at the
White House, September 1993 (with
Ghislaine Maxwell in the background on the right) In 2002, Epstein said: "I invest in people — be it politics or science. It's what I do." From 1989 until 2003, Epstein donated more than $139,000 to
Democratic Party federal candidates and committees and over $18,000 to
Republican Party candidates and groups. Epstein contributed $10,000 to refurbish the West Wing of the White House in 1993, which bought him and Maxwell photos with Bill Clinton. He was noted for his contributions to senators
Al D'Amato and
George J. Mitchell. In 2018, Epstein contributed $30,000 to
Stacey Plaskett, the local Democrat Congresswoman of the U.S. Virgin Islands.
Alleged connections to intelligence agencies Epstein was rumored in 2021 by Vicky Ward in
Rolling Stone to be associated with
intelligence agencies, and bragged to a journalist that he knew the owner of the African port of
Djibouti so well that he could use it for contraband. As U.S. attorney in Florida, the later U.S. secretary of labor
Alexander Acosta reached a settlement with Epstein's lawyers in 2008, which allowed him to receive a light prison sentence. Acosta later reportedly stated that he was told that Epstein "belonged to intelligence" and that the issue was above his "pay grade". According to Acosta, he was pushed to give him a good deal. Former
CIA director and diplomat
William J. Burns met with Epstein three times. According to a CIA spokesperson, Burns hoped that Epstein would help him "transition to the private sector". Ghislaine Maxwell told
Todd Blanche in his July 2025 prison interview of her, that tales of Epstein's involvement with intelligence agencies during her relationship with him are "bullshit". Previously Maxwell maintained that Epstein's planes were "wire-tapped" for "leverage" and in conversation with
Christina Oxenberg she speculated that the audio and video recordings could potentially incriminate co-conspirators and high-profile figures who were associates of Epstein.
Israel Journalists
Dylan Howard, Melissa Cronin and James Robertson linked Epstein to the Israeli
Mossad in their book
Epstein: Dead Men Tell No Tales. They relied for the most part on the former Israeli intelligence officer
Ari Ben-Menashe. According to him, Epstein's activities as a spy served to gather compromising material on powerful people in order to
blackmail them. Epstein's victim Virginia Giuffre alleged Epstein to be an intelligence asset, linking on
Twitter to a
Reddit page, that alleged Epstein was a Mossad/CIA spy running a blackmail and
honey pot ring to entrap elite oligarchs. Several debaters argue that it is unlikely that he worked for Mossad. According to emails that came to light in November 2025, an Israeli intelligence officer stayed at Epstein's apartment in Manhattan several times between 2013 and 2016. The emails also showed that Epstein was involved in the negotiation of security agreements between Israel and
Mongolia and between Israel and the
Ivory Coast. Epstein also attempted to establish a backchannel between the Russian and Israeli governments during the
Syrian civil war. The Israeli government installed and operated a security system at an apartment managed by Epstein and used frequently by former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak. The installation was coordinated by Lesley Groff, who wrote that Epstein had approved of the system.
Russia In 2026, Poland's prime minister
Donald Tusk announced that he would like to see an investigation into the "likely" links between Jeffrey Epstein and Russian authorities. Epstein bragged repeatedly about advising "foreign leaders who included Vladimir Putin, Mohammed bin Zayed, Mohammed Bin Salman, various African dictators, Israel, the British — and, of course, the Americans" in the final decade of his life.
John Mark Dougan was the deputy sheriff of Palm Beach County (where Epstein was first arrested) until his dismissal in 2009. He was then recruited by Russian intelligence and worked as a disseminator of
disinformation on behalf of the Russian government. According to British media reports, Dougan may have come into possession of some of Epstein's
kompromat, which he allegedly copied and handed over to Russia. Other intelligence agencies may also have obtained the material.
United States According to a 2025 report by
Drop Site News, Les Wexner and Jeffrey Epstein were involved in relocating
Southern Air Transport (a
CIA front organization with ties to the
Iran-Contra affair and alleged
CIA drug smuggling) from Miami to Columbus in the 1990s. Southern Air transported goods related to Wexner's businesses, but in 1996, Customs agents found a hidden shipment of cocaine on one of the planes. Southern Air was shut down in 1998 after Wexner had received federal aid for the relocation of the airline, just weeks before the
CIA Inspector General released its official findings on
Contra cocaine trafficking allegations. In the 1980s, Epstein himself had close ties to key figures in the Iran-Contra affair, such as
Stanley Pottinger and
Adnan Khashoggi.
Philanthropy In 1991, Epstein was one of four donors who pledged to raise for a
Hillel student building Rosovsky Hall at
Harvard University. In the 1990s Epstein donated $10,000 to the
White House Historical Association. The actual amount received from Epstein was . Epstein was friends with and funded
Gerald Edelman,
Stephen Kosslyn,
Danny Hillis, According to attorney
Gerald B. Lefcourt, Epstein was "part of the original group that conceived of the
Clinton Global Initiative", and in 2006 donated $25,000 to the
Clinton Foundation. Epstein co-organized a science event with illusionist and skeptic
Al Seckel called the Mindshift Conference. The conference took place in 2010 on Epstein's private island Little Saint James. The true extent of Epstein's donations is unknown. The Jeffrey Epstein VI Foundation fails to disclose information which other charities routinely disclose. In 2015, the
attorney general of the state of New York was reported to be trying to gain information but was refused since the charities were based outside of the state and did not solicit in
New York State. According to a
New York Times investigation, an Epstein-owned charity donated $2.3 million to former Israeli prime minister
Ehud Barak between 2004 and 2006, and invested $1 million in a partnership with Barak in 2015. It was reported that Barak met with Epstein "dozens of times" from 2013 onwards. Epstein, besides making donations through the Jeffrey Epstein VI Foundation, made charitable donations through his three private charities: Epstein Interest, the COUQ Foundation, and Gratitude America Ltd. According to federal tax filings, Epstein donated $30million between 1998 and 2018, through these charities. Following his death, several scientists and institutions—including Harvard University and
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)—came under criticism for accepting money from Epstein, with some offering to give away money donated by Epstein.
Interest in eugenics and transhumanism Beginning in the early-2000s Epstein developed an interest in "improving" the human race through
genetic engineering and
artificial intelligence, including using his own sperm. He addressed the scientific community at various events and occasions and communicated his fascination with
eugenics. It was reported in 2019 that Epstein had planned to "seed the human race with his
DNA" by impregnating up to 20 women using his property
Zorro Ranch in New Mexico as a "baby ranch", where mothers would give birth to his offspring. He was an advocate of
cryonics and his idiosyncratic version of
transhumanism, and said he intended to have his penis and head frozen. In response to the Jeffrey Epstein VI Foundation donations,
Kathleen Hall Jamieson, director of the
Annenberg Public Policy Center at the
University of Pennsylvania said: "Scientists need funding for important work ... if the funding is for legitimate scientific work, there is nothing wrong with accepting support from a billionaire. However it would have been wrong for scientists to accept his funding if they were aware that he was planning a eugenics experiment that might draw legitimacy from his association with them." Professor
George Church apologized for meeting Epstein after his 13-month sentence in 2009, saying: "There should have been more conversations about, should we be doing this, should we be helping this guy? There was just a lot of nerd
tunnel vision." == Audio recordings ==