business with a convicted child molester, continuing to associate with Epstein even after he had been publicly prosecuted. Ehud Barak was still turning up to Epstein’s New York property in 2016, with pictures published by the Daily Mail showing the former-leader of the State of Israel and IDF grandee covering his face as he was witnessed visiting Epstein’s residence in broad daylight.vi
The Royal Connection
It wasn’t only politicians who Epstein’s complex compromise operation targeted, he also successfully infiltrated the British royal family. One could assume that compromising a member of the Windsor family may have been difficult, but the Queen of England’s son, Prince Andrew, was seemingly enticed into Epstein’s orbit by the offer of sex with very young sex slaves. Prince Andrew’s relationship with Epstein was much more than just infiltration for infiltration’s sake. Beginning in 2001, the Duke of York—Prince Andrew’s official title—worked within the UK Trade and Investment which was part of the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. The Duke was at this time the United Kingdom’s Special Representative for International Trade and Investment. This position had previously been occupied by the first cousin of Queen Elizabeth II, Prince Edward, whose official title was the Duke of Kent, and the organization was formerly referred to as the “British Overseas Trade Board”.
As per usual, with any gossip surrounding the British royal family, the mainstream newspapers in the United Kingdom were quick to report on the intriguing relationship between Prince Andrew, Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell. Although the Duke of York and Jeffrey Epstein had forged a very close friendship, the person who had been central to their relationship was Ghislaine Maxwell herself. The reports of this new and flourishing relationship came thick and fast following the turn of the new millennium. In February 2000, the Daily Mail published an article with the long-winded title, So is Fergie trying to show Andy what he’s missing?; As he reaches 40, a new Prince is emerging – one no longer in thrall to his former wife.vii In this article written by Richard Kay and Geoffrey Levy, which has since been deleted from the internet, the authors state:
“For almost a week Andrew had been a guest of ‘A’ list party girl Ghislaine at the Manhattan apartment on the smart Upper East Side she shares with New York property developer Jeffrey Epstein, 50. While in New York, Ghislaine took Andrew to a fashion show, at the headquarters of designer Ralph Lauren. The Prince even went backstage afterwards and chatted with the models. He looked remarkably comfortable among the willowy creatures, especially as the once-portly Prince – privately known among Buckingham Palace staff as ‘three puddings’ – has shed some weight.”
The often sweaty and overweight Prince Andrew was starting a new life as a bachelor four years after his well-publicized divorce from Sarah Ferguson, and his sudden extrovert behavior attracted the attention of the insatiable UK gossip columns. There is also some more-superficial evidence suggesting that Prince Andrew had an even closer relationship with Ghislaine Maxwell than what was known to the public. In another article, from 22 April 2000, which has again since been deleted online, titled, The romantic lunch; Holding hands across a table, Maxwell’s daughter and Prince Andrew,viii Daily Mail reporter Richard Kay suggests in the headline that the relationship between Robert Maxwell’s favorite daughter and the Queen’s favorite son was actually a blossoming romance. Yet the article does go on to state clearly:
“His [Andrew’s] relationship with Ghislaine, they maintain, is platonic.”
Regardless of this statement, their relationship had started to raise eyebrows among those who were observing the pair during this period. In November of the same year, as the latter article was published, a Sunday Times piece which begins by describing Maxwell as: “Ghislaine Maxwell, ruler of a transatlantic set,” quotes an ‘American acquaintance’ of Maxwell, who reportedly said:
“The reason she has men eating out of her hand is she managed to make them feel sexy and fascinating.”
The same unnamed source is also quoted as stating:
“She’s an outrageous flirt and fascinated by dodgy powerful men. It’s all part of her Electra complex.”
That same article, entitled, Mysterious business of the queen of NY-Lon,ix and written by Saskia Sissons, goes on to explain:
“The surprise addition to Ghislaine’s NY-Lon circle is Prince Andrew who since he turned 40 earlier this year has been increasingly drawn to her social orbit, accompanying her on a hectic schedule of private parties and celebrity functions here and in America.”
