US VP Vance says Epstein 'seemed to be connected' to elements of 'Israeli deep state,' American intelligence

US Vice President JD Vance said Wednesday that disgraced late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein "seemed to be connected" to elements of the "Israeli deep state" as well as the "highest levels of American intelligence," while also acknowledging the Trump administration mishandled its response to the case.

Asked on "The Joe Rogan Experience" podcast that most people think that Epstein was linked to Israel's Mossad intelligence agency, Vance replied, "Yeah, Mossad or CIA or some other deep state, whether in America, Israel, or another country."

* "He clearly had connections to the upper, the highest levels of American intelligence. He clearly had connections to the highest levels of Israeli intelligence," he said.

He added that he found the Epstein case "interesting" because, "as much as I know, (Israeli) Prime Minister Netanyahu, not a particularly popular person in the United States of America right now, Epstein seemed to be connected to the elements of the Israeli deep state that were left of center."

"It wasn't like he was super connected to the right of center of Israeli politics. America, he was connected across the board. Like he had Republican friends, he had Democratic friends. He had much deeper connections to the Israeli left of center than right of center," said Vance.

About the administration's handling of the Epstein case, Vance said, "If people want to say we mishandled the Epstein police, guilty. We did mishandle, especially the communications of it."

Asked what should have been done differently, he said, "I think that we should have just dropped everything at the very beginning, and like obviously takes a little time to review the stuff, to find the stuff, to redact things where you have victims and so forth. But we should have just done it as quickly as possible."

The US Justice Department recently released more than 3 million pages, 2,000 videos and 180,000 images in January under the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which was signed into law last November.

Epstein was found dead in his New York City jail cell in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges. He pleaded guilty in a court in the state of Florida and was convicted of procuring a minor for prostitution in 2008, but critics call the relatively minor conviction a "sweetheart deal."

His victims have alleged that he operated a sprawling sex trafficking network that was used by members of the wealthy and political elite.