Vance says Epstein 'seemed to be connected' to elements of 'Israeli deep state,' American intelligence
'Epstein seemed to be connected to the elements of the
Israeli deep state that were left of center,' says US vice president
Rabia Iclal Turan
15 July 2026•Update: 16 July 2026
WASHINGTON
US Vice President JD Vance said Wednesday that
disgraced late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein "seemed to be connected"
to elements of the "Israeli deep state" as well as the "highest
levels of American intelligence," while also acknowledging the Trump
administration mishandled its response to the case.
Asked on "The Joe Rogan Experience" podcast
that most people think that Epstein was linked to Israel's Mossad intelligence
agency, Vance replied, “Yeah, Mossad or CIA or some other deep state, whether
in America, Israel, or another country.”
“He clearly had connections to
the upper, the highest levels of American intelligence. He clearly had
connections to the highest levels of Israeli intelligence,” he said.
He added that he found the
Epstein case "interesting" because, "as much as I know,
(Israeli) Prime Minister Netanyahu, not a particularly popular person in the
United States of America right now, Epstein seemed to be connected to the elements
of the Israeli deep state that were left of center."
"It wasn't like he was
super connected to the right of center of Israeli politics. America, he was
connected across the board. Like he had Republican friends, he had Democratic
friends. He had much deeper connections to the Israeli left of center than
right of center," said Vance.
About the administration's
handling of the Epstein case, Vance said, "If people want to say we
mishandled the Epstein release, guilty. We did mishandle, especially the
communications of it."
"We absolutely screwed up
the comms of the Epstein files," he said.
Asked what should have been
done differently, he said, "I think that we should have just dropped
everything at the very beginning, and obviously takes a little time to review
the stuff, to find the stuff, to redact things where you have victims and so
forth. But we should have just done it as quickly as possible."
The US Justice Department
recently released more than 3 million pages, 2,000 videos and 180,000 images in
January under the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which was signed into law
last November.
Epstein was found dead in his
New York City jail cell in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking
charges. He pleaded guilty in a court in the state of Florida and was convicted
of procuring a minor for prostitution in 2008, but critics call the relatively
minor conviction a “sweetheart deal.”
His victims have alleged that
he operated a sprawling sex trafficking network that was used by members of the
wealthy and political elite.
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