Articles from this period also suggests that Epstein and Maxwell kept a close-knit social circle, with the Sunday Times also revealing:
“Yet, for all her high-profile appearances on Manhattan’s A-list merry-go round, she is secretive to the point of paranoia and her business affairs are deeply mysterious.”
The article went on to quote a Buckingham Palace spokesman as saying:
“They’re good friends and they’ve known each other for a long time. I believe they were introduced by the Duchess of York.”
During this time, Prince Andrew began to gain a poor reputation for himself, especially within the UK printed media. His wilder behavior had also brought more media attention to not only himself, but also to Maxwell and Epstein’s wider operation. Maxwell wasn’t only introducing the notoriously sweaty Prince Andrew to super models, he was also indulging in an extreme Playboy-like lifestyle which had previously been out of his reach. A Daily Mail article from 5 January 2001 spoke of Ghislaine Maxwell’s relationship with the Duke of York:x
“A great deal more sophisticated than the Prince, she introduced him to a raunchy international lifestyle. Suddenly he started falling out of Soho’s China White nightclub at 2:30am with another PR girl, Caroline Stanbury, and turning up with Ghislaine at an unbecoming ‘hookers and pimps’ Halloween party in New York.”
The article also gave a notable mention to illicit activity at events which Andrew and Ghislaine were regularly attending, stating:
“On a visit to Los Angeles he pitched up at another party where a number of guests were known drug users.”
To decipher why Maxwell and Epstein were focusing in on the Duke of York, one must first understand the assumed level of protection from prosecution that a close association with the British royal family could supposedly offer. Only the Queen herself has official immunity from prosecution in the UK, but except for police warnings for speeding violations given to Princess Anne on a few occasions—eventually leading to her being banned from driving in the 90s—the previous time in which a member of the British royal family has been prosecuted for their crimes was King Charles I during the English Civil War of the 1600s. Even though members of the royal family are not officially exempt from prosecution, there is little-to-no impetus for UK police to act when the royals are accused of criminality.
An example of this is King Charles III, the current occupant of the throne, who has had some very significant associations with serious sex offenders throughout his past, yet no proper investigation has ever emerged. Charles forged various close friendships with people such as the prolific pedophile, Jimmy Savile, as well as various members of the clergy who have since been convicted of sex acts against children. Some of the latter included powerful members of the church Establishment such as the former-Church of England Bishop, Peter Ball, who served only 16 months in prison for offenses against 18 young men.xi
Alongside Charles’ regular association with active pedophiles, another running theme has been the British police force’s unwillingness to investigate him. The royal family have become almost mafioso-like in their ability to avoid any proper and effective legal scrutiny and Ghislaine Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein were happy to associate themselves with Prince Andrew to make it hard, if not impossible, for any potential legal case to be built.
As we are all now well aware, the crimes which Epstein and Maxwell committed left many people labeled as guilty by association, and the duo were prolific in their networking. The pair were linked to royals, world leaders, billionaire businessmen, as well as intelligence assets and mobsters. Maxwell and Epstein knew that by aligning themselves with a range of high level players it made it almost impossible for them to be held legally accountable. In that sense, they were not only protected by their deep intelligence ties, but their defense was also padded out by their association with people such as the Duke of York, who was soon to be commonly referred to as Randy Andy.
By 22 January 2001, the relationship between Prince Andrew, Ghislaine Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein was being labeled for what it really was. In another article which has since been removed from the internet, entitled, Andrew’s Fixer; She’s the daughter of Robert Maxwell and she’s manipulating his jetset lifestyle,xii the Evening Standard journalist Nigel Rosser notes that both the Queen along with Andrew’s ex-wife, Sarah Ferguson, were “upset” with his “lad-about-the-globe activities”. The Rosser article expresses concerns surrounding the Duke’s behavior and his close relationship with Robert Maxwell’s favorite daughter: “In the past year Andrew has been on eight different breaks with Ghislaine in Britain, America, and Thailand,” writes Rosser, who also notes each of the trips where Andrew and Ghislaine were known to have been together.
