NEW: Jeffrey Epstein pursued a plan to fund Israeli cyberweapons firms with money raised from the storied Swiss banking family Rothschild Group. The years-long private discussions focused on using Rothschild as a vehicle to create a donor-advised venture capital fund intended to fund the growth of "offensive cyber" startups linked to Israeli intelligence. Epstein pushed forward the plan to build a global surveillance empire with former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak by leveraging his own close personal ties to Ariane de Rothschild, now CEO of the firm. Rothschild Group also has an ongoing historic relationship with the state of Israel through a tax-exempt foundation that manages the Israeli locality of Caesarea, over which Epstein and Barak attempted to help resolve a dispute with the Israeli government: This story is the latest entry in an ongoing series by me and @ryangrim for @DropSiteNews on Epstein's links to foreign intelligence services. Link in next post: