A recently released audio recording captures disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein and former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak discussing the “gigantic” sums paid to former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair for his consulting work, and questioning his financial arrangements.

In the recording, released by the United States Department of Justice as part of a massive new tranche of investigative files related to the disgraced financier, the men appear to be discussing strategies for former political figures to make money after leaving office.

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Epstein, whom Blair has admitted meeting once in Downing Street during his time as prime minister, talks approvingly of the significant sums being paid to the former United Kingdom leader for his work, but speculates that the money is not all going to Blair, with payments of some funds being made to other parties.

The audio does not provide specific details about the other parties.

Blair, a divisive figure who led the UK from 1997 to 2007 and was an architect of the catastrophic Iraq war, provided consultancy services to clients, including governments, through his firm Tony Blair Associates after leaving office.

He reportedly closed the firm in 2016 to found the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, which describes itself as a “not-for-profit, non-partisan organisation helping governments and leaders turn bold ideas into reality”.

‘How do we make money?’

During the released conversation, Barak, Israel’s prime minister from 1999 to 2001, raises the question of a “business model”, asking Epstein “how do we make money out of” a contract with a government or governments.

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He raises “something that I’ve heard from you … that Tony Blair, for example, is doing some probably $11m per year from the Kazakhstan government just to give them advice, to help them with lobbying in some NGO or UN organisation”.

UK newspaper The Guardian has reported that Tony Blair Associates signed a deal to advise Kazakhstan’s government in 2011, months after autocratic former President Nursultan Nazarbayev was controversially re-elected in a landslide and weeks before security forces shot dead 14 people during an antigovernment uprising.

Epstein, who was found dead in his New York City jail cell in 2019 while awaiting trial for sex trafficking, replies: “Tony has turned funny.”

“I don’t know what Tony’s doing for money. And I don’t know if the money that Tony is getting is actually to Tony or to somebody else.”

He continues: “I hear gigantic numbers given to Tony – $5m here, $10m here, $5m there. Tony’s not making $30m a year.”

Barak replied: “Yeah, but he’s become quite … I can judge from the style of his watches that he’s …”

“Yes, but he’s making $10m a year,” says Epstein.

Barak then responds: “Probably he [gets] the money and he leaves some of it to the others, probably some of the providers.”

Leaked emails suggest that Epstein served as a trusted financial adviser, fixer, concierge, sounding board and even friend to Barak during their long-running relationship, which continued for years after the disgraced financier became a convicted sex offender following a controversial plea deal in 2008.

The US Justice Department has not confirmed when the recorded conversation took place. Media reports suggest it took place in early 2013.

‘Rubbish,’ says Blair spokesperson

Asked for comment on the released conversation through his institute, a spokesperson for Blair said: “None of these people have any idea about what he did or didn’t earn, and the figures given are rubbish.”

The spokesperson said that Blair had met Epstein only once, as had been previously reported, and had never spoken to or seen him since.

“He has never discussed what he earned with either of the other two people mentioned,” they said.

The payment for work in Kazakhstan was “not paid to Blair but to his organisation, which hired a team of people for the purpose of that work, which was about reform in Kazakhstan and completely in line with what other international institutions were working on”.

“It was not related to communications or lobbying, which further demonstrates that none of the people concerned knew what they were talking about,” said the spokesperson.

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A spokesperson for Blair previously said in October that he had met Epstein once “for less than 30 minutes” in Downing Street in 2002, where they discussed US and UK politics, noting the meeting took place long before his crimes were known of and his subsequent conviction.

Mandelson investigation

The acknowledgement came as the UK’s National Archives released details of the meeting under a freedom of information request, after UK political veteran Peter Mandelson, a close associate of Blair’s during his time in power, was fired as Britain’s ambassador to the US over his relationship with Epstein.

This week, UK police announced they had launched an investigation into allegations that Mandelson committed misconduct in public office in his dealings with Epstein.

The material includes emails from Mandelson to Epstein sharing sensitive government information, as well as bank documents suggesting Epstein transferred tens of thousands of dollars to accounts linked to Mandelson or his partner.

Blair has recently been back in the spotlight after US President Donald Trump named him one of the founding executive members on the so-called “Board of Peace“, tasked with oversight of the administration and reconstruction of Gaza under the US leader’s 20-point plan to end Israel’s genocidal war against Palestinians in Gaza.

More than 71,000 Palestinians have been killed and Gaza turned into rubble during Israel’s two years of nonstop bombardment. Rights groups and scholars have dubbed Israel’s actions in Gaza a genocide. Despite a “ceasefire” agreed upon in October, Israel has killed more than 500 Palestinians, including 21 on Wednesday, and has reneged on many of the terms of the deal.

Blair’s participation in Trump’s project has been a major source of contention, given his prominent role in the Iraq war, which resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis.

To this day, critics in the Middle East and the UK brand Blair a “war criminal”, and he remains a toxic figure in some quarters.