With political controversy surrounding the Trump administration’s pivot toward a reluctance to release further files on the crimes and associates of Jeffrey Epstein — the late multi-millionaire sex trafficker who committed suicide at 66 on Aug. 10, 2019 — his former attorney Alan Dershowitz has started to speak out, addressing speculation promoted by both left-wing and right-wing influencers of alleged involvement by Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency.

Dershowitz — an emeritus professor of law at Harvard University, prominent pro-Israel advocate, and author of the new book The Preventive State: The Challenge of Preventing Serious Harms While Preserving Essential Liberties — flatly rejected the suggestion that Epstein had worked as a spy.

In an interview with The Telegraph, Dershowitz said that if Epstein did have intelligence connections, then the disgraced financier would have revealed them to him in order “to try to get him a better deal” with the initial prosecutions that resulted in what has widely been characterized as a light sentence received on June 30, 2008. “That’s not something he would keep from his lawyers. That’s something he would tell his lawyers,” Dershowitz explained.

Recounting a conversation with his former client about working with spies, Dershowitz said, “we discussed it, and the answer was no. He laughed. No intelligence agency would really trust him.”

Former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett affirmed Dershowitz’s position, saying on Monday that “with the Mossad having reported directly to me, I say to you with 100 percent certainty: The accusation that Jeffrey Epstein somehow worked for Israel or the Mossad running a blackmail ring is categorically and totally false.”

Bennett identified the theory’s most prominent advocate, saying that “this accusation is a lie being peddled by prominent online personalities such as Tucker Carlson pretending they know things they don’t.”

On Friday at the Turning Point USA summit in Tampa, Florida, a gathering of right-wing college student activists organized by the group’s CEO Charlie Kirk heard Carlson lay out his personal speculations about the Epstein case.

“And I think the real answer is Jeffrey Epstein was working on behalf of intel services, probably not American,” Carlson, a former Fox News host turned podcaster provocateur, told attendees. “And we have every right to ask, on whose behalf was he working? How does a guy go from being a math teacher at the Dalton School in the late 70s with no college degree to having multiple airplanes, a private island, and the largest residential house in Manhattan? Where did all the money come from? And no one has ever gotten to the bottom of that because no one has ever tried.”

Carlson added, “Moreover, it’s extremely obvious to anyone who watches, that this guy had direct connections to a foreign government. Now, no one’s allowed to say that the foreign government is Israel because we have been somehow cowed into thinking that’s naughty. There is nothing wrong with saying that. There is nothing hateful about saying that. There’s nothing antisemitic about saying that. There’s nothing even anti-Israel about saying that.”

Carlson claimed that accusations of antisemitism for those asking questions about potential Epstein-Israel connections inspired broad feelings of resentment.

“And you have the right to expect your government will not act against your interests, and you have a right to demand that foreign governments not be allowed to act against your interests. That’s not creepy. It shouldn’t be forbidden,” Carlson said. “And yet all of us have trained ourselves to believe that you can’t say that somehow. That that’s like too naughty and forbidden. And the effect of making that off-limits has been to create a lot of resentment and I’ll say it, hate online, where people feel like they can’t just say, ‘What the hell is this? You have the former Israeli prime minister living in your house? You have all this contact with a foreign government. Were you working on behalf of them? Were you running a blackmail operation on behalf of a foreign government?’”

Carlson asserted broad support for his conspiracy theory, saying, “By the way, every single person in Washington, DC thinks that. I’ve never met anyone who doesn’t think that. I don’t know any of them that hate Israel. But no one feels they can say that. Why? And I think the longer we play along with it, the more subterranean and creepy and hateful the conversation becomes. So, I think it’s better just to say it right out loud.”

Megyn Kelly, also a former Fox News anchor-turned-podcaster like Carlson, defended his position and offered profanity for those who would question her pro-Israel bona fides.

“Tucker’s saying what his opinion is, which is not outside of the mainstream at all, that he thinks Epstein worked for Mossad or was it was somehow an asset to them,” Kelly said. “Even if you’re in my position, you get lunatics out there. Who accuse you of being like antisemitic because you are exploring this theory, which is such utter bulls–t. And honestly, like I will just say this for the record, if you think that those kinds of smears are going to stop me from reporting, you haven’t been paying attention to my career at all. If anything, when you accuse me of s–t like that, I will double, triple and quadruple down. It tells me that I’m onto something. So nice try, but you’ve chosen the wrong person.”

Kelly added, “I’ve been a defender of Israel, so people who say I’m not can f–k off. They don’t know me at all. I’m allowed to figure out what Jeffrey Epstein’s actual connections were. And if that leads me to our government or Israel’s, too bad!”

Earlier this month, actor John Cusack had also explored speculations of potential Mossad-Epstein connections when he shared a meme linking the deceased sex offender to the Mossad through pointing to accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell’s father Robert Maxwell. He deleted the post two hours later.

On Wednesday, during an oval office meeting with Salman bin Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa, the prime minister and crown prince of Bahrain, US President Donald Trump condemned Republicans who continued to ask questions about Epstein.

“Some stupid Republicans and foolish Republicans fall into the net, and so they try and do the Democrats’ work,” Trump said. “I call it the Epstein hoax. Takes a lot of time and effort. Instead of talking about the great achievements we’ve had … they’re wasting their time with a guy who obviously had some very serious problems, who died three, four years ago. I’d rather talk about the success we have with the economy.”

In a Wednesday morning Truth Social post, Trump wrote that he no longer wanted the support of Republicans concerned about the Epstein case.

“Their [Democrats] new SCAM is what we will forever call the Jeffrey Epstein Hoax, and my PAST supporters have bought into this ‘bulls–t,’ hook, line, and sinker. They haven’t learned their lesson, and probably never will, even after being conned by the Lunatic Left for 8 long years. I have had more success in 6 months than perhaps any President in our Country’s history, and all these people want to talk about, with strong prodding by the Fake News and the success starved Dems, is the Jeffrey Epstein Hoax,” Trump wrote. “Let these weaklings continue forward and do the Democrats work, don’t even think about talking of our incredible and unprecedented success, because I don’t want their support anymore!”

Dershowitz told to The Telegraph that Trump had chosen to protect individuals named in the files.

“I know there are names. There are people’s names that are being suppressed, and I know that there are still documents,” Dershowitz said. “My position is I want everything revealed. I want everything out there.”

The post Dershowitz Shoots Down Epstein-Mossad Conspiracy Theories: ‘No Intel Agency Would Really Trust Him’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.