Mega Group, Mossad, and the Intelligence Architecture Behind Epstein

On February 10, 2026, Representative Ro Khanna stood before the House Oversight Committee and read aloud from a document that the FBI had fought to keep sealed. The document, an internal FBI memo from August 2019, contained a designation that had been redacted in every previous release: Les Wexner was named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the federal investigation of Jeffrey Epstein.

Eight days later, Wexner sat in that same committee room and testified under oath. He said he was "conned by a world-class con man." He said he "did nothing wrong." Democrats on the committee called it a denial of everything. Republicans called it insufficient. Nobody in the room mentioned the intelligence connections.

The Wexner testimony focused on money. How much did Epstein take? When did Wexner cut ties? Why did he give Epstein the $77 million Manhattan townhouse at 9 East 71st Street? Why did he grant power of attorney over hundreds of millions of dollars to a man with no professional credentials?

These are the right questions. But they are not the complete questions. The EFTA documents, the FBI's own classified source reports, and the history of an organization called the Mega Group point toward a second layer of the Epstein operation that has nothing to do with money management and everything to do with intelligence.

The Mega Group

The Mega Group was founded in 1991 by Les Wexner and Charles Bronfman. Its official name was the "Study Group." Its membership was approximately 50 of America's wealthiest Jewish businessmen, including Steven Spielberg, Edgar Bronfman Sr., Michael Steinhardt, and Marvin Lender. The group met twice a year in private to discuss philanthropy, Israel policy, and Jewish community affairs.

The FBI knew about the Mega Group. An FBI financial investigation dossier on Les Wexner includes a printed Wikipedia page from 2007 that explicitly categorizes Wexner as a "Mega Group member." The FBI printed this page and placed it in Wexner's investigative file. They were tracking the connection.

A separate document in the EFTA archive shows a Google search screenshot for the phrase "Working for Epstein." The search results include Reddit posts stating: "Les Wexner, on behalf of Mega Group and/or Israeli intelligence, is one answer you'll get." This screenshot was found in Epstein's own files. Someone in Epstein's orbit was monitoring public discussion of the Mega Group connection and preserving evidence of it.

The Mega Group's stated purpose was philanthropy and policy discussion. Its structure was something else. A private club of billionaires with deep ties to Israeli institutions, meeting in secret, with no public membership list and no public minutes, is not a charitable organization. It is a network. The question is what the network was used for.

The FD-1023s

The most explosive documents in the EFTA archive are not emails or financial records. They are FBI FD-1023 forms, the bureau's classified reports from confidential human sources. Two of these reports, both marked SECRET//NOFORN (no foreign distribution), describe Epstein's intelligence connections in terms that no other released document has matched.

The first FD-1023 contains testimony from an FBI confidential human source about a conversation with Alan Dershowitz. According to the source, "Dershowitz told CHS that if he were young again, he would be holding a stun gun as an Israeli Intelligence (Mossad) agent. CHS believed Dershowitz was co-opted by Mossad."

The same source reported a more direct claim. According to the FD-1023, "Dershowitz [told] Alex Acosta that Epstein belonged to both U.S. and allied intelligence services." Acosta was the U.S. Attorney who signed the 2008 non-prosecution agreement that let Epstein avoid federal charges in Florida. If this source report is accurate, the prosecutor who gave Epstein the deal of the century was told beforehand that Epstein was an intelligence asset.

The report continues: "Epstein was close to the former Prime Minister of Israel, Ehud Barak and trained as a spy under him."

A second FD-1023, from a separate source, goes further. It states: "Maxwell's father, Robert Maxwell, was a very wealthy Israeli Intelligence (Mossad) Agent." It then describes Epstein's operation as luring "some of the most powerful and influential people in the world to his home, where they had the opportunity to have sex with young girls." The source adds: "This would have been recorded in some way, which could be used to control and extort non-cooperators."