Some of these excursions included a holiday at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach alongside Maxwell in February 2000; a fundraising event for the London Symphony Orchestra in New York the following month; trips to New York and Florida in April and May of that year; and a weekend at Windsor Castle for the Queen’s birthday party in June; and three further trips to New York, Sandringham, and Thailand respectively between October 2000 and January 2001.
The aforementioned trip to Sandringham was officially noted in Rosser’s article as being arranged “in honour” of Ghislaine’s 39th birthday. It is also reported in that article, as well as by other journalists during this same period, that Epstein had joined Maxwell and the Duke on at least five of their breaks, including their trips to Mar-a-Lago, Phuket, Sandringham, Florida and Windsor where he had been a guest at the aforementioned birthday party for the Queen. Rosser also states confidently that:
“Ghislaine is now employed by Epstein as a “consultant” at his elegant Madison Avenue offices.”
The latter article was followed by another piece again by Nigel Rosser, a few months later in March 2001xiii – which has also since been deleted from the London Evening Standard’s archive – and both pieces of work have some truly fascinating observations concerning the relationship between Maxwell and Epstein. In the follow up article, entitled, What happened to the Maxwell women, Rosser describes Maxwell’s relationships with Epstein and the Duke in very particular terms, stating:
“Her [Maxwell] role in Epstein’s firm is nebulous, although she is certainly on the payroll, and she is widely regarded in New York as both Epstein and Prince Andrew’s social fixer.”
We know that Maxwell had been “fixing” young girls for Epstein for years, and she was soon to be doing the same for Prince Andrew. According to Rosser’s article, Maxwell was “organising Andrew’s social life in much the same way” as she had for Epstein. Ghislaine Maxwell was also said to have formed a “symbiotic relationship” with Prince Andrew, noting in his article from January 2001 that “wherever Ghislaine is seen with Andrew, Epstein is never far behind.”
Rosser also notes:
“Prince Andrew’s friends can only speculate what Epstein gains from his association with British royals but clearly it can do no harm to his business reputation in New York.”
He goes on to write:
“A friend of the couple said “She is able to entrance anyone she chooses and Epstein can pay for anything anyone wants. She is very manipulative, and winds people round her little finger. The whole Andrew thing is probably being done for Epstein.”
Rosser’s articles are either over embellished tittle-tattle or a real peek behind the scenes at Epstein and Maxwell’s influence operation, regardless of which, Prince Andrew had definitely fallen for their charms. He was reportedly traveling with his own “massage mattress” and within a period of just over a year, Andrew had become known as a prince who loved to party.
Soon after these revealing articles were released, the Queen’s favorite son was officially installed as the United Kingdom’s Special Representative for International Trade and Investment (UKTI). This position may have also been a reason for Epstein and Maxwell’s forging of closer ties with Prince Andrew. In this official position, Andrew began doing business with executives from some of the worlds most powerful companies and major global politicians, as well as those from both sides of the United Kingdom’s parliamentary aisles. Prince Andrew was not only going to be traveling the length and breadth of the United Kingdom in his new role, this position also saw him go global.xiv For instance, in 2004 alone, the Duke of York’s own website stated that Prince Andrew undertook “around 300 UKTI engagements including 148 calls or visits in the UK and 152 overseas.”xv
One of the most important facts to consider when looking at Prince Andrew’s behavior during this time, especially in relation to his close friendship with the globetrotting duo of child trafficking pedophiles, is that he was also an active patron of various children’s charities. For instance, while Prince Andrew and Ghislaine Maxwell were reportedly partying in New York during April 2000, in the same month Andrew also attended a ‘Patron’s Company Lunch’ for the Outward Bound Trust as a trustee, on 14 April 2000, which took place at Buckingham Palace.xvi
Andrew’s association with an educational charity aimed at minors may have also been an attraction for his child trafficking companions, as the Outward Bound Trust “takes more than 25,000 young people each year, many from deprived areas, to climb mountains, sleep under the stars and brave the elements in the wild places of the UK.”xvii
The Duke of York only stepped down from his position as trustee of the Outward Bound Trust in 2019,xviii eventually being replaced by his daughter, Princess Beatrice Elizabeth Mary of York. There has been no official investigation into his behavior during the time he was at the children’s charity.
