Tag: intelligence community

Was Epstein working for Israeli intelligence? Mail show explores his close relationship with ex-PM, Israeli security in his Manhattan home…and emails about obtaining Mossad agents

Jeffrey Epstein‘s deep links to Israel‘s political, financial and security networks are revealed in a new episode of the Daily Mail’s Covert Connections podcast. 

They include an unusually close friendship with an Israeli ex-prime minister, Israeli security inside an Epstein-controlled Manhattan apartment, and emails about former Mossad agents – as well as investment in the country’s defence tech.

None of the connections provide a smoking gun for rumours that Epstein worked for Israeli intelligence, but together they show how the convicted sex offender maintained access to the most powerful elements of the Israeli state. 

The paedophile financier struck up an ‘unusually close friendship’ with the country’s former premier Ehud Barak, who served as Prime Minister from 1999 to 2001 and Minster of Defence from 2007 to 2013.

Barak is one of the most prominent figures appearing in Epstein’s correspondence and even visited Epstein’s infamous island. 

Epstein invited Barak and his wife to his private Caribbean island, Little St James, with travel emails showing discussions about visiting in 2014.

Later that year, Barak’s wife sent a travel itinerary confirming a trip to St Thomas, near the island.

Days later, Barak emailed Epstein thanking him for his hospitality and complimented him on his ‘Great, impressive island’, although there is no suggestion that he was involved in any wrongdoing.

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US intel hid Chinese 2020 election meddling from Trump because they opposed his policies, memo says

Analysts inside the U.S. intelligence community sought to conceal evidence of Chinese influence efforts from President Donald Trump during the 2020 election, with analysts saying they didn’t want their intel used by “that vulgarian in the Oval Office” to pursue policies toward China they personally disagreed with.

The revelation is found within a January 2021 report written by — and never before reported upon comments by — analytic ombudsman Barry Zulauf, who conducted a review of the spy community’s handling of Russian versus Chinese meddling efforts during the 2020 election. Among his conclusions was that intelligence analysts downplayed China’s actions because they had disdain for the “vulgarian” Trump and did not want to support the policies and priorities of the Trump administration toward China with which they “personally disagree.”

Just the News reported this week that the U.S. intelligence community has known since early 2020 that Beijing also gained access to American voter registration data and used that information to conduct opinion analysis related to the presidential election between Trump and then-former Vice President Joe Biden.

Chinese government election influence efforts in the 2020 election

This is not the only piece of evidence pointing to Chinese government election influence efforts in the 2020 election. Although much about China’s activities in 2020 remains classified, Just the News conducted a thorough review of publicly-available intelligence assessments, federal indictments, foreign government warnings, and cybersecurity firm analyses.

There is credible evidence that Chinese government-linked cyber hackers and Chinese social media troll farms took aim at the U.S. presidential election in 2020 and sought to undercut Trump during his run against now-former President Biden. There are also indicators that Chinese intelligence and law enforcement agencies — China’s Ministry of State Security (MSS) and its Ministry of Public Security (MPS) — also played a role in 2020.

Zulauf — a longtime intelligence officer — wrote in his January 2021 report: “Given analytic differences in the way Russia and China analysts examined their targets, China analysts appeared hesitant to assess Chinese actions as undue influence or interference. These analysts appeared reluctant to have their analysis on China brought forward because they tended to disagree with the Administration’s policies, saying in effect, I don’t want our intelligence used to support those policies.”

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Britain had meltdown when China hacked voter files, but U.S. intel kept it secret in America

The United States expressed outrage when Great Britain revealed two years ago that its voter registration databases were hacked by China in what became a global scandal. But it turns out the U.S. intelligence harbored its own secret at the time, knowing since 2020 that Beijing also gained access to American voter registration data, according to documents reviewed by Just the News and interviews with officials with direct knowledge.

“[Redacted] Chinese intelligence officials analyzed multiple U.S. states’ [Redacted] election voter registration data, [Redacted] to conduct public opinion analysis on the 2020 US general election,” stated a once highly classified April 2020 National Intelligence Council memo entitled “Cyber Operations Enabling Expansive Authoritarianism.” 

You can read that document here.

NICM-Declassified-Cyber-Operations-Enabling-Expansive-Digital-Authoritarianism-20200407–2022.pdf

That memo, heavily redacted and quietly declassified by the Biden administration two years after it was written, has escaped most public notice.