Two separate FBI sources. Two separate FD-1023s. Both marked SECRET//NOFORN. Both describing the same operation: an intelligence-linked scheme to compromise powerful people using sexual entrapment, with recordings as leverage.

The FBI had this information in its classified files. It did not prevent the 2008 plea deal. It did not prevent Epstein from continuing to operate for another decade.

Robert Maxwell and PROMIS

Ghislaine Maxwell's father was born Jan Ludvik Hyman Binyamin Hoch in Czechoslovakia in 1923. He survived the Holocaust, joined the British Army, changed his name to Ian Robert Maxwell, and built a media empire that spanned newspapers, scientific publishing, and television. He also, according to multiple intelligence sources, operated as an agent for at least three services: MI6, the KGB, and the Mossad.

On November 5, 1991, Robert Maxwell's body was found floating in the Atlantic Ocean near his yacht, the Lady Ghislaine, named after his daughter. The official cause of death was accidental drowning. Six serving and former heads of Israeli intelligence attended his funeral in Jerusalem. He was buried on the Mount of Olives.

After his death, investigators discovered that Maxwell had stolen hundreds of millions of pounds from his own companies' pension funds. But the intelligence dimension of his career went beyond financial fraud.

FBI FOIA documents released through the EFTA archive detail Robert Maxwell's involvement in the sale of PROMIS software. PROMIS was a database program developed by a small Washington, D.C., company called Inslaw. The software was allegedly modified with a back door and sold to intelligence agencies and governments worldwide. The operation was run by Rafi Eitan, an Israeli spymaster who had previously captured Adolf Eichmann. Maxwell was the salesman. The software gave its operators access to the internal databases of every government that purchased it.

The PROMIS operation is the template. A legitimate product is modified for surveillance, sold through a private intermediary with intelligence ties, and deployed against targets who do not know they are compromised. The parallels to the Epstein operation described in the FD-1023s are structural, not coincidental. Robert Maxwell sold backdoored software to compromise governments. His daughter's companion allegedly used sex to compromise individuals. The method changed. The architecture did not.

"Do Not Go to Number 1 Too Quickly"

The connection between Epstein and Israeli intelligence was not limited to historical figures. It was active, current, and documented in real time.

Ehud Barak, former Prime Minister of Israel and former head of Israeli military intelligence, maintained a direct and extensive communication channel with Epstein. The EFTA archive contains 4,863 OCR hits for "Ehud Barak," by far the highest count for any individual search term in the entire document collection.

In October 2014, Barak approached Russian-Israeli billionaire Viktor Vekselberg regarding a business deal. Epstein advised Barak on compensation negotiations. In April 2015, Barak asked Epstein about "Fifth Dimension," an Israeli intelligence technology company backed by Vekselberg. Epstein's advice was specific and revealing. He told Barak: "do not go to number 1 too quickly." In context, "number 1" referred to the head of the Mossad.

That sentence, from a private citizen to a former prime minister, is extraordinary. Epstein was not asking about the Mossad. He was advising a former head of military intelligence on the timing of an approach to the current head of civilian intelligence. This is not the language of a financial advisor. It is the language of someone who operates within the intelligence community and understands its internal politics.

Barak's relationship with Epstein was both personal and strategic. The EFTA emails show Barak coordinating with Epstein on dinner arrangements with Steve Bannon and Larry Summers. They show Barak and Epstein coordinating meetings with the President of Mongolia and with Thorbjorn Jagland, who was heading to see Putin in Sochi. They show Barak pursuing a consulting role with Vekselberg's company for both money and what Barak described as "deeper access to Russia's political and business elite."

Epstein was the node through which Barak connected to American political figures, Russian billionaires, and intelligence-linked technology companies. The emails are not social pleasantries. They are operational planning.

The Intelligence Company

Epstein's files contain direct evidence that he was pitched intelligence-related business opportunities and that his associates assumed he would be receptive.