In August 2019, The Sun quoted a “long-term pal of Prince Andrew” in regards to Prince Andrew’s sex life, saying:
“He doesn’t drink, he doesn’t smoke and he doesn’t take drugs and never has, but sex is his big thing in life. He was known as Randy Andy for a reason when he was younger and it’s never really stopped. Traveling all over the world as the UK trade ambassador and for other royal duties has given him access to some beautiful women and he’s taken full advantage. He is a red-blooded male and, if you like, he is like a sailor with a girl in every port.”xix
Prince Andrew was only able to gain access to beautiful women with the help of so-called “social fixers” such as Ghislaine Maxwell, who were busy pimping out girls to the prince. It wasn’t only young girls who Epstein and Maxwell were using as lures for their operation. In fact, Ghislaine Maxwell appears to have also been using a range of her ‘girlfriends’ to infiltrate, manipulate and control powerful men, and those men were often very happy to be coerced in such a way. Prince Andrew already had some significant relationships with socialites before his marriage to Sarah Ferguson. In 1981, he had dated Dynasty actress Catherine Oxenberg—daughter of Princess Elizabeth of Yugoslavia—followed by a two year relationship with New York based actress Koo Stark.xx
After his marriage to Ferguson fell apart in 1996, Andrew seemingly took some years out before being paired up with the likes of Caroline Stanbury. The latter had dated Prince Andrew in 2000, with The Sun reporting in 2017 that the Duke of York had “even took her to a Martha’s Vineyard Gala with Bill and Hillary Clinton, but the pair split supposedly due to the continued press attention focused on their relationship.”
Stanbury was also previously reported as dating Hugh Grant, Sylvester Stallone, and had even been spotted out and about with Welsh soccer rogue Ryan Giggs.xxi Both Koo Stark and Caroline Stanbury also appeared in Epstein’s ‘Little Black Book’ with Catherine Oxenberg’s sister, Christina, being listed, too. It is very clear that the Duke of York and Ghislaine Maxwell had grown up in the same social waters, and by the new millennium, Prince Andrew had come to embrace his “Randy Andy” persona. Later on, in 2006/07, the Duke of York also dated Angie Everhart, who was also listed in Epstein’s address book. Another name strongly linked with Prince Andrew who was also in Epstein’s list of contacts was Andrew’s ex-wife the Duchess of York, Sarah Ferguson.
Another privileged and titled associate of Epstein and Maxwell’s was Clare Hazell, the British Countess. Also referred to as Lady Iveagh, Hazell was recorded as flying over 30 times on the ‘Lolita Express’ between 1998 and 2000. She was eventually forced to stand down from her role at the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children because of her links to the billionaire pedophile. The Daily Mail’s Mark Hookham and Andrew Young reported in July 2020 that Hazell’s involvement with Epstein and Maxwell’s sophisticated trafficking operation included trips to Epstein’s homes in New York, Florida, the Caribbean and New Mexico.xxii
Clare Iveagh married into the famous Guinness brewing family in 2001, but Ms. Hazell also had previous links to the states, studying at Ohio State University in the 1990s and reportedly having her own modeling agency while she was living in an apartment in Columbus, Ohio.xxiii In a Daily Mail article from 2020 a friend of Lady Iveagh described her as “being at Epstein’s ‘beck and call’, saying how mutual plans would be canceled immediately if she was needed by Epstein and Maxwell.”