That means six years later that the U.S. intelligence community has yet to fully inform the American people or the Congress on the breadth of evidence it possesses of China’s actions, how Beijing got the data, and what operations it has taken or contemplated. 

The gap in public knowledge is particularly politically sensitive as the Senate this week debates a new election security bill that is a top priority for President Donald Trump. Officials told Just the News that Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and CIA Director John Ratcliffe are working to declassify a potentially explosive tranche of documents showing what China did, and who in U.S. government knew and when.

The secrecy surrounding China’s access to voter registration has been so persistent that even Republican National Committee Chairman Joe Gruters, President Donald Trump’s point man for the 2026 mid-term elections, said he was unaware of the intelligence. “What’s crazy is the fact that China has access to these voter rolls, but we don’t,” Gruters told John Solomon Reports podcast in an episode set to air Tuesday.

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US Intelligence Community is Covering its Ass… What is Really Going On with the US War on Iran?

Let’s start with the big news from a US Intelligence Community leak to the Washington Post… John Hudson and Warren P. Strobel got the story:

A classified report by the National Intelligence Council found that even a large-scale assault on Iran launched by the United States would be unlikely to oust the Islamic republic’s entrenched military and clerical establishment, a sobering assessment as the Trump administration raises the specter of an extended military campaign that officials sayhas “only just begun.”

The findings, confirmed to The Washington Post by three people familiar with the report’s contents, raise doubts about President Donald Trump’s declared plan to “clean out” Iran’s leadership structure and install a ruler of his choosing.

The report, completed about a week before the United States and Israel initiated the war on Feb. 28, outlined succession scenarios stemming from either a narrowly tailored campaign against Iran’s leaders or a broader assault against its leadership and government institutions, the people familiar with its findings said. In both cases, the intelligence concluded that Iran’s clerical and military establishment would respond to the killing of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei by following protocols designed to preserve continuity of power, these people said.

This means the war in Iran is not going well and the US IC is beginning the Washington game of, “Don’t blame me, I warned you not to do it.” I don’t know if Tulsi Gabbard authorized this leak, or if it came from senior analysts from the four principal agencies that were involved in writing this classified report — i.e., the CIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency, State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research, and the National Security Agency. It is important to understand that this report was produced by the National Intelligence Council, aka the NIC, and it is under the direct control of Tulsi Gabbard. In any event I see this as a clear signal from people involved in producing this report that they will not be the scapegoats when the Iran war turns into a debacle for Donald Trump

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Leaked spy report warns Trump’s Iran war faces disaster

A leaked classified report by the National Intelligence Council has shed an unfavorable light on Donald Trump‘s decision to strike Iran, warning that military involvement could be disastrous. 

In just one week, tensions have dramatically risen in the region, starting with a joint military operation conducted by the US and Israel against Iran. 

The strikes took out Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as Iran retaliated by targeting US military bases in the Gulf Cooperation Council. 

Trump has stood firm on the military attack, but a report completed by the NIC just a week before raised doubts about the US’s ability to overthrow the regime. 

The NIC is a federal government agency that reports to the Director of National Intelligence. NIC members bridge 18 intelligence agencies with policymakers to provide analytical assessments. 

Three people familiar with the findings told the Washington Post that Iran would likely respond to Khamenei’s death by following protocols to preserve the regime. Sources said it was ‘unlikely’ that Iran’s opposition would seize control.

Khamenei’s successor has yet to be named. Iran’s Assembly of Experts and high-ranking members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps have been tasked with naming his replacement. 

The ayatollah’s son, Mojitaba Khamenei, is rumored to be assuming the role, but Trump has previously called him ‘incompetent’ and a ‘lightweight.’ 

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Rep. Luna Believes Jeffrey Epstein Was Running an Intelligence-Gathering ‘Honey Pot’ Operation Based on New Testimony

Republican Congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna believed that the disgraced financier was not merely a predator, but the epicenter of a foreign intelligence-gathering “honey pot” operation, and that key women connected to his network should be questioned as co-conspirators in child sex trafficking.

Based on fresh testimony and files uncovered in the House Oversight Committee’s probe, Luna declared that the notorious sex trafficker was operating a sophisticated “honey pot” intelligence-gathering scheme, likely designed to blackmail powerful politicians and business leaders for economic and political leverage.