On January 8, 2013, David Stern emailed Epstein about an "Israeli Business of security experts, former mossad etc." The pitch was casual, the kind of proposal you send to someone who is already in the market.

On July 15, 2011, Greg Brown wrote to Epstein: "I also have friends, formally with MI-6 and Mossad willing to help identify stolen assets and get them recovered." Brown was offering Epstein access to retired intelligence officers for asset recovery. The offer assumes that Epstein had assets that needed finding, or clients who did, and that former spies were the appropriate tool.

A document describing Epstein found in the EFTA archive states: "He is rumoured to have worked either for the Israeli intelligence service, Mossad, the CIA or even both. On one occasion, he arrived in London at the home of a British arms dealer bringing a 'gift' - a New York police-issue pump-action shotgun."

The gift is a detail that fiction would reject as too on the nose. A New York police shotgun, delivered to a British arms dealer, by a man rumored to work for two intelligence services. The document does not name the arms dealer. It does not explain how Epstein obtained a police-issue weapon. It simply records the event as a known fact about Epstein's activities.

The Unindicted Co-Conspirator

The intelligence thread and the Wexner thread converge in a single designation. Les Wexner was Epstein's "main client" from 1987 to 2007. He gave Epstein the $77 million townhouse. He granted power of attorney. He was the co-founder of the Mega Group. And in August 2019, the FBI labeled him an unindicted co-conspirator.

A separate FBI email concluded there was "limited evidence" regarding Wexner's involvement in Epstein's crimes. The two positions are not contradictory. "Unindicted co-conspirator" is a legal designation that means prosecutors believed there was evidence of criminal participation but chose not to bring charges. "Limited evidence" regarding specific crimes means the evidence was insufficient for a particular category of offense. Wexner could be an unindicted co-conspirator in the financial architecture of Epstein's operation while the FBI simultaneously found limited evidence of his involvement in sex trafficking.

The distinction matters because the intelligence dimension of the Epstein operation was not a sex crime. If Epstein was running a compromise operation on behalf of an intelligence service, the co-conspiracy would be espionage, not trafficking. The FBI's "limited evidence" language may describe the wrong crime.

The Architecture

The pieces assemble into a structure.

Les Wexner co-founded the Mega Group, a private network of billionaires with deep ties to Israel. Wexner recruited Epstein as his financial manager and gave him extraordinary access to his wealth. Robert Maxwell, an alleged Mossad agent, sold backdoored surveillance software to governments. Maxwell's daughter Ghislaine became Epstein's companion and alleged co-conspirator. Two separate FBI confidential sources described Epstein's operation as an intelligence-linked sexual compromise scheme. Ehud Barak, former head of Israeli military intelligence, maintained 4,863 documented communications with Epstein and took his advice on approaching the head of Mossad.

The FBI had this information. The FBI FD-1023s were in its files. The Wexner co-conspirator designation was in its files. The Mega Group connection was in its files. The PROMIS software history was in its files.

Alexander Acosta, the prosecutor who signed the 2008 non-prosecution agreement, was reportedly told that Epstein "belonged to intelligence." Acosta later told the Trump transition team that he had been instructed to leave Epstein alone because "he belonged to intelligence." When pressed during his confirmation hearing for Secretary of Labor, Acosta did not deny the claim. He said he had been told to back off.

The documents released under the EFTA do not prove that Epstein was an intelligence operative. They prove that the FBI had multiple classified source reports stating he was. They prove that the prosecutor who gave him a plea deal was told he was. They prove that a former Israeli prime minister communicated with him 4,863 times. They prove that his partner's father sold surveillance technology for the Mossad. They prove that his primary benefactor co-founded a private network of billionaires with Israeli institutional ties.

Proof of an intelligence operation would be classified. What is not classified, what is now public, is the architecture that such an operation would require. Every structural element is documented. Every connection is in the files.

The question is not whether the architecture existed. The documents answer that. The question is whether anyone will ever be allowed to say what it was used for.