Contrary to popular conjecture, late sex predator Jeffrey Epstein had solid dirt on “only one person” and strenuously denied any connection to Mossad or the CIA, his former lawyer Alan Dershowitz told “Pod Force One.”
Dershowitz, 87, who was part of the legal team that helped the late financer win a controversial non-prosecution deal with the Justice Department in a 2006 case, argued that there’s a plethora of unproven claims out there on his former client that are widely accepted as fact.
“Jeffrey Epstein, obviously, I regret defending,” Dershowitz told The Post’s Miranda Devine when asked about clients he regrets. “I wish I had never met him. He was a terrible, terrible evil man, but even in that case, many of his crimes are exaggerated.”
“The vast majority of women who claim to be victims either came back over and over again to get the $250 to give them a massage or themselves became recruiters of other people, or never met Epstein and just made it up,” the famed lawyer added. “There are real victims, too.”
One of the popular conspiracy theories about Epstein is that he was running a sex-related blackmail operation backed by some sort of intelligence apparatus, such as the CIA or Mossad.
Dershowitz poured cold water on that theory.
“I know for a categorical fact that isn’t the case,” he said about allegations that Epstein had ties to intelligence. “I asked him specifically. I said, ‘If you had any connection to any intelligence agencies, I can get you a better deal.’”
“And he said, ‘Alan, I had no connection. What intelligence agency would ever hire me or rely on me?’”
Dershowitz claimed he “confirmed that with the Mossad” and noted he doesn’t believe “there’s any truth to any CIA connection” either.
Fueling the theory, in part, was a 2018 Daily Beast article that cited an anonymous source asserting that former US Attorney Alexander Acosta, who cut the controversial 2008 plea deal, claimed he was told to back off since Epstein “belonged to intelligence.”
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Acosta later demurred on the question at a press conference.
But Acosta later privately told the DOJ’s Office of Professional Responsibility that he had no knowledge of “media reports that Epstein had been an ‘intelligence asset.’”
Dershowitz also concluded that Epstein likely committed suicide in his prison cell because “he was a hedonist” and downplayed the notion that he was running a massive blackmail scheme.
“I don’t think he was blackmailing people, though I think he was interested in collecting information about people, and maybe he would have used it to defend himself, but I don’t think he ever affirmatively blackmailed people,” Dershowitz said.
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“[Epstein] categorically told me that he had nothing on Donald Trump at all, that Donald Trump had done nothing wrong whatsoever, so I am actually a witness to the fact that Jeffrey Epstein said that he had nothing. He had something on only one person,” the renowned lawyer teased.
Dershowitz wouldn’t reveal the person’s name but noted he’s “not a political figure,” just a “well-known person.”
The former Harvard professor also argued that Epstein technically wasn’t a pedophile.
“I have no information about any pedophiles in the Epstein circle. A pedophile, medically, is somebody who is interested in prepubescent people. Prepubescent people, 10, 11, 12,” he said. “That was not his modus operandi. He was interested in 16-year-olds, 17-, 18-year-olds. That’s a terrible thing.”
“… I also don’t believe there was any trafficking going on,” he later added. “What happened is he made it known to young people in Palm Beach, if you come and give [Epstein] a massage, you get $250, and many of them came back over and over and over again.”
Dershowitz faced fallout over his past association with Epstein. At one point, Epstein’s late alleged victim Virginia Giuffre accused him of being a “participant in sex trafficking,” including as one of the men to whom Epstein lent her out.
She dropped her claims in 2022, declaring in court documents that she “may have made a mistake in identifying Mr. Dershowitz.”
“I would like to see the whole truth come out in Epstein,” Dershowitz said. “It’s a terrible truth. What he did was terrible, but it’s not nearly as bad as the way it’s been portrayed.”
