For about twenty years, I have taught intelligence history and theory to current and former spies, analysts, and operatives—mostly in Israel, but with occasional guest lectures at US institutions including the University of Maryland and the Naval Postgraduate School. I have never held a security clearance; I have never served in an army. I am a creature of the university, relying entirely on what the professionals call OSINT (Open-Source Intelligence). But when a massive trove of declassified documents like the “Epstein Files” hits the public square, I possess the tools to find the trails in the forest. My students—people who actually run assets and manage black budgets—tell me these academic tools are valuable in their secret work. Just how valuable, I am not cleared to know.
But I do know this: Sifting through available evidence for signs of intelligence trafficking is not as hard as Hollywood suggests. If it’s happening, there are patterns. There is a visible trail of money, documents, and handlers. The world has spent years poring over the paper trail around Jeffrey Epstein, looking for proof he was a master spy. What we have found instead is a vacuum. The absence of evidence, amid global scrutiny and massive disclosures, eventually becomes evidence of absence.