A Dance with Dynasty
Epstein targeted more than just former-prime ministers and past-presidents, he was also looking towards the future, and he had a better view than most of the inner workings of the US Democratic Party.
Epstein may have formed a close relationship with President Clinton while he was in the White House, however, even back then, he was clearly focused on publicly supporting the most likely future candidates to be involved in American presidential races. Before the 2000 presidential election, Epstein had donated to Joe Lieberman who was eventually Al Gore’s running mate against George W. Bush, but Lieberman wasn’t Gore’s only potential running mate before the election. As mentioned in the previous Epstein 101, before he had become hit by various controversies, Bill Richardson, the former-member of the US House of Representatives for New Mexico’s 3rd district from between 1983 until 1997, had also been a potential candidate. Epstein formed a close relationship with Bill Richardson, and with him and Lieberman being the most likely running mates alongside Al Gore, Epstein had spread his bets, something he did consistently when choosing who within the Democratic Party to support.
The 2004 presidential election, which followed the Gore/Bush spectacle, saw another Epstein supported candidate selected to oppose the sitting Republican president. Senator John Kerry was eventually chosen as the Democratic Party’s nomination for president and he had also received several donations from Jeffrey Epstein between 1991 and 2002.
Robert Maxwell had wanted to increase his own family’s dynastic legacy by merging them with another powerful family from elite circles, and the Kennedys were definitely high on Maxwell’s list of potential dynastic matches. It has been reported that Ghislaine Maxwell had a sexual relationship with John F. Kennedy Jr., with OK! Magazine reporting on 10 August 2020 that a source claimed:
“It happened in the early 1990s soon after Ghislaine had started to establish herself on the New York social scene. He went to her house after a political event and she routinely would drop into conversation. Who wouldn’t, right?”
Since the assassinations of John F. Kennedy and Robert F. Kennedy, many of the Kennedys had become involved in politics, but no Kennedy had yet emerged with a significant chance of gaining the Democratic Party nomination for a presidential run, until now.
In 2023, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the son of Robert F. Kennedy and the nephew of John F. Kennedy, officially entered himself as a candidate for the 2024 presidential election. Many people know that RFK Jr. has struggled with drug addiction and has lived a wild party lifestyle when he was younger, but by the 90s, the young Kennedy was already making a name for himself as a hot-shot environmental lawyer. He was reforming his image and looking towards creating his legacy, but he was also hanging around in the elite circles which gave rise to Jeffrey Epstein and his ilk.
Epstein and Maxwell had started courting Robert F. Kennedy Jr. very early on in their operation. There are various pieces of evidence which strongly suggest that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. had a relatively close relationship with Epstein before and after Epstein’s original conviction. A photo reportedly taken in February 1994 shows Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his late wife, Mary Kennedy, sitting on the same table as Jeffrey Epstein during a New York Academy of Art Benefit. The date of that benefit also lines up with RFK Jr.’s appearance on the flight logs of the Lolita Express, also in February of that year. Bobby Kennedy is noted as flying alongside Epstein and others from Teterboro Airport in New Jersey, traveling to Palm Beach on 17 February 1994. He is then recorded again on 27 February 1994 flying from Palm Beach back to Teterboro Airport, along with Epstein, Maxwell and others.
Accompanying Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Jeffrey Epstein on the Lolita Express for their trip to the New York Academy of Art benefit was Mary Kennedy, RFK Jr.’s late wife. Tragically, Mary Richardson Kennedy took her own life on 16 May 2012, hanging herself in an outbuilding on the couples estate located in Bedford, New York. At the time of her death, Mary Kennedy was not only battling alcoholism and depression, but she and Robert were also going through a tense divorce. By the time Mary Kennedy died, RFK Jr. had already begun dating the American Actress, Cheryl Hines. Shortly after her death, a sealed court document was leaked to the press which described Mary Kennedy as an abusive alcoholic who used physical violence against her husband and threatened suicide when she was arguing in front of their children. In a New York Post article written by Isabel Vincent and Melissa Klein, entitled, RFK’s sex diary: His secret journal of affairs, it states:
“Kennedy said in the affidavit that by 2001 he had “lost hope” in his marriage and was “committing numerous infidelities to keep my sanity,” according to a published report. But his journal paints a different picture. He barely mentions his wife’s emotional problems, making just a passing reference to her struggles with depression.”
