Congressionally mandated Epstein disclosure files just dropped.
Americans were furious it wasn’t the full release but thousands of documents albeit many of them with heavy redactions, were released.
And now former Trump official Mike Benz’s research just connected dots that explain everything America has asked for years about how Epstein became virtually untouchable.
Benz Points to Bear Stearns and BCCI
Mike Benz, founder of the Foundation for Freedom Online who served in Trump’s first administration, delivered a bombshell analysis this week that cuts through the noise about Epstein's mysterious wealth and connections.
Forget the island. Forget the flight logs. The real story starts in 1979 at Bear Stearns.
"This is it. The key to Epstein," Benz declared in a post that went viral with over 2 million views.¹ "Bear Stearns put him on BCCI trades in 1979, as it made millions helping the CIA, Brits, Saudis & Israelis disguise covert cash by clearing $13 billion with BCCI, a CIA money laundering bank."
BCCI — the Bank of Credit and Commerce International — operated in over 70 countries and controlled more than $20 billion in deposits before its spectacular collapse in 1991.² Senator John Kerry's investigation called it "a shadow bank for the shadow world."
And according to Benz, Jeffrey Epstein walked right into the middle of it.
The Ace Greenberg Connection
Benz zeroed in on Ace Greenberg, the longtime Bear Stearns executive who hired Epstein and mentored him through the firm's most sensitive operations.
"Ace Greenberg set up the BCCI Luxembourg account to scale up BCCI and the CIA Saudi intelligence Safari Club," Benz explained.³
The Safari Club was a joint intelligence arrangement involving the CIA and Saudi intelligence during the Cold War — exactly the kind of operation that needed someone who could move money without leaving fingerprints.
"Isn't this the guy who hired Jeffrey Epstein and set him up with his daughter and made Jeffrey Epstein a made man?" Benz asked.⁴ According to Benz, Epstein was directly involved in Bear Stearns' work scaling up the CIA's intelligence banking operations.
Why Epstein Got Away With Everything
This is where the whole thing comes together.
Benz explained that every time Epstein ran into legal trouble over the years, prosecutors mysteriously backed off. The reason is simple: Epstein knew where the bodies were buried.
"The Justice Department takes action against Jeffrey Epstein for securities laws violations," Benz recounted.⁵ "Jeffrey Epstein openly says in court that Bear Stearns was actually secretly moving money for the CIA."
The prosecution evaporated.
"Well, that can't come out in open court," Benz said, mimicking the government's logic. "Okay, let's not move forward with prosecution. Don't want to reveal national security secrets."
That same pattern repeated for decades. Epstein's 2008 sweetheart deal in Florida? The dropped charges? The kid-gloves treatment that had everyone scratching their heads?
Now it makes sense.
The Khashoggi Thread
Benz traced Epstein's intelligence connections through Saudi arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi, who was also the uncle of Jamal Khashoggi who was reportedly assassinated in 2018 inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey.
"Jeffrey Epstein was working on the oil deals right in 1980 when he got the fake Saudi passport," Benz said.⁶
That passport — recovered from Epstein's safe by the FBI in 2019 — was good enough to pass through four different country checkpoints. It had a false name but Epstein's photo, listing his residence as Saudi Arabia.
Prosecutors displayed it at the Ghislaine Maxwell trial. Nobody in the mainstream media asked the obvious question: How does a math teacher from Brooklyn get a fake Saudi passport that good?
"That explains how he in 1981, in 1982, he's already meeting with major CIA, MI6, Saudi intelligence officials," Benz explained.⁷ "He's meeting with Doug Lee, Stan Pottinger, Adnan Khashoggi, Middle Eastern sheiks."
Interestingly, in the 1980’s Adnan Khashoggi owned what was the world’s largest yacht for a time, and which was reportedly fully wired with hidden cameras.
The yacht appeared in the Never Say Never Again Bond film and Trump ended up subsequently purchasing it in 1988 and owned it until 1991.
The Real Story Nobody Wants to Tell
The Epstein files released Friday contained plenty of embarrassing and possible incriminating photos — Bill Clinton in a hot tub, shirtless with Ghislaine Maxwell and a possible victim, and hanging out with celebrities.⁸ The media obsessed over those images while missing the bigger picture.
Representative Thomas Massie and Representative Ro Khanna, the bipartisan authors of the Epstein Files Transparency Act, are now threatening Attorney General Pam Bondi with contempt over the heavy redactions and missing documents.⁹
"I think the most expeditious way to get justice for these victims is to bring inherent contempt against Pam Bondi," Massie told CBS.¹⁰
But Benz's analysis suggests the real damning information isn't in the photos of celebrities. It's in the financial records and intelligence connections that explain how Epstein built his empire in the first place.
The billionaire pedophile narrative was never the full story. The real Epstein was a bagman for intelligence agencies who knew too much to ever face real consequences — until he did.
¹ Mike Benz, X post, December 20, 2025.
² Medium, "Epstein's Missing Years," November 2025.
³ LifeZette, "Mike Benz 'Absolutely BLOWS THE LID off Epstein,'" December 21, 2025.
⁴ Ibid.
⁵ Ibid.
⁶ The Gateway Pundit, "Mike Benz: 'Jeffrey Epstein Was Working With the CIA Since 1981,'" July 13, 2025.
⁷ LifeZette, December 21, 2025.
⁸ CNN, "What's inside the Epstein files released by the Justice Department," December 20, 2025.
⁹ NPR, "Lawmakers threaten Attorney General Bondi with contempt over incomplete Epstein files," December 21, 2025.
¹⁰ Ibid.
