Poland will investigate claims that late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein could have been involved with or been used by Russian intelligence, Prime Minister Donald Tusk said on Tuesday.
Addressing a cabinet meeting, Tusk said a dedicated team would be formed to assess whether Epstein’s criminal activities had any consequences for Poland, particularly in connection with what he described as potential involvement by Russian security agencies.
“More and more leads, more and more information, and more and more commentary in the global press all relate to the suspicion that this unprecedented paedophilia scandal was co-organised by Russian intelligence services,” he said.
“I don’t need to tell you how serious the increasingly likely possibility that Russian intelligence services co-organised this operation is for the security of the Polish state. This can only mean that they also possess compromising materials against many leaders still active today.”
Since the release of a cache of three million documents by the US Department of Justice on Friday, unverified claims have arisen in international news outlets arguing that Epstein could have been running a “kompromat” operation to blackmail businessmen, media moguls and politicians.
Russia features prominently in the latest tranche of files. Russian President Vladimir Putin is named in 1,056 of the documents and Moscow in 9,000.
They appear to suggest that Epstein maintained access to Putin even after Epstein’s 2008 conviction in the US for soliciting a minor for prostitution.
Emails included in the files show that in 2010 Epstein offered to assist an associate in obtaining a Russian visa, writing: “I have a friend of Putin’s, should I ask him?”
In 2011, an email from an unidentified contact referenced an “appointment with Putin” during an upcoming visit to Russia.
Emails from 2013, involving Norway’s former prime minister, mention a proposed dinner with Putin in Paris. A subsequent message suggested a potential 2014 meeting, though it is unclear if it occurred.
In a 2015 email, Epstein wrote that he “still would like to meet Putin and talk economy.”
Another message that year mentioned “some friends in FSB” and included correspondence with Sergei Belyakov, Russia’s deputy minister of economic development at the time, referencing a blackmail attempt by a “Russian girl from Moscow.”
Further communications discussed meetings with Putin in 2017 and 2018.
Epstein also once offered to provide “insight” on US President Donald Trump to Sergei Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister.
An FBI report dated Nov. 27, 2017, based on a confidential human source (CHS), claimed that Epstein “was President Vladimir Putin’s wealth manager and provided similar services to President of Zimbabwe Robert Mugabe.”
In December, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova framed the files as evidence of Western double standards.
“Here, as I understood, were all the Western ‘lecturers on life’ who looked down on Russia and who lectured us about ‘democracy and human rights’ in interesting poses with equally interesting leisure partners,” she said.