Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche on Friday said evidence the federal government possesses doesn’t indicate Jeffrey Epstein was a spy.
“All I know is that we don’t have any evidence in the Epstein files that the FBI collected over 15 years that suggests that,” Blanche said during a Fox News interview.
Blanche’s statement comes amid a flurry of speculation that Epstein worked for the CIA or another intelligence agency. Fringes on the Right, such as Candace Owens and Tucker Carlson, have suggested the Israeli government used Epstein as an intelligence asset before the New York financier died in a prison cell in 2019.
Blanche ascended to the top of the Justice Department this week after President Donald Trump fired Attorney General Pam Bondi on Thursday. Her exit came amid intense criticism from Democrats and a few Republicans, such as Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), surrounding the government’s investigation into Epstein’s life, particularly regarding the release of millions of federal files about him.
Theories about Epstein’s identity and origin have spread for years, particularly after critics questioned the circumstances of his death, which was ruled a suicide by authorities. The New Yorker held close connections to the world’s elite, including in the scientific, technological, academic, business, and cultural circles. In the political world, Epstein also held sway, mingling with former President Bill Clinton, former President Barack Obama’s White House counsel, and being friendly with President Donald Trump before their relationship ended in the early 2000s.
“I have no idea if he was a spy,” Blanche said Friday of Epstein. “I wasn’t — I don’t know. I wasn’t part of the original prosecution team. Neither was Attorney General [Pam] Bondi.”
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Epstein’s business origins are hazy, with media accounts in the early 2000s painting him as a highly-regarded “international moneyman of mystery,” and one prominent investor telling New York Magazine in 2002 that “It’s like looking at the Wizard of Oz – there may be less there than meets the eye.”
The House oversight committee requested last month that one of Epstein’s two prison guards deliver testimony to lawmakers surrounding his death. Tova Noel googled “latest on Epstein in jail” twice, minutes before he was discovered dead in his cell, and was later fired from her job after admitting to falsifying records to say she checked on Epstein throughout the night before his death, according to prosecutors.