In 2001, RFK Jr. was arrested during a protest against US Navy bombing exercises on Vieques island in Puerto Rico. Kennedy was jailed for a short period at San Juan’s federal Metropolitan Detention Center while Mary was about to give birth to his 6th child. The aforementioned New York Post article also revealed various entries from Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s private journals related to this period which conflict with Kennedy’s assertion that he had “lost hope” in his marriage, with the previously mentioned article stating:
“When he is jailed in Puerto Rico, he writes on July 8 that “I finally spoke to my wonderful wife and that was a joy. She is very strong and cheerful.” The couple’s son, Aiden, was born just days later. He writes: “I’m so proud of my Mary. She has become the woman I fell in love with — through hard work. She has overcome her fears, enshrined her faith, abandoned self-pity and blame and immersed herself in gratitude and God gave her a baby . . . a beautiful and serene and happy soul. I am so happy. I couldn’t be happier or more grateful for the life and the wife God has given me.”
However, not all marriages work and RFK Jr. and Mary Kennedy’s relationship always appeared to be heading towards a dramatic finale. Whether or not the numerous infidelities which RFK Jr. mentioned in his affidavit were related to his association with Epstein and Maxwell in anyway, it is clear that during this period Kennedy was putting himself in situations where such opportunities were available. Other more salacious reports described RFK in altogether different terms, such as the MailOnline article entitled, How serial cheater Bobby Kennedy Jr ‘exposed himself around the house, demanded a ménage à trois with tragic wife Mary – and told her things would be easier if she killed herself after he went public with Cheryl Hines’. The article by Jerry Oppenheimer opens by stating:
“Of all the Kennedy men – most known to be notorious womanizers – Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. had the most wives (three) and an untold number of sexual liaisons. His sex and drug addiction problems lasted for years. In his private diary, he called his obsession with women his ‘lust demons’.”
Kennedy had surrounded himself with other men who could also be described as having “lust demons”. RFK Jr. and the many other powerful men connected to Epstein and Maxwell were all swimming in very similar circles. On 27 January 2015, the New York Daily News reported on Epstein’s former-handyman Juan Alessi’s court appearance. The article, written by Dareh Gregorian, stated that:
“Alessi testified that he went to work for Epstein in 1999, and celebrities would often come to visit his boss, including Robert F. Kennedy Jr, then-Sen. George Mitchell, Donald Trump and Nobel Prize winners whose names he couldn’t remember.”
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. may have mingled in circles with preferential pedophiles such as Epstein and Maxwell during this period, but so far there is zero evidence suggesting RFK Jr. had the same proclivity for underage female sexual companions as the child trafficking duo.
It’s not yet possible for us to know how close RFK Jr. was to Jeffrey Epstein, or how much he actually knew about Epstein’s wider operation. But the longer that men like RFK Jr. associated with Epstein and Maxwell, the more chance they had of being compromised. Even though some people turned away from the pair after Epstein’s initial arrest, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was still connected to Ghislaine Maxwell as late as 5 June 2014, where he was pictured attending the ‘StarTalk Live! Water World’ panel discussion and reception which was held at Ghislaine Maxwell’s New York residence.
Influential Protection
There are many reasons why Epstein and Maxwell found it beneficial to align themselves with the powerful and wealthy men and women who have been covered in this part of the Epstein 101 series. However, there is one main reason in particular why making such associations was vital to the success of their criminal enterprise. Epstein and Maxwell knew that their freedom relied on their ability to avoid, scrutiny, official investigations and eventual prosecution. Even though they had managed to run a successful influence operation for over a decade without any official body investigating their behavior, they must have known that their associations with the rich and famous was to lead to more questions concerning their wild behavior.
