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Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak has apologised for his yearslong friendship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein that included regular correspondence, multiple visits to the disgraced financier\u2019s Manhattan apartment, and one to his private island.<\/p>\n
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\u201cI am responsible for all my actions and decisions, and there is definitely room to ask if there wasn\u2019t room for more in-depth judgment on my part and a more thorough examination of what the details really what exactly happened there,\u201d Barak said in an interview.<\/p>\n
The former Israeli leader has not been implicated in Epstein\u2019s sexual abuse of underage girls and faces no accusations of wrongdoing. <\/p>\n
Speaking in an interview with Israel\u2019s Channel 12 on Thursday, Barak said he regretted having ever known Epstein and apologised to all those \u201cwho feel deeply uncomfortable.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to the ex-Israeli prime minister, he and his wife and some security guards paid a three-hour visit to Epstein\u2019s home in the US Virgin Islands but saw only Epstein and some maintenance workers there.<\/p>\n
Barak said he never observed or took part in any inappropriate behavior. He said he was aware of the earlier Epstein case but assumed he had paid his debt to society.<\/p>\n
\u201cOnly in 2019, when a reinvestigation of the whole story begins, does the breadth and depth of the man\u2019s heinous crimes become apparent and I cut off relations with him, and everyone cuts off relations with him,\u201d Barak said.<\/p>\n
He added it\u2019s likely more information will emerge from the documents in the weeks ahead, but he maintained that he had done nothing illegal or improper.<\/p>\n
\u201cI promise you that nothing will be discovered, because there is nothing,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Barak appears in several documents<\/p>\n
Barak is among several political, business and cultural elites found to have maintained long relationships with Epstein, even after his 2008 guilty plea for soliciting prostitution from an underage girl in Florida. <\/p>\n
The former Israeli PM, who has previously distanced himself from Epstein, gave the latest interview after millions of pages of documents were released by the US Justice Department in connection with its investigations of Epstein.<\/p>\n
Barak and his wife, Nili, have turned up frequently in the documents, showing they stayed in regular contact with Epstein for years, including after he cut a deal with prosecutors in 2008 that resulted in an 18-month prison sentence.<\/p>\n
Barak served as prime minister from 1999 to 2001, when Israel and the Palestinians held high-level peace talks before the process collapsed and a Palestinian uprising broke out. He later served as defense minister.<\/p>\n
His ties to Epstein came to light seven years ago after Barak announced a political comeback in an unsuccessful bid to topple Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.<\/p>\n
At the time, US tax records showed Barak received some $2 million in grants for unspecified \u201cresearch\u201d the previous decade from the Wexner Foundation, a philanthropic organisation that supports Jewish causes. At the time, Epstein was a trustee of the foundation.<\/p>\n
Barak downplayed those ties when they surfaced, saying Epstein \u201cdidn\u2019t support me or pay me.\u201d However, some documents detail plans for a 2017 stay at Epstein\u2019s New York residence, while others discuss mundane logistics for other visits, meetings and phone calls. <\/p>\n
In June 2019, Barak\u2019s wife, Nili, emailed Epstein, saying they delayed their flight to New York by roughly a week. In 2013, Epstein\u2019s assistant, Lesley Groff, emailed Epstein about dinner with Barak, his wife and several business people and celebrities, including Woody Allen.<\/p>\n
In 2019 \u2014 about a week before Epstein was arrested \u2014 an exchange about Barak between Epstein and an unknown person shows Epstein saying he was \u201cdealing with Ehud in Israel.\u201d Making me crazy.\u201d<\/p>\n
The documents show that Epstein connected Barak with US President Donald Trump\u2019s former adviser, Steve Bannon, who was seeking to become more involved in Israeli politics. Emails from Epstein to his staff and others in 2018 discussed setting up dinners or meetings between Barak and Bannon.<\/p>\n
Bannon has not been implicated in any wrongdoing related to Epstein. <\/p>\n
Epstein died by suicide in detention in 2019 while awaiting trial on federal allegations of sexually abusing and trafficking dozens of girls.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak has apologised for his yearslong friendship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":290923,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[91216,85,46,7393,43],"class_list":{"0":"post-290922","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-israel","8":"tag-ehud-barak","9":"tag-il","10":"tag-israel","11":"tag-jeffrey-epstein","12":"tag-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290922","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=290922"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290922\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/290923"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=290922"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=290922"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=290922"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}