How did Jeffrey Epstein know everybody? This is a question that has been asked for years, but ever since the Justice Department released over 3.5 million files, the question has been asked with even more urgency.

If you comb through the released emails, Epstein did not seem to be particularly great with managing money. What he did have, though, were connections to the most powerful people in the world.

Einstein was friends or had close relations with former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, President Donald Trump, former President Bill Clinton, the Crown Princess of Norway, a former Norwegian Prime Minister, the now-former Prince Andrew and his wife Princess Ferguson, former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, British Prime Minister Lord Mandelson, Microsoft founder Bill Gates, former White House senior counsel Kathy Ruemmler, filmmaker and actor Woody Allen, and former Trump advisor Steve Bannon.

What many people overlook, though, are his ties to intelligence agencies. Epstein’s on-and-off-again partner and lifelong friend Ghislaine Maxwell was the daughter of Robert Maxwell, a known Mossad asset. He knew Adnan Khashoggi, one of the most prolific gun runners in the world, who was, at the time, selling guns to Iran. He worked with former Assistant Attorney General Stanley Pottinger at the same time; Pottinger was making deals for China to sell guns to Iran.

Epstein would later work with one of the airlines that flew the guns to Iran, and officials would later find in his safe a fake passport that listed his country of origin as Saudi Arabia.

Epstein sent a Freedom of Information request in 2011 to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), requesting any public information they had on him, which was none.

One of India’s richest men contacted Epstein in 2017, saying that “leadership” wanted to set up a meeting with Bannon and Jared Kushner. While Epstein had no ties to Trump since at least 2006, they seemed to assume Epstein still had ties to Trump’s inner circle.

People wonder how he got his money and connections to the rich and powerful, and now some speculate that it could have been through intelligence. If he was involved in the Iran-Contra affair, it would make sense how he earned so much money, and using that money and those intelligence ties, he could have grown his inner circle.

With money and people skills, he could have had the richest people in the world on his side, but with some blackmail, he could have kept the whole thing going. A report for possession of child pornography was filed in the 90s but was never followed up on. A Vanity Fair article also had large sections removed from it before publishing to make him look better.