- India moved swiftly to reject any suggestion of impropriety after PM Modi's name appeared in the Epstein Files
- MEA called references beyond Modi's 2017 Israel visit as baseless and contemptible remarks
- PM Modi's July 2017 Israel visit was the first by an Indian Prime Minister since 1992 ties began
India on Friday moved swiftly to reject any suggestion of impropriety after Prime Minister Narendra Modi's name surfaced in a reference contained in newly released United States Justice Department files linked to the late financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
"We have seen reports of an email message from the so-called Epstein files that has a reference to the Prime Minister and his visit to Israel," MEA spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal. "Beyond the fact of the Prime Minister's official visit to Israel in July 2017, the rest of the allusions in the email are little more than trashy ruminations by a convicted criminal, which deserve to be dismissed with the utmost contempt."
PM Modi's visit to Israel in July 2017 marked the first time an Indian Prime Minister set foot in the country since India and Israel established full diplomatic relations in 1992.
The comment came hours after the US Department of Justice released a vast new tranche of records from its investigative files on Epstein, resuming disclosures under a law designed to shed light on what the government knew about the financier's sexual abuse of young girls and his interactions with wealthy and influential figures.
Deputy US Attorney General Todd Blanche said more than three million pages of documents were being released in the latest disclosure, alongside more than 2,000 videos and 180,000 images.
The files, published on the department's website, include material that officials said had been withheld from an initial release in December.
The disclosures are mandated under the Epstein Files Transparency Act, enacted after months of political and public pressure. The law requires the government to open its files relating not only to Epstein but also to his longtime associate and former girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell.
Epstein died in a New York jail cell in August 2019, a month after he was indicted on federal sex trafficking charges, in a death ruled a suicide.
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