A previous version of this article stated that George Mitchell and Ehud Barak were both speakers at an event at Vanderbilt University on 18th March 2013. Only George Mitchell was a speaker at the event, as Ehud Barak’s appearance was rescheduled to a later date.
George Mitchell was scheduled to fly on Jeffrey Epstein’s private jet in March 2013, according to emails released as part of the Epstein Files – contradicting previous claims made by the former US Senator that he had no further contact with Epstein after the financier’s 2008 conviction for procuring sex from minors.
In an email dated 7th March 2013, Epstein asked his pilot Larry Visoski to add a stop in Nashville to an already planned flight so he could pick up Ehud Barak and George Mitchell on the way, though Mitchell’s name is misspelled as “geroge mitcehll”.
The 19th March trip appears in Epstein’s flight logs as a flight from St. Thomas in the US Virgin Islands to Teterboro Airport, just outside New York.
But in an email dated 11th March 2013, Visoski confirmed he had obtained permission to land at Nashville, even though the stop wasn’t included in the border overflight exemption for the flight. This meant they would avoid going through customs at Nashville.
George Mitchell was a speaker at an event at Vanderbilt University in Nashville on 18th March 2013, the day before the pickup was planned. Ehud Barak was also scheduled to speak at the event, though his appearance was rescheduled for 7th April shortly before.
Mitchell has repeatedly maintained that he had no further contact with Epstein after the financier’s 2008 conviction. A spokesman for Mitchell claimed earlier this month that he “declined or deflected” invitations to meet with Epstein following his release from prison in 2009.
Mitchell and Barak were both among those Epstein sought to contact immediately on leaving prison.
In an email dated 28th July 2009, less than week after his release, Epstein asks the recipient to tell “ehud barak and geroge mitchell” that he was “free and home” and that they “can call the home number”.
Mitchell wrote in a 2003 letter to Epstein that their friendship, which Mitchell described as a “blessing”, began “more than a decade” earlier with a chance meeting at an airport.
Left in the Lurch 