EXCLUSIVE: SECRET EPSTEIN TAPES EXPOSE HOW EHUD BARAK SOLD OUT TO VLADIMIR PUTIN
Ehud Barak took millions from the Kremlin to fund his post-public-office life. Barak's own words caught on tape have now unmasked a hidden node that connected Epstein to Putin.
A dinner Jeffrey Epstein recorded on his phone in February 2013 captures three men — Epstein, the outgoing Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak, and former US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers — discussing Vladimir Putin’s recruitment of Barak and how to make that happen.
In the weeks following that dinner, the conversation moved from an idea into a one-on-one meeting with Putin in St. Petersburg, and a million-dollar wire from Russian oligarch Viktor Vekselberg into a new Israeli company called Hyperion E.B.
The three men met at a Valentine’s weekend dinner inside Epstein’s six-story Manhattan townhouse on East 71st Street. The concept was simple: build on Barak’s personal rapport with Vladimir Putin and turn it into a full-time consultancy.
“I came to Sochi with, and sit down with him and his palace. He proposed we play billiards or whatever. He always hugs me, reminds of a story that I told him and I'm someone that looks him in the eye: I don't think that you are doing the right thing for you and for God like this or that.”
Avoiding Schröderization
Barak named a well-known analogous case at the table — the case of former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder. Schröder famously took a job at Gazprom after leaving office and was widely discredited as a public figure. Barak was determined to avoid a Schröderization.
“Schröder did the same. So they nominate him to be the representative of Gazprom in Germany or Austria or whatever, and to be responsible for the pipe that he approved.”
The pipe is Nord Stream. Gerhard Schröder, as Chancellor of Germany, signed off on Nord Stream with Russia. Schröder left office in 2005. Putin made him a director of Nord Stream AG, the Gazprom-led pipeline company. The deal Schröder approved as Chancellor became the deal Schröder got paid for as a private citizen. The European press called it the cleanest example of a sitting head of government taking a pre-arranged Russian payout.
Then Barak named Schröder again. This time as the warning.
“I don’t want to end in a way, the way that Schröder ended with him.”
Barak was making his expectations clear. He was seeking a Schröder-style arrangement — but quietly enough that it wouldn’t disqualify him from a return to Israeli politics.
“So what I would do — I would send a note to Putin. Say, ‘I’m gonna leave government in March 14th.’ ‘I’m gonna be in Scandinavia.’”
Send Putin a note. Tell him you’re leaving government. Tell him you’ll be in his neighborhood. Ask for time alone.
They broke to have cookies.
The recording was first surfaced by Anne P. Mitchell, Esq. after it was released by the DOJ in the FBI’s Epstein Files. It has a since been removed.
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