Recently released audio recordings show disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein and former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak discussing the “huge” sums paid to former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair for consulting work and questioning his financial arrangements.
In Recordings, as part of a massive new volume released by the United States Department of Justice Investigation files Related to a disgraced financier, the men are seen discussing strategies for making money after former political figures leave office.
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Epstein, who Blair admits he once met in Downing Street when he was prime minister, speaks approvingly of the significant sums paid to the former United Kingdom leader for his work, but suggests that not all of the money is going to Blair, with some of the funds being paid to other parties.
Audio does not provide specific details about other parties.
Blair, a divisive figure who led the UK from 1997 to 2007 and architected the disastrous Iraq War, provided consultancy services to clients including governments after leaving office through the firm of Tony Blair Associates.
He left the firm in 2016 to found the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, which describes itself as a “not-for-profit, non-partisan organization helping governments and leaders turn bold ideas into reality”.
‘How do we make money?’
During the publicized conversation, Barak, Israel’s prime minister from 1999 to 2001, raises the question of the “business model” and asks Epstein “how do we make money” from the government or contracts with governments.
He raises “I’ve heard from you … that Tony Blair, for example, is making maybe $11m a year from the Kazakhstan government to advise them, to help them lobby some NGO or UN body”.
UK newspaper The Guardian reported on Tony Blair Associates Signed the contract To advise Kazakhstan’s government in 2011, after autocratic former President Nursultan Nazarbayev was controversially re-elected in a landslide, and a few weeks earlier security forces shot dead 14 people during an anti-government uprising.
Epstein, who was found dead in his New York City jail cell in 2019 while awaiting trial for sex trafficking, replies: “Tony’s been funny.”
“I don’t know what Tony’s doing for money. And I don’t know if the money Tony’s getting is really Tony’s or somebody else’s.”
He adds: “I hear huge figures given to Tony – $5m here, $10m here, $5m there. Tony is not making $30m a year.”
Barak replied: “Yes, but he has recovered … I can judge by the style of his watches that he is …”
“Yeah, but he’s making $10m a year,” says Epstein.
Barak then responds: “Perhaps he (receives) the money and he leaves some of it to others, perhaps to some providers.”
Leaked emails suggest that Epstein used trusted financial advisors, fixers, gatekeepers, sounding boards and even Barack’s friend Their long-running relationship, which continued for years after the disgraced financier became a convicted sex offender following a controversial plea deal in 2008.
The US Department of Justice has not confirmed when the recorded conversation took place. Media reports say this happened in early 2013.
‘Nonsense,’ says Blair’s spokesman
Asked for comment on the conversation released by his organisation, a spokesman for Blair said: “None of these people have any idea what he has or hasn’t earned and the figures given are rubbish.”
A spokesman said Blair had only met Epstein once, as previously reported, and had never spoken to or seen him since.
“He never discussed what he earned out of the other two people mentioned,” he said.
The money for the work in Kazakhstan “was not given to Blair but to his organization, which appointed a team of people to do that work, which was about reform in Kazakhstan and was fully compatible with the work that other international organizations were doing”.
“This was not related to communications or lobbying, which further shows that the people involved did not know what they were talking about,” the spokesman said.
Blair’s spokesman previously said in October that he had met Epstein once “for less than 30 minutes” at Downing Street in 2002, where they discussed US and UK politics, noting that the meeting took place before his crimes were discovered and his subsequent conviction.
Mandelson investigation
The acknowledgment came as the UK’s National Archives released details of the meeting under a Freedom of Information request, with UK political veteran Peter Mandelson a close associate of Blair’s when he was in power. Expulsion of British Ambassador to America About his relationship with Epstein.
This week, UK police announced that they have Investigation started Mandelson is accused of misconduct in public office in her dealings with Epstein.
The materials include emails from Mandelson to Epstein sharing sensitive government information, as well as bank documents suggesting Epstein transferred thousands of dollars to accounts linked to Mandelson or his spouse.
Blair has recently come back into the limelight after being named by US President Donald Trump Founding Executive Member on the so-called “Peace Council“, tasked with overseeing and rebuilding Gaza’s administration under the US leader’s 20-point plan to end Israel’s genocidal war against the Palestinians in Gaza.
Israel’s two years of nonstop bombardment have killed more than 71,000 Palestinians and reduced Gaza to rubble. Rights groups and scholars have called Israel’s actions in Gaza genocide. Despite agreeing to a “ceasefire” in October, Israel has killed more than 500 Palestinians, including 21 on Wednesday, and has reneged on many of the terms of the agreement.
Blair’s participation in Trump’s project a A major source of controversyGiven their prominent role in the Iraq War, which killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis.
To this day, critics in the Middle East and Britain call Blair a “war criminal” and in some quarters a toxic figure.