Luna, who has been at the forefront of this investigation as part of her role leading a task force on government secrets, didn’t mince words in her post on X:

“Based on our congressional investigation it is my professional opinion that Jeffrey Epstein was running a honey pot operation. I am calling on Oversight to bring these 4 women in for questioning as co-conspirators to child sex trafficking.”

During a fiery press conference following former President Bill Clinton’s closed-door deposition before the House Oversight Committee, Luna elaborated on her findings.

“What I will say is it has become very evident, even in the last 24 hours, through lines of questioning, that Jeffrey Epstein was running an intelligence-gathering operation. In my professional opinion, I do believe it was a honeypot operation,” Luna said.

She went further, suggesting that Epstein’s web extended to targeting high-profile figures like the Clintons themselves for sensitive economic intelligence.

“I do believe that Jeffrey Epstein was targeting many politicians, many influential people, especially in regards to economic policy,” Luna added. “I do believe that it was possible that not just (Bill Clinton), but Secretary Clinton as well as a number of other people were targeted.”

But Luna didn’t stop at vague accusations. She named names, calling out four women she believes were active participants in Epstein’s child sex trafficking network, not victims.

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Former Polish intel chiefs charged over ‘Israeli spyware’ use

The former directors of Poland’s Internal Security Agency (ABW) and the Military Counterintelligence Service (SKW) have been charged for allegedly using Pegasus spyware, the national prosecutor’s office has announced.

After Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s government took over in late 2023, it launched multiple inquiries into the alleged use of the controversial software developed by the Israeli-based NSO Group. The new authorities have claimed the program was widely used by the former Law and Justice (PiS) government to spy on opposition politicians. Former officials, however, have insisted the accusations are politically motivated.

The head of the ABW, Piotr Pogonowski, and the ex-chief of the SKW, Maciej Materka, are both now facing accusations of breaching their official duties, the prosecutor’s office said on Wednesday. The charges, which carry a penalty of up to three years behind bars, are related to the alleged use of Pegasus without proper clearance and “without checking whether this system meets the requirements of information protection,” the prosecution said. Both former officials have denied any wrongdoing and refused to testify, it noted.

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CIA Admits There Was Political Bias In Obama-Era Intelligence

For years, anyone who questioned whether Washington’s intelligence machinery tilted left was told they were peddling conspiracies. That narrative fell apart on Friday, when CIA Director John Ratcliffe ordered the official retraction or major revision of nineteen intelligence products produced during the Obama years, citing political bias and substandard analytic tradecraft. It’s the first official acknowledgment that America’s most powerful spy agency let politics color its assessments.

“The intelligence products we released to the American people today — produced before my tenure as DCIA — fall short of the high standards of impartiality that CIA must uphold and do not reflect the expertise for which our analysts are renowned,” Director Ratcliffe said in a statement. “There is absolutely no room for bias in our work and when we identify instances where analytic rigor has been compromised, we have a responsibility to correct the record. These actions underscore our commitment to transparency, accountability, and objective intelligence analysis. Our recent successes in Operation ABSOLUTE RESOLVE and Operation MIDNIGHT HAMMER exemplify our dedication to analytic excellence.”

The bombshell came after the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board (PIAB) completed an independent review of hundreds of finished CIA reports spanning the past decade. This period includes Barack Obama’s second term and the Russian collusion hoax.

The PIAB identified nineteen intelligence products that “failed to be independent of political consideration.” Deputy Director Michael Ellis led an internal review that confirmed the findings. Ratcliffe’s response was swift and blunt. “The intelligence products we released to the American people today — produced before my tenure as DCIA — fall short of the high standards of impartiality that CIA must uphold and do not reflect the expertise for which our analysts are renowned,” he said. “There is absolutely no room for bias in our work… These actions underscore our commitment to transparency, accountability, and objective intelligence analysis.”

That’s a rather diplomatic way of saying that Barack Obama’s CIA got caught red-handed playing politics. The agency admitted that at least some of its Obama-era intelligence relied on questionable sourcing, including political activist groups. One report even drew on material from Planned Parenthood, something one official described as “clearly not an appropriate use of CIA resources.” For an organization that prides itself on independence and tradecraft, that revelation is a true humiliation.

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CIA Retracts 19 Different Intelligence Reports After Review Found Leftist Political Bias

CIA Director John Ratcliffe has ordered the withdrawal or major revision of 19 intelligence assessments after an internal review found they did not meet the agency’s standards for analytical rigor and political neutrality, the agency said Friday.

