Benz drew historical lines between Cold War-era covert programs and figures like Epstein, Khashoggi, and even Martin Luther King Jr.
“But Epstein was, you know, by his own testimony in 1987, he gave an interview and said one of his top clients was Adnan Khashoggi, who was the CIA middleman between the US and Israel with respect to Iran-Contra,” Benz told Posobiec. “If he's handling sheltering assets for Adnan Khashoggi—and Adnan Khashoggi is the world's most prolific arms runner and the top commission agent of Lockheed Martin and Raytheon and everyone else—and the whole affair rides on this guy and his money is being handled by Jeffrey Epstein, that's a pretty big node for the CIA to have to know about, given that that's the linchpin of their operation.”
Benz said the CIA’s operations during the Iran-Contra affair relied on covert logistics, including the use of a proprietary airline: “And then what's used in Iran Contra for smuggling the drugs and guns and cash to fund that illegal war? Well, it was Southern Air Transport, a CIA proprietary airline.”
“In 1994, Jeffrey Epstein negotiates the transfer of Southern Air Transport, that very CIA proprietary airline, to move from Miami—where it was doing Iran Contra work—to Columbus, Ohio, where Jeffrey Epstein was given, you know, a giant townhouse. And that was where The Limited was headquartered. The Southern Air Transport, the CIA airline moved directly to Columbus specifically to service Jeffrey Epstein's company, or at least the company he had durable power of attorney over.”
Benz also linked Epstein’s property in the US Virgin Islands to financial activities tied to Iran-Contra. “When Jeffrey Epstein bought Little St. James and all of his property in the US Virgin Islands, that was also one of the seat of operations for Southern Air Transport, the CIA airline, because the money laundering funnel for Iran Contra started in the US Virgin Islands before it was pushed out to Swiss and Panamanian bank accounts.”
"I could go on forever about this, but the fact is we have an ODNI push right now to try to tell the underside of the iceberg of what has been very visible American history, from the JFK files to the Martin Luther King files. And I don't think that we should limit ODNI's declassifications to the 20th century.”
He praised DNI head Tulsi Gabbard for her recent efforts to expose intelligence overreach. “Now, obviously, what Tulsi has been doing has been completely fantastic around Russiagate. She has run laps and is stunting on the Durham investigation, which was completely tepid. Tulsi has done more in just a few months than Durham appeared to have done in his whole lifetime in terms of investigative research of intelligence files and including them in Justice Department referrals.”
Benz went on to say the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. also had “very strange intelligence adjacencies,” much like the JFK case. “We had the CIA ties to the JFK assassination on the front-page, A1 headlines of The Washington Post just a week and a half ago,” he said, referring to a recent story Gabbard promoted. “Tulsi just put out 230,000 files on Martin Luther King, which, again, it is also these very strange intelligence links—from Martin Luther King being shot and falling into the arms of a guy who he thought was his friend and bodyguard, but turned out to be an undercover CIA.”
