Late sex offender Epstein clearly had connections to American, Israeli intelligence: Vance

US Vice President JD Vance has said that late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein “seemed to be connected” to elements of the “Israeli deep state” as well as the “highest levels of American intelligence”, while also acknowledging the Trump administration mishandled its response to the case.

He made these remarks in a podcast episode with host Joe Rogan that was published on Wednesday.

During the episode, Rogan brought up that most people thought Epstein was linked to Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency, to which Vance replied, “Yeah, Mossad or CIA or some other deep state, whether in America, Israel, or another country.”

“He clearly had connections to the upper, the highest levels of American intelligence. He clearly had connections to the highest levels of Israeli intelligence,” he said.

He added that he found the Epstein case “interesting” because, “as much as I know, [Israeli] Prime Minister Netanyahu, not a particularly popular person in the United States of America right now, Epstein seemed to be connected to the elements of the Israeli deep state that were left of centre”.

“It wasn’t like he was super connected to the right of centre of Israeli politics. [In] America, he was connected across the board. Like he had Republican friends, he had Democratic friends. He had much deeper connections to the Israeli left of centre than right of centre,” said Vance.

About the administration’s handling of the Epstein case, Vance said, “If people want to say we mishandled the Epstein release, guilty. We did mishandle, especially the communications of it.

“We absolutely screwed up the comms of the Epstein files.”

Asked what should have been done differently, he said, “I think that we should have just dropped everything at the very beginning; and obviously it takes a little time to review the stuff, to find the stuff, to redact things where you have victims and so forth. But we should have just done it as quickly as possible.”

The US Justice Department recently released more than three million pages, 2,000 videos and 180,000 images in January under the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which was signed into law last November.

Epstein was found dead in his New York City jail cell in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges. He pleaded guilty in a court in the state of Florida and was convicted of procuring a minor for prostitution in 2008, but critics call the relatively minor conviction a “sweetheart deal”.

His victims have alleged that he operated a sprawling sex trafficking network that was used by members of the wealthy and political elite.

‘Some in Israeli government sought to sway US on Iran deal’

Vance also said during his conversation with Rogan that said some members of the Israeli government had tried to influence US public opinion to oppose a deal by the US to end the war on Iran.

The comments echoed earlier criticism of Israeli government policy by Vance, whom many view as a potential future presidential candidate, in a widening public rift between the two countries.

Vance defended a deal reached last month to end the war with Iran, which critics in the US and Israel have slammed for failing to curb Iran’s missile programme and providing no clear path to dismantling its nuclear facilities, while constraining Israel in its war with Hezbollah militants in Lebanon.

“I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that there have been people within the Israeli government who are trying to, like, actually shift us away from that policy because they want to continue the military campaign,” Vance said.

The vice president said that, while he has “good relationships” with some members of the Israeli government, “there are some people within their system that we know beyond a shadow of a doubt that are manipulating and trying to change American public opinion to keep the war going on indefinitely”.

Vance said that many countries, allies and adversaries try to influence American policy and that “it doesn’t bother me that Israel tries to do this, it frankly doesn’t even bother me that Russia or some of these other countries do it”.

He said it was “just the nature of being a political leader in 2026”.

“What does bother me is when those operations, those influence campaigns, actually affect American political judgement,” said the US vice president.

Vance lashed out at Israeli critics of the Iran deal in June, saying President Donald Trump is Israel’s only ally, in a sharp rebuke that referenced the billions in US defence aid the country receives.

When asked if he thought the US would have engaged in the most recent war on Iran were it not for Israeli influence, Vance said, “Yes, yes I do.”

“I think the president, separate from any influence from Israel, believes very strongly, and again I agree with this, that Iran should not have a nuclear weapon,” Vance said.

The Israeli Prime Minister’s Office did not immediately respond to a request for comment. ...