The fallout from Epstein

“It’s amazing how the arrest of a 66-year-old man in Norfolk has raised the spirits of the entire country,” remarked a reader on the letters page of the Guardian this week. “Perhaps a few more arrests are in order.”

The 66-year-old man was Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, until recently known as Prince Andrew in polite circles and as “Randy Andy” in the British gutter press. He was arrested on Feb. 19 for “misconduct in public office,” not for raping an underage girl called Virginia Giuffre in Jeffrey Epstein’s houses in London, New York and the Caribbean.

But at least he was arrested (and immediately released on bail).

Four days later, on Feb. 23, another British notable briefly honoured the inside of a British police station with his presence. It was Peter Mandelson, a renowned “fixer” in British politics and briefly U.K. ambassador to the United States. The charge was the same vague “misconduct in public office,” and he, too, was immediately let out on bail.

But at least he was arrested. Nobody has been arrested in the United States as a result of the release of three million confidential documents belonging to the late financier, convicted pedophile and possible spy Jeffrey Epstein. Nobody at all is doing jail time for it except his partner-in-crime, Ghislaine Maxwell.

It was probably just bad luck that the names of the two British men were not redacted in the Epstein data dump. Their names simply didn’t ring a bell with the 500-plus Department of Justice employees who spent several months redacting the names of prominent American men who had availed themselves of Epstein’s various services.

As for Epstein’s vast network of information exchanges (which would also have served Epstein’s work as a spy if he really was one), the case may remain open forever. We are left only with speculation — so let’s speculate.

Start with the recent remark of U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, billionaire pal of President Donald Trump, that Jeffrey Epstein was “the greatest blackmailer ever.” Blackmail is usually about money, but it can also be for information.

From the guest-lists at his various houses of ill repute, it’s clear that many of Epstein’s guests were chosen as sources of information or ways of reaching other potential informants rather than just because they were filthy rich. And if they were vulnerable to being blackmailed, it was often because Epstein had taken the trouble to give them guilty secrets.

Why would he do all that? It seems too elaborate if Epstein’s intention was just to create a modern version of the Hellfire Club (look it up), but it was the ideal tool if his intention was to gain access to a wide selection of powerful and well-informed Americans.

Some of them just wanted free holidays, some of them wanted to rub shoulders with other famous people, some of them wanted to have sex with underage girls. Whatever their tastes, Epstein satisfied them.

So what intelligence agency would have the greatest interest in knowing America’s secrets, including especially political and commercial secrets? Well, the leading candidate is obviously the one that is most dependent on American support in almost every aspect of its existence: Israel.

How would the Israelis have recruited Epstein, if they did? Through Ghislaine Maxwell, whose father Robert had worked closely with the Israeli spy agency Mossad. She moved to New York and linked up with Epstein shortly after her father died.

Does this prove that Epstein worked as an Israeli spy? Of course not, but it certainly makes him a candidate for the role. If he did, it’s not such a big deal: Israel has always had spies in America. Jonathan Pollard was caught in the 1980s and spent 30 years in prison. Lawrence Franklin was caught in 2006 and sentenced to 13 years (but released very early).

There were doubtless other spies for Israel who did not get caught: these are almost routine transactions, although the unlucky ones who get caught pay a price. If Epstein was gathering sensitive but not officially secret information, he probably was not even breaking U.S. law. But we’ll never know unless Maxwell does a deal under some later administration.

Gwynne Dyer’s new book is Intervention Earth: Life-Saving Ideas from the World’s Climate Engineers.