Barak’s comments came after the U.S. Justice Department released millions of pages of documents connected to its Epstein investigations, including material that depicts his long-standing relationship with the disgraced financier. Barak said in the interview that he regrets having ever known Epstein and apologized to people who felt “deeply uncomfortable,” while stressing that he had not been implicated in Epstein’s sexual abuse of underage girls.
In the Channel 12 interview, Barak described the issue as one of judgment and oversight, telling viewers: “I am responsible for all my actions and decisions, and there is definitely room to ask if there wasn’t room for more in-depth judgment on my part and a more thorough examination of what the details really are, what exactly happened there.” Barak said he did not observe or participate in inappropriate behavior, and he said he has not faced accusations related to Epstein’s criminal conduct.
Epstein, who died by suicide in detention in 2019 while awaiting trial on federal allegations, had previously pleaded guilty in 2008 to soliciting prostitution from an underage girl in Florida. Barak is among several political, business and cultural elites whose long relationships with Epstein have surfaced in public reporting, including relationships documented through correspondence, visits and other contacts described in court-linked materials.
The documents detail regular contact between Barak, his wife Nili, and Epstein, including after Epstein cut a deal with prosecutors in 2008 that resulted in an 18-month prison sentence. The reporting said Barak and his wife appeared frequently in the newly released material, which included discussions of logistics and plans for visits, alongside communications tied to Epstein’s New York residence.
Barak acknowledged visiting Epstein numerous times and said he flew on his private plane and stayed at Epstein’s New York apartment when he was out of public office. He said he and his wife and some security guards paid a three-hour visit to Epstein’s home in the U.S. Virgin Islands, where they saw only Epstein and maintenance workers.
The documents also described email exchanges involving Epstein’s associates and Barak’s circle. In 2019, according to the reporting, Barak’s wife emailed Epstein about delaying a flight to New York by roughly a week. In 2013, Epstein’s assistant Lesley Groff emailed Epstein about dinner plans that included Barak, his wife and business people and celebrities, including Woody Allen.
Barak’s relationship with Epstein also intersected, in the documents, with U.S. political circles. The reporting said Epstein connected Barak with Steve Bannon, who was seeking to become more involved in Israeli politics, and that emails discussed dinners or meetings between Barak and Bannon. It also said Bannon has not been implicated in any wrongdoing related to Epstein.
Barak, a former defense minister, served as Israel’s prime minister from 1999 to 2001, when high-level peace talks with Palestinians preceded their collapse and an uprising. His ties to Epstein came under scrutiny about seven years earlier after he announced a political comeback in an unsuccessful bid to topple Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
At the time, the reporting said U.S. tax records showed Barak received about $2 million in grants for unspecified “research” from the Wexner Foundation, a philanthropic organization that supports Jewish causes, when Epstein was a trustee of the foundation. Barak previously downplayed the relationship, saying Epstein “didn’t support me or pay me,” and he repeated in Thursday’s interview that he expected no further discoveries because, he said, “there is nothing.”
Barak maintained that he cut off relations with Epstein only in 2019, when, in his account, a reinvestigation of the case began and the “breadth and depth” of Epstein’s crimes became apparent. In the Channel 12 interview, Barak said: “Only in 2019… does the breadth and depth of the man’s heinous crimes become apparent and I cut off relations with him, and everyone cuts off relations with him.” In the same interview, he said it is likely that more information will emerge from the documents in the weeks ahead.
The Associated Press said it was reviewing the newly released Justice Department documents in collaboration with journalists from CBS, NBC, MS NOW and CNBC, with each outlet responsible for its own independent coverage of what the files contain.