It was already well known that Ghislaine Maxwell’s father had links to the Israeli Mossad, as well as other western intelligence agencies, and by the year 2000, these links were being explored by journalists who had become intrigued by the Epstein/Maxwell dynamic. One of the ways they protected themselves from official scrutiny was by surrounding themselves with associates who were nigh-on-impossible to prosecute. The Clinton’s are an excellent example of the assured protection which Epstein and Maxwell had gained throughout the peak of their operation. But that relationship only saw them protected from immediate prosecution in America.
There were three countries in particular where Epstein and Maxwell required such protection, America, Britain and Israel, and if you examine who their closest connections were, it is very easy to see why they concentrated on forming certain relationships. For instance, their close association with the Clinton’s protected their American interests and activities, their courting and influence operation targeting Prince Andrew protected their British-based enterprise, and their close ties with Ehud Barak allowed them protection from investigation in Israel.
The Epstein and Maxwell operations were never as simplistic as many people assume, with most believing that they lured in powerful men with underage girls to compromise those targets by making secret recordings of their sexual encounters. Those powerful men were then supposedly blackmailed for the benefit of the wider operation or for their allies. In fact, many of the reports of compromising video recordings are impossible to confirm and are generally based on unverifiable rumors rather than evidence. Many victims reports that there was a lot of illicit and illegal sexual behavior taking place within Epstein’s operation, and that many powerful people were in some way compromised by partaking in such behavior.
Rather than veritable sex slaves simply being used to entrap and then extort these powerful actors, many of the targets were actually very willing to participate. They were happy to agree with whatever Epstein and Maxwell wanted because they knew that it would be a benefit to their careers to do so. The vast majority of the young girls who were groomed and abused within Epstein’s operation were mostly to feed Epstein’s personal sex drive. It was only a very small number of Epstein’s young female victims who were being trafficked and abused by Epstein’s associates. Regardless, the lure of sexual encounters with young girls assured that these men returned to what was clearly an intelligence operation.
It is also clear that, by framing the girls as trained massage therapists, even the wives of those targeted by Epstein and Maxwell seemed to be comfortable flying on the Lolita Express along with their partners. This was an operation which was extremely complex, multifaceted, and very flexible. This is why the Epstein/Maxwell operation is probably best described as an ‘influence operation’ rather than a ‘sex compromise operation’. Although many believe that extortion and blackmail were central to their endeavors, both of those activities were implied, rather than directly implemented as a first port-of-call. When any of these powerful people engaged in illegal sexual activities, it often tied their fates to those of Epstein and Maxwell. If either of them became legally compromised, then the entire house of cards could fall, and fall it did.
However untouchable Epstein and Maxwell became during the peak of their operation, eventually it was undermined, but not by their various close associations with wealthy and powerful people. Their enterprise was eventually undone by the simple fact that Jeffrey Epstein was a pedophile who was offending on a daily basis. As soon as enough parents had complained about their daughters being abused and raped by the pedophile billionaire, the authorities began to take notice, and eventually this destroyed any cover which Epstein and Maxwell had built-up throughout the entirety of their sophisticated influence operation.
Regardless of their close ties to Jeffrey Epstein, the Clinton’s have remained untouchable. Most of the politicians who became involved in their various operations have never properly been investigated or held to account, and any attempt to prosecute them has been extremely limited in both scale and scope.
Epstein and Maxwell were right to believe their associates were almost completely untouchable, but they were wrong to think that forming close relationships with these powerful people could assure them protection from prosecution.
