The former prime minister of Israel has denied Tucker Carlson’s suggestion that sex-predator Jeffrey Epstein reported to Israeli intelligence agency Mossad.
“As a former Israeli Prime Minister, with the Mossad having reported directly to me, I say to you with 100 percent certainty: The accusation that Jeffrey Epstein somehow worked for Israel or the Mossad running a blackmail ring is categorically and totally false,” Naftali Bennett posted on X Monday.
Epstein never worked for the state of Israel, he said.
“This accusation is a lie being peddled by prominent online personalities such as Tucker Carlson pretending they know things they don’t,” Bennett said. “They just make things up, say it with confidence and these lies stick, because it’s Israel. There’s a vicious wave of slander and lies against my country and my people, and we just won’t take it anymore.”
Conspiracy theories about the convicted sex offender, who was accused of orchestrating a child sex trafficking ring and later found dead in his prison cell in 2019, have escalated in recent weeks after the Department of Justice announced in a memo that Epstein committed suicide and did not have a client list.
“This systematic review revealed no incriminating ‘client list,’” a joint memo from Department of Justice and the FBI read. “There was also no credible evidence found that Epstein blackmailed prominent individuals as part of his actions. We did not uncover evidence that could predicate an investigation against uncharged third parties.”
Attorney General Pam Bondi had previously said the Epstein list was on her desk for review, and President Donald Trump had promised to make the information public.
Carlson suggested the administration backtracked on its claims because Epstein was actually an agent working for Israel.
“I think the real answer is Jeffrey Epstein was working on behalf of intel services, probably not American. And we have every right to ask, on whose behalf was he working?” Carlson said. “Now, no one’s allowed to say that the foreign government is Israel because we have been somehow cowed into thinking that’s naughty. There is nothing wrong with saying that.”
Carlson made the allegations in a speech at the Turning Point USA student summit in Tampa Bay, Fla., on Friday. Turning Point is a nonprofit organization that advocates for conservative politics on high school and college campuses and educates and organizes student leaders, according to its website.
This isn’t the first time Carlson has flirted with antisemitism. The television personality drew criticism from Jewish members of the House of Representatives for hosting Nazi apologist Darryl Cooper on his podcast in 2024. During the interview, Cooper called the common perception of World War II a myth and said Winston Churchill was the chief villain of the war. Cooper went on to say the millions of Jews who were murdered in concentration camps died because the Germans didn’t have the capacity to take care of them. More recently, Carlson took an anti-Israel position in his viral interview with Senator Ted Cruz.
Carlson has denied accusations of thinly-veiled antisemitism.
“I don’t see a lawmaker’s job as defending the interests of a foreign government, including the ones that my ancestors come from,” Carlson said in his interview with Cruz. “That does not make me an antisemite. And shame on you for suggesting otherwise. And I mean that.”
Carlson and Turning Point USA did not immediately respond to requests for comment.