The CIA released unredacted versions of three of the affected reports, all of which had a strong left-wing political bias.

The topics covered included LGBT activists in the Middle East, women and white violent extremism, and access to contraception during the COVID pandemic.

The reports spanned multiple administrations, including one produced under Obama, one during Trump’s first term, and one during Biden’s tenure.

According to the agency, the reports “fall short of the high standards of impartiality that CIA must uphold and do not reflect the expertise for which our analysts are renowned.”

“There is absolutely no room for bias in our work, and when we identify instances where analytic rigor has been compromised, we have a responsibility to correct the record,” Ratcliffe said in a statement.

”These actions underscore our commitment to transparency, accountability, and objective intelligence analysis,” he continued.

The reports were identified during a broader review conducted by Trump’s Intelligence Advisory Board, which examined hundreds of CIA analytic products from the past decade.

An internal review led by Deputy Director Michael Ellis reached the same conclusion, the agency said.

The move follows earlier efforts by Ratcliffe to revisit past intelligence work tainted by political bias within the agency.

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Kincora: British intelligence-run sex abuse brothel?

Half a century after the public learned that boys at a Belfast group home were sexually assaulted by senior staff, a key question remains unanswered: was British intelligence implicated in the abuse conspiracy, and did Kincora serve as a ‘honeypot’ to entrap and blackmail powerful figures?

A vast trove of declassified files on Jeffrey Epstein’s sexual, political, and intelligence escapades released by the US Department of Justice has once again thrust disgraced former Prince Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor into the spotlight. With British police reportedly reviewing Andrew’s past sexual activities and links to Epstein, questions are growing about whether Britain’s spy agencies were aware of Andrew’s alleged escapades with minors.

If the darkest rumors turn out to be true, it will not be the first time a British royal had been embroiled in a child rape conspiracy with spy agency involvement. Back in 1980, a scandal erupted when the Kincora Boys’ Home in occupied Ireland was exposed as a secret brothel run by powerful pedophiles. Chief among the alleged perpetrators was Lord Mountbatten — Andrew’s great-uncle.

From the very beginning, hints began to appear that MI5/MI6 knew of the child abuse taking place Kincora, and could have even been running the group home as part of a dastardly intelligence plot. With Britain’s domestic and foreign spies engaged in a savage dirty war in Ireland, and both services running operatives in Republican and Unionist paramilitaries, Kincora would have provided an ideal means of recruiting and compromising potential assets. Official investigations have strongly insinuated British intelligence chiefs had a close bond with many individuals who ran the Boys’ Home. 

In May 2025, veteran BBC journalist Chris Moore published a forensic account of the case titled Kincora: Britain’s Shame. Featuring four and a half decades of firsthand research by the author, its groundbreaking contents have been met with general silence by British mainstream media.

In the book, Moore argues persuasively that the Boys’ Home was just one component of a more extensive child abuse network extending across British-occupied Ireland and beyond — in which London’s spying apparatus was not only aware, but likely complicit. 

In 2023, Moore met personally with Kincora victim Arthur Smyth in Australia. Smyth’s stay at the Home was brief, but the horrors he endured there left him scarred forever.

“Having interviewed a number of Kincora survivors, I found Arthur’s story familiar. Sent to the Boys’ Home by a Belfast divorce court judge aged 11, he was continually preyed upon by the pedophiles who ran it, and intimidated into silence,” Moore told The Grayzone. “Arthur was also brutally abused repeatedly by a man he knew only as ‘Dickie’, who raped him while bending him over a desk.”

In August 1979, two years after Smyth escaped Kincora, he learned the true identity of ‘Dickie’ was none other than Louis Francis Albert Victor Nicholas Mountbatten, a member of the royal family and Queen Elizabeth II’s cousin. Mountbatten had just been murdered in an apparent IRA bombing attack on his fishing boat off the coast of Ireland. Though the British government appears to remain committed to concealing his crimes from the public, Mountbatten’s pedophilia was common knowledge among both British and US intelligence for decades.

As early as World War II, the FBI had identified Mountbatten as “a homosexual with a perversion for young boys.” A Bureau file detailing this was later identified by historian Andrew Lownie. After requesting other files the Bureau maintained on the royal, Lownie was informed by US authorities they had been destroyed.

Lownie says he was told by an FBI official that the files were only disposed of “after [he] asked for them” — indicating they were “clearly” shredded at the request of the British government.

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