Ehud Barak

Ehud Barak served as Prime Minister of Israel from July 1999 to March 2001, leading the Labor Party. His earlier career included the highest military rank in the Israel Defense Forces as Chief of the General Staff (1991–1995), and he later served as Minister of Defense from 2007 to 2013.

Barak’s association with Jeffrey Epstein is documented across released files and reporting. According to reporting on the released files, the two regularly exchanged emails and met more than 60 times between September 2010 and March 2019, a span that overlapped Barak’s tenure as Minister of Defense. (Reporting by The Wall Street Journal, cited in Israeli outlets, has described a narrower set of at least three dozen planned meetings between 2013 and 2017.) Barak has said the two were introduced by former President Shimon Peres at a large Washington event in 2003, and he has described the relationship as spanning roughly 15 years. Their dealings included business discussions around several Israeli technology ventures.

One of those ventures was the emergency-response technology startup Reporty Homeland Security, later renamed Carbyne. Barak invested approximately US$1 million in the company in 2015 and became its chairman; according to reporting on the released files, a large part of the money Barak invested was supplied by Epstein. Barak left the company’s board in 2020.

Reporting also documents Barak’s repeated stays at an Epstein-linked apartment in Manhattan. Barak has said that “from time to time, when we visited the U.S., we stayed in an apartment belonging to Epstein,” and emails reviewed by Haaretz place these stays between 2015 and 2019; Epstein’s staff reportedly referred to the unit as “Ehud’s apartment.” Al Jazeera reported that the building, at 301 East 66th Street, was owned by a company linked to Epstein’s brother but effectively controlled by Epstein, and that the Israeli government coordinated the installation of security equipment there during 2016 and 2017 for Barak’s use. In January 2016, the Daily Mail published photographs of Barak entering the building with his face partly covered by a scarf; Barak said he was shielding his face from the cold New York weather, noting he was photographed leaving the same building the same day with his face uncovered. Barak has also acknowledged a single daytime visit to Epstein’s Little Saint James island in the US Virgin Islands, which he described as lasting about three hours and attended in the company of his wife and security guards, saying that on the island there were only Epstein and a number of local maintenance and gardening staff.

Separately, the Wexner Foundation — the philanthropy founded by retail magnate Leslie Wexner, of which Epstein was a trustee — paid Barak approximately US$2.3 million between roughly 2004 and 2006 for two commissioned studies, one on leadership and one on the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. The foundation has said that although only one of the studies was completed, the work it received was sufficient to justify the payment. These payments predated Barak’s later business relationship with Epstein.

In response to the renewed scrutiny, Barak has expressed regret while denying knowledge of Epstein’s crimes. As reported by Al Jazeera, he stated that “there is room to question whether I should have investigated more thoroughly. I regret not doing so.” He said that across the years he knew Epstein he “never saw any unreasonable occurrence” and that he “did not know the manner of his crimes until 2019.” Through his lawyers he had earlier denied any awareness that Epstein “was paying underage girls for sex,” and he says he cut off contact after Epstein’s 2019 arrest. He has also said he never attended parties or events involving girls or women in any improper context. Barak has not been accused of wrongdoing in connection with Epstein’s offenses.

Is Ehud Barak in the Epstein files?

Yes. Ehud Barak is named in the released Epstein files and associated reporting, which document years of email correspondence, dozens of meetings, business ventures, and stays at Epstein’s properties. Barak says he regrets the association and was unaware of Epstein’s crimes until 2019.

Being named in the files is not evidence of any crime or wrongdoing. People appear in these documents in many contexts — correspondence, meetings, scheduling, business discussions, or passing references. See the sources above for the specific documented context.

Documents

Primary-source records that name or reference Ehud Barak. Inclusion in these documents is not, by itself, evidence of wrongdoing; Barak has not been accused of wrongdoing in connection with Epstein’s offenses and says he was unaware of Epstein’s crimes until 2019.

• Giuffre v. Maxwell — unsealed court records (Jan. 2024) — Barak is referenced in this civil case (U.S. District Court, S.D.N.Y., No. 1:15-cv-07433): a deposition includes a question about whether the witness had met “Prime Minister Ehud Barak from Israel” (answered no), and a declaration by Alan Dershowitz lists Barak among prominent people associated with Epstein. No allegation of wrongdoing by Barak is made in these records.
• House Oversight Committee — Epstein email correspondence (Nov. 2025) — Barak appears extensively in the email correspondence released by the House Oversight Committee. As reported by Al Jazeera, the records document a long-running relationship — years of emails, repeated meetings, business discussions around Israeli technology ventures, and stays at Epstein’s Manhattan home between 2015 and 2019. Barak says he regrets the association.