When asked how he came to hire Jeffrey Epstein, Wexner testified that in 1987, he called Élie de Rothschild for a reference. “I spoke to Élie de Rothschild,” Wexner said under oath. “He represented their whole family.”
Élie de Rothschild — Baron de Rothschild, head of the French branch of the banking dynasty — vouched for a man who had been fired from Bear Stearns, had no financial license, and had spent the previous six years in Europe doing work that remains largely undocumented.
Those six years — 1981 to 1987 — are the black hole at the center of the Epstein story. Before he arrived in Wexner’s orbit, Epstein was operating in Europe alongside Douglas Leese, a British arms dealer who architected the Al-Yamamah deal, the largest arms sale in British history — a £43 billion pipeline of weapons to Saudi Arabia. Leese worked with Adnan Khashoggi, the Saudi arms broker, and Robert Maxwell, the media baron and alleged Israeli intelligence asset. Epstein carried an Austrian passport listing a Saudi residence.
When Epstein returned to America with a Rothschild endorsement, he wasn’t a financial advisor. He was an operative with connections to the arms trade, intelligence services, and European banking — and one of the world’s most powerful families had just given him the keys to American wealth.
The Rothschilds are not a single entity but a dynasty with branches across Europe, each surfacing differently in the Epstein story. The French branch produced Élie, who vouched for Epstein in 1987, and the Edmond de Rothschild Group, chaired by Ariane de Rothschild, who signed Epstein’s $25 million contract. The British branch produced Sir Evelyn de Rothschild, Queen Elizabeth II’s personal financial advisor, and his wife Lynn Forester de Rothschild, who introduced Prince Andrew to Epstein. The same branch produced Nathaniel Rothschild, who introduced Oleg Deripaska to British politicians — connecting the family directly to Russian oligarch money and Putin’s inner circle.
Absolute power corrupts absolutely.
It's global.
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