After financier Jeffrey Epstein, 66, was charged with sex trafficking underage girls, his ties to former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak have come under scrutiny in Israeli media, the Miami Herald reported.
"He'd served his sentence for soliciting prostitution — the indictment didn't say she was a minor," Barak told Israel TV's "Meet the Press," per the report.
"The American system itself did not label him as a persona non grata . . . the secretary who just resigned in the Trump administration was the prosecutor and he said he'd been negligent — so you expect me to have noticed [anything wrong]?"
Barak, 77, a candidate to oppose Prime Minster Benjamin Netanyahu, has been exposed for personal and business ties to the New York multimillionaire, according to the report.
"I saw a business opportunity and registered a partnership under my control in Israel," Barak told Haaretz, according to the Herald. "A small number of people I know are invested in it, in a commercial deal that benefited everyone. Since these were private investments, it would be inappropriate and wrong for me to reveal the identities of the investing parties."
Netanyahu has joined the criticism of Barak's ties to Epstein, writing on social media "Investigate Ehud Barak immediately," according to reports.
Barak responded on Twitter, calling out his own past support for Netanyahu before breaking amid corruption allegations, per the report's translation:
"You don't have to investigate — I confess. I gave a second chance, both to Epstein and to Bibi [Netanyahu]. Both are now neck-deep in criminality. I expect both to recuse themselves until the truth is ascertained."
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