Barak has previously claimed his “private investments” with Epstein were conducted as a private citizen and unrelated to official Israeli state affairs. The documents released by the House in October, however, suggest that Epstein played the same “fixer” role while Barak was still the sitting Defense Minister of Israel. Barak did not respond to a request for comment.

Less than a year later, Barak resigned from the Israeli government. In 2011, Barak had split from Israel’s Labor Party and formed a small “centrist” faction called Independence. Despite his long history in government, including a past stint as prime minister, his tiny party was predicted to get wiped out in the January 2013 Knesset election.

He left his position as defense minister on March 18, 2013, before an agreement with Côte d’Ivoire was reached. Barak’s departure from government did not end his role negotiating security agreements for Israel, however. After he left his formal government role, emails and private records show that he finished negotiating the intelligence deal with Côte d’Ivoire covertly. In these efforts, Epstein provided critical assistance.

On March 19, 2013, one day after leaving his government post, Barak received an email from his business partner and brother-in-law Doron Cohen, containing materials prepared by MF Group, a French-Israeli security contractor run by Michel Farjon. The consortium of companies, spread across several European countries, did security work in Africa; the group had been involved in a controversial sale of military helicopters to the government of Cameroon.

An email address associated with Farjon sent details of MF Group’s planned projects in Côte d’Ivoire: a mobile and internet communications surveillance center and a video monitoring center in Abidjan. According to email logs, Barak and Farjon met three days later, on the fourth floor of G Tower in Tel Aviv, on March 22, 2013.

Barak and Cohen made efforts to keep these communications secret. Farjon’s emails to Cohen never mentioned Barak by name—instead using cryptic subject lines like “files to be transferred to your friend”—and Barak and Cohen’s emails referred to Farjon by his initials “MF,” often in connection with another player called “AM,” or “Maoz.” Cohen took precautions to ensure their conversations were not overheard; on April 12, he emailed Barak: “I had a good meeting today with MF and AM. I’ll be glad [to] update you. I’ll be in the car alone at 0415 am until 5am.”

Reached for comment by Drop Site at the same email address that appears in the files, Farjon acknowledged that the documents containing proposals for Côte d’Ivoire had originated from his company. But, he said, his company did not actually engage in business in the country and denied that he had ties with Barak and Cohen. “The documents are accurate as previously stated. No cooperation with Barack, Cohen, Epstein. No deal with Ivory Coast, nor any cooperation,” Farjon said. Drop Site was unable to reach Cohen.

Although the talks were proceeding briskly, the momentum was halted after an unexpected report came from the United Nations.

Since 2004, during the country’s first civil war, Côte d’Ivoire had been subject to a UN arms embargo that blocked weapons sales and applied strict requirements for even “non-lethal” training and equipment transfers. On April 17, 2013, the UN Security Council reported the discovery of “dozens of crates” of Israeli ammunition at the presidential palace and the Attécoubé naval base, likely transferred to Gbagbo’s security forces during the 2010-2011 crisis. The crates had Israel Military Industries labels and Spanish markings; the report suggested the ammunition had been relabelled and retransferred to Côte d’Ivoire from a third country.

UN Group of Experts Report, suspected Israeli ammunition crates with Spanish markings

On April 21, Cohen emailed Barak: “I met with MF and AM last night. We are facing a problem. We need to schedule a serious talk about them.” Cohen refrained from discussing the problem over email. Four days later, the Security Council announced it was extending the arms embargo on Côte d’Ivoire for another year.

Immediately upon his return to Israel, Barak made phone calls to Israeli security leaders with some connection to Côte d’Ivoire. On May 15, he called Amos Malka, the former head of Israeli intelligence and a recent chairman of Israeli armor manufacturer Plasan. Plasan had also been swept up in the sanctions enforcement: in addition to the Spanish-marked ammunition crates, UN embargo monitors had flagged a five-ton shipment of Plasan body armor to Abidjan.

Malka, like Barak, occupied a blurred public-private boundary in Israeli intelligence. Malka’s company Logic Industries was installing a surveillance apparatus in the United Arab Emirates under contract with a Swiss company, as Israel and the U.A.E. did not have direct security ties. The email logs do not disclose the subject matter of Barak and Malka’s phone call—but, after hanging up, Barak emailed Malka the résumé of a Spanish-Israeli logistics expert at the “Prime Minister’s Office,” a cover name for Shin Bet, Israel’s counterintelligence service.

“I have never worked with Mr. Barak since my retirement,” Malka told Drop Site when reached for comment, referencing his departure from the security services in 2002. “I know him very well but no business together.”

Barak called one more stakeholder on May 19, 2023: the Honorary Consul of Côte d’Ivoire in Israel, Michael “Micky” Federmann, chairman of the Israeli military technology giant, Elbit Systems. Federmann was experienced at navigating UN sanctions and West African politics; Elbit had supplied military helicopters to Côte d’Ivoire during the first Ivorian civil war.

Finally, on May 27, Barak called Sidi Tiémoko Touré, Chef de Cabinet (head of office) of President Ouattara. Barak emailed Touré after the call to formally request an audience with Ouattara, and they arranged a meeting in Abidjan in August.

In preparation for his West Africa trip, Barak asked private intelligence firm Ergo to prepare a briefing on Côte d’Ivoire. It contained a dossier on Ouattara and his inner circle and detailed organization charts of the state’s defense and internal security organs.

Meanwhile, Barak prepared paperwork for a “non-security” pretext to visit West Africa. On July 22, he received a document from his son-in-law Michael Menkin, a manager at the medical equipment supplier Elsmed, containing a brief proposal to build hospitals and diagnostic centers in Nigeria and Côte d’Ivoire.

Barak arrived in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire on the first of August. According to an itinerary sent to him by Touré, Barak met with Marcel Amon-Tanoh, Ouattara’s chief of staff, and Hamed Bakayoko, Minister of the Interior and Security, on August 2, 2013, who shared more information about the Ivorian security apparatus. Barak and his wife even visited Amon-Tanoh’s home, and met his two daughters, both Oxford-educated graduate students in London. The next day, August 3, Barak met with President Ouattara and Paul Koffi Koffi, the deputy in charge of Defense.

Farjon, of MF Group, told Drop Site that he learned independently that Barak had indeed met with Ouattara, but said he did not know how his materials became involved. “I don’t see how or why Barak could have accessed my documents. Keep digging,” he told Drop Site.

Ehud Barak and wife Nili Priel at hotel Le bélier de Yamoussoukro, Côte d’Ivoire (August 2013). Photograph taken by Maud Amon-Tanoh, daughter of Marcel Amon-Tanoh, chief of staff of Alassane Ouattara.