Martin Jay
This latest story has broken new ground in the Daily Mail's preposterous allegations, which appear to have been replicated by other newspapers.
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Recent reports in the UK press alleging that Epstein was the mastermind behind a Russian honey-trap operation, rather than an Israeli one, have begun to emerge, leading to mixed public reactions. Certainly, the "blame Putin" tactic for more or less every failing of the government has become a popular resort for British intelligence agencies - a common narrative fed to journalists that fits many situations and is generally low-hanging fruit at the best of times.
But this latest story, which seems to have been led by the Daily Mail, has broken new ground in its preposterous allegations, which appear to have been replicated by other newspapers.
The epic long-form piece openly admits to the reader that the story is based on the wild imagination of the fake news department in the Ministry of Defence (the department that heavily censors all British journalists' copy before publication - which I have written about before). Yet despite the entire tome being fanciful baloney, the "sources" - who are, of course, not identified - continue to elaborate on what they claim has long been the belief of US intelligence services, a belief allegedly untouched until now because of the former Prince Andrew, who disgraced himself even further in recent days when a vulgar photograph of him appeared on the ground with a young woman.
Really? The US has been on the Putin case for years, but it was just left by the Brits?
When you delve deeply, you realize this is an obvious lie, but one that serves an edifying purpose for the idea being served up as 'news.' The raw evidence that the journalists cite is really nothing more than a handful of very inconsequential titbits stitched together to look more substantial. Epstein contacted Putin's people in 2008 when he got out of jail; he also arranged for a Russian prostitute for Prince Andrew; he had a number of Russian girls working for him, one of whom gave Bill Gates a sexually transmitted disease. No, wait - there's more.
The only really interesting shred of 'evidence' to support the allegations is the link to Ghislaine Maxwell's father, Robert, who was working for the Russians as well as the Israelis (the latter he tried to blackmail for £400 million, who then promptly had him fall off the side of his yacht and drown). While it is true that Maxwell was close to Moscow's security services, making Epstein a pawn for their own nefarious schemes stretches the whole story beyond any credible boundaries. For one, the security sources' imagination hasn't squared how it is that Epstein had to approach those close to Putin to ask for a meeting in 2008. Surely the more realistic reason for such a move is that he felt his special relationship with Mossad had gone sour, given that they had allowed him to do jail time for messing around with underage girls. Epstein was looking for a new patron for his operation, and the Russians seemed the obvious place to go - or, alternatively, the Israelis wanted to up the game and compromise top Russian oligarchs and aides to Putin, so they pushed Epstein toward him.
And so this new narrative, created by British spooks, is now set to stick in the media - which naturally serves their masters' purposes considerably, given that it is so widely accepted by leading figures in the intelligence community that Epstein was a Mossad asset. Almost certainly, the Americans have come up with the idea to feed this story into the UK press in a bid to incubate fresh new fake news that will propagate itself naturally around the world. It is often underestimated just how much money Israel puts into the pockets of congressmen and those in the deep state, so this stunt should not come as a great shock. In the UK as well, many MPs in both major parties, for example, receive regular cash payments from Israel, so fake news like this can spread very quickly once a few loyal figures give it their nod - although any sceptic just needs to look at the second line of the Daily Mail piece to see what fiction the whole story is:
"The sources say it could explain why Epstein appeared to enjoy an ultra-wealthy lifestyle out of kilter with his career as a financier, although there is no documentary evidence linking Putin and his spies directly to Epstein's illicit activities."
One has to wonder how a leading Westminster journalist like Andrew Marr could even point to Putin live on air when it is clear there is nothing to substantiate the claims. Yet it is worth noting the new trend in British journalism: writing up fanciful, far-fetched stories with no evidence whatsoever, but merely sourced to the intelligence community as a "news" piece. Incredible. The only other place I can personally think of where a big institution presents its own wild, unsubstantiated, unchecked ideas as facts and then expects journalists to write them up as such is the European Commission in Brussels - which does this on a daily basis.
Perhaps someone should let the Daily Mail hacks know that the KGB ceased to exist after 1991 ? Just a thought.