A former French culture minister, popular in the 1980s and 1990s, a Norwegian diplomat who played a central role in the secret negotiations for the “Oslo Accords” between Israel and the Palestinians, and a well-connected former Slovak minister who served as president of the United Nations General Assembly. The connection between these 3 well-known officials is the relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, the sexual abuser and child trafficker. And apparently they are not the only ones.
Epstein, as revealed in nearly 3 million pages of documents released by the United States Department of Justice, had a vast social network of individuals belonging to the global financial and political elite. In this context, the revelations of well-known names who were in some way connected to him have caused political turmoil and a "tsunami" of resignations in many countries.
Jack Lang, who once served as France's culture minister, announced on Saturday that he would resign as head of the Arab World Institute, a prominent cultural institution in Paris, after French authorities said they were investigating reports that he and his family had financial ties to Epstein.
Lang's name appears more than 600 times in the documents, with emails mentioning lunches, dinners and business deals dating back to 2012, when Lang said he and Epstein met through a mutual friend, the director. Woody AllenEpstein co-owned an offshore fund with Lang's daughter, Caroline, which, according to the French investigative website Mediapart, Epstein had set up to support young artists. Epstein also left Caroline, a film producer, $5 million in his will.
"It's clear that he had a very extensive system of meetings," – said the French President Emmanuel Macron. "This has also fueled a lot of conspiracy theories and everything else," - he added.
Mona Juhl, a Norwegian diplomat and ambassador to Jordan and Iraq, resigned after financial transactions between her and her husband and Epstein were revealed.
Few countries have been as deeply affected by the revelations as Norway. Former Prime Minister Thorbjørn Jagland, Princess Mette-Marit and Borges Brand, a former foreign minister who now heads the World Economic Forum, are under investigation for their ties to Epstein. Norway's parliament on Tuesday set up an independent commission to investigate those connections.
"There is no mercy for corruption in Norway, and Norwegians in high positions, such as politicians and ambassadors, are no exception," – said the diplomat Damn it!.
The revelations have also taken center stage in Israeli politics, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu which claims that Epstein's very close ties to the former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak, as shown in the documents, will not say that Epstein worked for Israel.
“Jeffrey Epstein’s extremely close relationship with Ehud Barak does not suggest that Epstein worked for Israel. It proves the opposite,” –Netanyahu wrote on social media on February 6. "Hung over his electoral defeat more than two decades ago, Barak has been trying relentlessly for years to undermine Israeli democracy,"he added.
In a speech in December, Barack confirmed that he had attended lunches and dinners at Epstein's Manhattan home, but said he was neither a witness nor a participant in sexual abuse. "Now, I really regret having anything to do with him.", he said.
Miroslav Lajcak, national security advisor to the Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico, resigned after emails between him and Epstein were published, in which the two men appeared to joke about young women. Prime Minister Fico called the protest against Lajčák an attack on him, saying his adviser's resignation would deprive the country of "an extraordinary source of diplomatic experience."
At the same time, the close friendship between Epstein and Peter Mandelson, the former British ambassador to Washington, caused such a storm that it initially even threatened to bring down the Starmer government in Britain.
Other prominent figures named in the dossier have come under heavy criticism from authorities and the public in recent weeks, with some even facing legal action. Many have denied or downplayed their connections to Epstein.
Following reports on social media that Epstein had met with The Dalai Lama, a statement released Sunday by the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader said he had never met Epstein himself, nor had he authorized anyone to meet him.
India's foreign ministry also rejected an email from Epstein in which he appeared to take credit for the Prime Minister's historic visit. Narendra Modi in Israel in 2017. Epstein's claims, the statement said, were not "nothing more than the idle musings of a convicted criminal, which deserve to be dismissed with utter contempt." However, the Indian opposition used the report to suggest that Modi is vulnerable to manipulation by foreigners.
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