this post was submitted on 21 Feb 2026
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[–] phutatorius@lemmy.zip 1 points 1 day ago

The establishment is trying to turn this into a russian thing

There's a lot of evidence that Epstein was in frequent contact with Russians, though there's also evidence that his attempts to establish higher-level contacts weren't successful. His interactions with the Isrraelis seem to have been at a higher level, but Israel's a much smaller state than Russia, so the levels of bureaucracy are probably fewer. There's nothing so far in the files that connects him to US intelligence TLAs, though it's entirely plausible that any such evidence would be removed. Regardless, drawing hard conclusions at this stage about the details of his affiliations to various spooks is circumstantial, at best. Based on what I've been able to learn so far, your conclusion about it being a Mossad honeypot is believable. But we'll see.

which is a great betrayal of their mission, an executable offense

Intelligence agencies often share or trade intel. That's especially true for allies, which Israel nominally is (though I'd say they don't act like one), but it can even happen with agencies of hostile states if they have a common objective. It's not treason unless it's unauthorized disclosure of damaging information to a hostile power. Even then, it's more common to charge such people with espionage.

and carries a death sentence to hear the president talk about it

He's a liar and an idiot.

Another possibility to consider is that Epstein's operation wasn't run by the CIA, but that it was monitored closely by one or another of the many US intelligence agencies, most of which are not forbidden to operate Stateside.

Regardless, I'm inclined to accept the interpretation that the sweetheart deal happened because Epstein had some kind of high-level US government protection. Informant, asset, useful but unknowing source? That part we might never know.