Prepare yourself for the next series in the Epstein saga due to be released on NEWSPASTE next week, a series which will change the entire face of the Epstein case. Support NEWSPASTE so that we can continue producing the journalism which is needed to fill the void.
iJohnny Vedmore, 18 July 2019: The Epstein Associate Nobody’s Talking About: The IDF-Linked Bond Girl Infiltrating the UK NHS. UnlimitedHangout.
iiAdam Luck and Robert Mendick, 24 October 2015: Billionaire tycoon behind Victoria’s Secret ‘keeps his multi-million Cotswolds estate away from prying eyes’. Telegraph.co.uk.
iiiDeniz Çam and Thomas Brewster 17 March 2020:To Fight Coronavirus, This City Is Asking 911 Callers To Agree To Self Surveillance. Forbes.com.
ivReporty Homeland Security, 25 May 2016: Reporty – The Team. Reporty.com.
vCarbyne911, 14 August 2019: Board of Directors Nicole Junkermann Page. Carbyne911.com.
viJoel Christie and Laura Collins, 18 January 2016: EXCLUSIVE: The busy life of Jeffrey Epstein: Group of gorgeous Manhattan ‘it’ girls in and out of the billionaire sex offender’s mansion before Clinton pal flies off in private jet with comely brunette. DailyMail.co.uk.
viiRichard Kay and Geoffrey Levy, 12 February 2000: So is Fergie trying to show Andy what he’s missing?; As he reaches 40, a new Prince is emerging – one no longer in thrall to his former wife. DailyMail (Not Online)
viiiRichard Kay, 22 April 2000: The romantic lunch; Holding hands across a table, Maxwell’s daughter and Prince Andrew. DailyMail (Not Online)
ixSaskia Sisson’s, 12 November 2000: Mysterious business of the queen of NY-Lon. SundayTimes (Not Online)
xIngrid Seward, 5 January 2001: Blundering out from Sarah’s shadow and into a midlife crisis. DailyMail (Not Online)
xiHarriet Sherwood, 23 June 2019: Peter Ball, former C of E bishop jailed for sexual abuse, dies at 87. TheGuardian.com.
xiiNigel Rosser, 22 January 2001: Andrew’s Fixer; She’s the daughter of Robert Maxwell and she’s manipulating his jetset lifestyle. LondonEveningStandard (Not Online)
xiiiNigel Rosser, 30 March 2001: What happened to the Maxwell women. TheLondonEveningStandard (Not Online)
xivThe Duke of York, 26 August 2007: His Royal Highness’s UKTI engagements in 2007. thedukeofyork.org
xvThe Duke of York, 26 August 2007: 10 facts about The Duke of York and UK trade and investment. thedukeofyork.org.
xviBuckingham Palace Royal Diary, 10 May 2000 (Archived): No. 12/2000 ROYAL DIARY – PART ONE OF THREE PARTS 12th April, 2000. Porch.ccta.gov.uk.
xviiClare Balding BBC Appeal, 17 January 2022: The Outward Bound Trust. BBC Radio 4.
xviiiTelegraph reporters, 21 November 2019: Prince Andrew resigns from Outward Bound Trust as aides confirm he will continue working for Pitch@Palace. TheTelegraph.co.uk.
xixDan Wotten, 23 August 2019: RANDY OLD DUKE OF YORK Prince Andrew ‘has had more than 1,000 lovers’ but does not sleep with teenagers, close friends claim. TheSun.co.uk.
xxLauren Hubbard, 21 November 2020: Who is Koo Stark, Prince Andrew’s American Girlfriend Mentioned on The Crown? TownAndCountryMag.com.
xxiHelen Thomas, 6 April 2017: LONDON LADY Who is Caroline Stanbury? Star of Ladies of London and ex-girlfriend of Prince Andrew – all you need to know. TheSun.co.uk.
xxiiMark Hookham and Andrew Young, 18 July 2020: Countess who took 30 flights on paedophile’s ‘Lolita Express’ quits NSPCC: Lady Iveagh flew with Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell on trip to private island. MailOnSunday.
xxiiiTim Stickings, 2 July 2020: Epstein investigators ‘want to talk to’ Guinness family aristocrat who flew on infamous Lolita Express 32 times – following arrest of pedophile’s ‘pimp’ Ghislane Maxwell. MailOnline.
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