How many CIA directors does it take to share a membership roster with a convicted sex offender?
Three. But that's not even the most interesting part.
The Roster
We covered the Trilateral Commission membership list in our first article in this series. The document — released by the Department of Justice — lists Jeffrey Epstein alongside David Rockefeller, Henry Kissinger, Jamie Dimon, Paul Volcker, and fourteen other names that need no introduction.1
Three of those names ran the Central Intelligence Agency:
| Name | CIA Tenure | Also |
|---|---|---|
| George J. Tenet | Director, 1997–2004 | Led the agency through 9/11 and the Iraq War |
| John M. Deutch | Director, 1995–1996 | MIT chemist turned intelligence chief |
| William H. Webster | Director, 1987–1991 | Also FBI Director, 1978–1987 |
A membership roster is structural. It proves proximity, not contact. Two people can sit on the same commission for years and never exchange a word.
So the question is: did it go deeper than a shared letterhead?
"How Was Tenet"
On January 9, 2014, Jes Staley — then running JPMorgan's investment bank — sent Epstein a morning message explaining why he'd missed plans the night before.2
"I got completely swamped, and then had a dinner with George Tenet and my military guy from Brookings."
Epstein replied two minutes later:
"how was tenet"
Not "who is Tenet?" Not "the former CIA Director?" Just: how was tenet. The way you ask about a mutual acquaintance.
Five days later, Epstein was assembling a guest list for the "Symposium on Power" — a private event organized with MIT Media Lab director Joi Ito. The brainstorming document lists:3
"George Tennet ?"
Alongside Ehud Barak, Senator George Mitchell, Larry Summers, Reid Hoffman, General Wes Clark, a Palantir executive, and Ari Emanuel. The proposed discussion topics:
"What makes your enemies powerful and how to dominate them?"
"Coercive power (military, some political, mechanism design)"
A convicted sex offender curating a private symposium on coercive power, with a former CIA director on the invite list. That's not structural proximity. That's a relationship.
The Fourth Director
Here's where it gets worse.
In August 2014, Epstein emailed Peter Thiel about a man named William Burns:4
"Bill (William Burns), under sec of state. leaving in nov. best and most respected diplomat in the admin, you should meet him, he conducted the secret iran negotiations, kept them secret for a year. and was involved in the most sensitive of missions for years. i can set up when you are avail"
In the same email, Epstein invited Thiel to visit his island.
A month later, Epstein asked Burns if he could share his contact information with Thiel and Reid Hoffman. Burns replied:5
"That would be fine. Many thanks."
By October 2014, Burns was walking out the door of the State Department. He wrote to Epstein:6
"They've been generous about allowing me a third of my time for other activities, so I remain very much interested in consulting or advisory arrangements. Hope to get up to NY again in next month, and will be in touch. Thanks again for all your interest and advice."
Epstein responded with an invitation to Little St. James — his private island in the U.S. Virgin Islands:6
"My private island/home is between st thomas and st john. — littlest james. big american flag. I can send car to pick you up at your convenience."
Burns declined — he had to fly to Oman with John Kerry to negotiate with Iran. He asked for a rain check.6
In 2021, President Biden appointed William Burns as Director of the Central Intelligence Agency.
The man who asked Jeffrey Epstein for a rain check on visiting his island ran American intelligence for four years.
Follow the Money to Tel Aviv
The roster places three former CIA directors in Epstein's organizational network. The email archive places a fourth in his inbox. Now follow the money.
An FBI referral document — filed under case number 31E-NY-3027571, EPSTEIN, JEFFREY; CHILD SEX TRAFFICKING — records a tip received by the Cleveland Field Office on August 26, 2019:7
"ZADOK also stated that the WEXNER FOUNDATION transferred at least 2.3 Million USD to Israeli former Prime Minister Ehud Barak; EPSTEIN allegedly signed some of these transfer documents."
The same tipster told the FBI that Epstein had been appointed a trustee of the Wexner Foundation, and that Epstein gave the foundation approximately $9 million.
Ehud Barak: former Prime Minister of Israel, former Minister of Defense, former head of Israeli Military Intelligence. The man Epstein described as "the most knowledgeable of all the players I have known — including my stint on the Trilateral Commission."8
Barak appears in 139 dossier entries and 3,585 documents across the Unsealed corpus. Epstein brokered access to him for billionaires — Len Blavatnik, Ariane de Rothschild, Larry Summers, Leon Black. In September 2010, Epstein's assistant invited Blavatnik to a private dinner with Barak at the 71st Street townhouse: "very private, no agenda."9
In his joint defense strategy with Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein listed the denials he considered most critical:10
"she knows clinton was never on the island. she knows no sex with steven hawking, she knows no sex with ehud as he was also never on the island."
Clinton and Barak. The two names Epstein needed denied in the same breath.
The Shadow Structure
One month before the Burns correspondence began, Epstein emailed Bill Gates with a proposal:11
"If there were a large group (to blunt and bad pr risk) of philanthropists that were organized to decide a shadow governmental grants structure . . as govt has cut back. I hope it is ok for you to answer emails. I have been wary for a long time. but I consider you a friend."
