Jeffrey Epstein asked US ambassador to Turkey to 'make him smile' with 'child' photo

Convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein told current US ambassador to Turkey Tom Barrack to “make me smile” with pictures of him and a “child”, according to a 2016 email that was released in a trove of correspondence by Congress on Wednesday.

“Send photos of you and child.. - make me smile,” Epstein, the disgraced late financier, wrote to Barrack in March 2016.

Epstein then responded to an email from Barrack, writing, “Photos look good.”

It is unclear what "child" Epstein was referring to in his email and what photos were contained in the emails sent by Barrack. 

Barrack had no role with the US government at the time the emails were written. Epstein’s correspondence with Barrack came at a critical time in Barrack's future life and American political history. 

In the spring of 2016, Trump was in a heated presidential race with Hillary Clinton. Around the same time, Barrack was working behind the scenes to introduce his friend, future President Donald Trump, to senior officials from the UAE. Barrack would later go on to chair Trump’s inaugural committee.

Trump has been dogged by his past friendship with Epstein. The US president insists that he cut ties with Epstein around 2004 and 2005, before the disgraced financier became a convicted sex offender. Epstein was found dead in his New York jail cell in 2019. 

Epstein’s correspondence with Barrack shows he maintained close contact with Trump’s trusted advisors years after the future US president says that he cut off contact with him. 

Epstein wrote in a second email to Barrack - “fyi I receive many calls a week about both Donald (L I, beauty contest. mara lago etc) and Clinton from reporters,” he said, adding: “Less so recently with Clinton, but my answers are always I have nothing to say.”

Middle East Eye reached out to the US embassy in Ankara, Turkey, for comment, but did not receive a response by the time of publication.

Longstanding relationships

Barrack, a 78-year-old billionaire real estate investor, is a key figure in Trump’s Middle East foreign policy. In addition to being the ambassador to Turkey, Barrack is the envoy to Syria and has handled diplomacy with Lebanon and the Gulf states.

The email was part of a trove of more than 20,000 pages of documents disclosed on Wednesday by members of the House oversight committee. Barrack was just one of Epstein’s powerful and wealthy contacts, including former President Bill Clinton’s Treasury secretary, Lawrence Summers, billionaire financier Leon Black and Steve Bannon.

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The email from Epstein to Barrack is notable for several reasons.

Epstein was first convicted of a sexual offence in 2008, meaning his contact with Barrack continued well after that date. At the time Epstein emailed Barrack, the Lebanese-American investor was also deeply involved in Trump’s presidential campaign and exchanging emails with the UAE ambassador to the US, Yousef al-Otaiba. 

Otaiba asked Barrack for information about nominations to lead the US State Department, the CIA and the Defence Department, MEE revealed. 

Barrack's ties to Trump date back to 1988, when he brokered the $400m sale of the Plaza Hotel to Trump. The future US president would later sell the Plaza at a loss to a partnership that included Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal.

Barrack himself moved to Saudi Arabia in the 1970s as a young lawyer. In the subsequent decades, he would forge his own ties with Gulf investors. 

He solicited funds from investors in Abu Dhabi. Barrack’s real estate firm, Colony Capital, began buying tens of thousands of foreclosed single-family homes after the 2008 financial crisis. In 2012, Colony Capital sold the Paris Saint-Germain Football Club, which it had acquired with other investment firms in 2006, to the Qatar Investment Authority. Following Trump’s election, two UAE sovereign wealth funds invested a total of $374m with Barrack.

'Smart' shoes

The trove of emails also shows Epstein’s direct contact with at least one elite citizen of the UAE.

In 2011, Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem, the chairman and CEO of DP World, emailed Epstein about sneakers embedded with GPS tracking devices advertised to monitor children. The email was titled, “Gps GTX Smart Shoe.”

Epstein responded: “thanks, great idea, i really like your friend”.

DP World is a sprawling logistics company owned by Dubai, one of the UAE’s seven emirates.