A hacked email from the inbox of former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak shows efforts to compile a birthday “booklet” for Jeffrey Epstein more than a decade after President Donald Trump allegedly contributed to a similar gift. The email, sent on Oct. 13, 2015, by the disgraced financier’s then-assistant, Lesley Groff, asks recipients to contribute a short story for the book to be gifted to Epstein on his 63rd birthday.
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The booklet conversation was among a cache of more than 100,000 emails provided to Straight Arrow News by the nonprofit leak archiver DDoSecrets. The emails were stolen last year by a hacking group with suspected ties to Iranian intelligence known as Handala.
The emails to and from Epstein, as well as mention of the booklet, were first reported by Reason, whose coverage did not quote or feature the email. SAN, which used the dataset to exclusively reveal new details on Barak’s relationship with Epstein, is publishing the email in the wake of questions surrounding Trump’s alleged message and signature in a similar book for Epstein in 2003.
In the email, Groff, Epstein’s executive assistant for 20 years, informed Barak’s wife, Nili Priel, about the planned booklet three months before Epstein’s birthday on Jan. 20.
Groff wrote that she and “Karyna” — an apparent reference to Karyna Shuliak, Epstein’s girlfriend at the time — “are asking a few of Jeffrey’s personal friends” for help with a special birthday gift.
“We are hoping Ehud could write a short, one page ‘story’ on ‘Sharing A Meal in Jeffrey’s Dining Room…with Jeffrey and his friends,’” the email says. “We are hoping Ehud may have some fabulous, weird or enlightening story he could share.”
Barak, Israel’s prime minister from 1999 to 2001 and defense minister from 2007 to 2013, has denied knowing about accusations against Epstein until after his arrest on federal sex-trafficking charges in 2019.
SAN reported last week, however, that Barak was sent an email containing two news stories about Epstein’s accusers in 2011. Epstein himself, as also reported by SAN, forwarded Barak an email from his then-lawyer Alan Dershowitz regarding similar allegations. In 2008, Epstein had pleaded guilty to two prostitution-related charges in a plea deal with prosecutors.
‘Interesting stories’ from ‘interesting friends’
In the email, Groff wrote that all of the “interesting stories” from Epstein’s “interesting friends” would be placed into the booklet and presented to him on his birthday.
In response, Priel, Barak’s wife, called the gift a “very good idea” before making an apparent tongue-in-cheek remark about the book’s being a “best seller.”
She closed the email by asking for a “bulky arm chair” to be removed from the bedroom of a New York apartment that Epstein provided to her and Barak.
The emails show that such books have repeatedly been gifted to Epstein on his birthday. The House Oversight Committee released the 2003 book on Monday after obtaining it from Epstein’s estate. It contains a letter, allegedly from Trump, that is decorated with a drawing of a woman’s body.
The White House and Trump’s allies responded by calling the image fabricated and Trump’s signature forged. However, analyses by The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times found that the signature matched that of other letters from the same time frame.
The book was released weeks after the Journal first reported its existence. Trump filed a defamation lawsuit against the Journal and its parent company, News Corp, after the newspaper’s initial report.
SAN reached out to Lesley to inquire about the email, but did not receive a reply.