A shadow governmental grants structure. An organized bloc of philanthropists. Running parallel to government. Proposed by a man on a membership roster with three former CIA directors, in direct correspondence with a fourth, routing millions through a foundation to a former Israeli intelligence chief.
The phrase "shadow governmental" is Epstein's, not ours.
The Spy's Daughter
Ghislaine Maxwell attended Trilateral Commission meetings independently. Not as Epstein's guest — on her own standing.
In April 2002, she emailed Lars Erickson:12
"I'm coming in for the Trilateral meetings. E mail me your no. so I can call you and we can coordinate some trouble."
We noted this in our first article. Now consider whose daughter she is.
Robert Maxwell — media baron, parliamentarian, and the subject of persistent allegations that he operated as a Mossad asset. In the Unsealed persons directory, Robert Maxwell carries the category tag "intelligence." So does Ari Ben-Menashe, the former Israeli military intelligence officer who has publicly claimed Maxwell worked for Israeli intelligence.13
When JPMorgan conducted due diligence on Ghislaine's accounts, they flagged the Robert Maxwell connection explicitly — the pension fund fraud, the Serious Fraud Office investigation, and the fact that Ghislaine's "source of wealth" was classified as "something of a mystery."14
In her first public interview after her father's death, Ghislaine told AFP:15
"I think he was murdered. . . . It is not easy to fall off the side of a boat."
She added: "It was not unhelpful to certain parties that the suicide theory was put about."
The daughter of an alleged intelligence asset. Attending Trilateral Commission meetings independently. Dating and working for a man who shared a roster with three former CIA directors, corresponded directly with a fourth, routed money through a foundation to the former head of Israeli military intelligence, and proposed a "shadow governmental grants structure" to the richest man in the world.
The Question
We are not going to tell you Epstein was a spy. The documents don't say that.
What the documents say is this:
Three former CIA directors sat on the same membership roster.1 A fourth corresponded directly, was brokered to Silicon Valley billionaires, and was invited to the island.456 An FBI document traces $2.3 million from a foundation where Epstein served as trustee to a former head of Israeli military intelligence.7 Epstein proposed a "shadow governmental grants structure" to Bill Gates.11 And the daughter of an alleged Mossad asset attended the same elite meetings independently.12
That's not a conspiracy theory. That's a constellation of documents released by the United States Department of Justice.
The question isn't whether the intelligence community knew about Jeffrey Epstein. Three of its former directors were on his roster. A fourth was in his inbox.
The question is what they knew him for.
Sources & Documents
All documents referenced below are from the U.S. Department of Justice Epstein document release or House Oversight Committee files, searchable on Unsealed.
- EFTA01082667 — Trilateral Commission North American Group membership roster. Lists Epstein alongside Tenet, Deutch, Webster, Kissinger, Rockefeller. View →
- HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_030330 — Jes Staley to Epstein: dinner with George Tenet. Epstein: "how was tenet." January 9, 2014. View →
- EFTA00981350 — "Symposium on Power" guest brainstorm: "George Tennet?" Topics include "coercive power." January 2014. View →
- EFTA02370150 — Epstein to Peter Thiel brokering William Burns: "best and most respected diplomat in the admin." Also invites Thiel to the island. August 2014. View →
- EFTA02366807 — Burns consents to Epstein sharing his contact with Thiel and Reid Hoffman. September 2014. View →
- EFTA02594137 — Burns to Epstein: "very much interested in consulting or advisory arrangements." Epstein invites Burns to Little St. James. Burns: "rain check." October–November 2014. View →
- EFTA01249848 — FBI referral: Wexner Foundation transferred $2.3M to Ehud Barak; Epstein allegedly signed transfer documents. Case 31E-NY-3027571. August 2019. View →
- EFTA01053658 — Epstein on Barak: "the most knowledgeable of all the players I have known — including my stint on the Trilateral Commission." February 2017. View →
- Dossier records — Blavatnik invited to private Barak dinner at Epstein's townhouse: "very private, no agenda." September 2010. Dossier →
- EFTA00866513 — Epstein to Maxwell, joint defense: "she knows no sex with ehud as he was also never on the island." January 2015. View →
- EFTA02645214 — Epstein to Bill Gates: "shadow governmental grants structure." July 2017. View →
- EFTA02332382 — Ghislaine Maxwell to Lars Erickson: "I'm coming in for the Trilateral meetings." April 2002. View →
- Persons directory — Robert Maxwell and Ari Ben-Menashe categorized as "intelligence." Network →
- EFTA01582836 — JPMorgan due diligence on Ghislaine Maxwell: Robert Maxwell flagged; "source of wealth classified as something of a mystery." View →
- EFTA01582922 — Ghislaine Maxwell AFP interview (1997): "I think he was murdered. . . . It is not easy to fall off the side of a boat." View →
This article is part of the Secret Societies & Elite Power Networks series, compiled from 1.3 million full-text documents, 73,000+ emails, and the complete knowledge graph in the Unsealed database.
