A deflated conspiracy theory that Jeffrey Epstein was a foreign spy re-emerged over the weekend, with a conservative commentator, Tucker Carlson, declaring that the financier and convicted sex offender was connected to Mossad, Israel’s intelligence agency.

The claim, which stretches back to the time Epstein was first arrested on sex-trafficking charges in 2006, has never been validated with solid evidence, but that hasn’t stopped the theory from taking over the internet.

In a speech at a conservative rally in Tampa, Mr. Carlson slammed the Department of Justice for declaring last week that it has no “client list” of Epstein’s, and that the convicted pedophile did not blackmail anyone. 

“The real question is, why was he doing this, on whose behalf, and where did the money come from?” the former Fox News host said. “I think the real answer is Jeffrey Epstein was working on behalf of intel services, probably not American. And we have every right to ask, on whose behalf was he working?

“Now, no one’s allowed to say that the foreign government is Israel because we have been somehow cowed into thinking that’s naughty. There is nothing wrong with saying that,” Mr. Carlson said.

The claim was shot down less than 48 hours later by a former Israeli prime minister, Naftali Bennett. “As a former Israeli Prime Minister, with the Mossad having reported directly to me, I say to you with 100% certainty: The accusation that Jeffrey Epstein somehow worked for Israel or the Mossad running a blackmail ring is categorically and totally false,” Mr. Bennett wrote on X.

“Epstein’s conduct, both the criminal and the merely despicable, had nothing whatsoever to do with the Mossad or the State of Israel. Epstein never worked for the Mossad. This accusation is a lie being peddled by prominent online personalities such as Tucker Carlson pretending they know things they don’t,” he wrote.

Mr. Bennett accused public figures like Mr. Carlson of spreading baseless conspiracy theories that perpetuate harmful misinformation about Israel. 

“They just make things up, say it with confidence and these lies stick, because it’s Israel. There’s a vicious wave of slander and lies against my country and my people, and we just won’t take it anymore,” Mr. Bennett concluded.

Epstein, who was convicted of sex offenses in 2008 and died in custody in 2019 under circumstances ruled as suicide by American authorities, has been at the center of numerous conspiracy theories, particularly due to dissatisfaction with the lack of transparency regarding investigations into his network. 

Theories have persisted about whether Epstein operated on behalf of foreign intelligence agencies, with Israel frequently named as a focus of speculation in such claims. One such report came from journalist Vicky Ward, who laid out the claim for the Daily Beast in 2019.

“Epstein’s name, I was told, had been raised by the Trump transition team when Alexander Acosta, the former U.S. attorney in Miami who’d infamously cut Epstein a non-prosecution plea deal back in 2007, was being interviewed for the job of labor secretary,” she wrote. “The plea deal put a hard stop to a separate federal investigation of alleged sex crimes with minors and trafficking.”

Ms. Ward went on to quote Mr. Acosta telling the Trump transition interviewers he had cut the non-prosecution deal with one of Epstein’s attorneys because he had “been told” to back off and that Epstein was above his pay grade. “I was told Epstein ‘belonged to intelligence’ and to leave it alone,” Mr. Acosta said, according to Ms. Ward.

That piqued the interest of a former Fox News host, Megyn Kelly, who wrote on X: “The U.S. Attorney who spiked the case, Alex Acosta, is on record as saying Epstein was an intel agent and he was told to get rid of the prosecution. If Epstein was an agent it was clearly either for the U.S. or Israel – both deny it (what would you expect them to say?). He had multiple (odd) Israeli connections. This denial is meaningless.”

But in a recent interview, Ms. Ward said of Epstein: “I don’t think he was working for a particular government.”

A former Israeli spy, Ari Ben-Menashe, has also reportedly made the claim. In his book, “Epstein: Dead Men Tell No Tales,” journalist Dylan Howard reports that Mr. Ben-Menashe “said on the record, unequivocally, that Jeffrey Epstein was working for Israeli intelligence operations, the Mossad.”

Mr. Ben-Menashe also claims to have been the Mossad handler for the father of Epstein’s now-imprisoned associate, Ghislaine Maxwell. Robert Maxwell, who died in 1991, was a publishing magnate who later won a seat in the British Parliament. Later, he was accused of misdirecting millions of pounds from his own company’s pension funds.