(The Daily Signal) — Court documents released Wednesday from a 2015 defamation lawsuit revealed that a close associate of Hollywood mogul and convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein claimed Epstein said that former President Bill Clinton “likes them young,” referring to girls. Clinton, who does not face any charges of wrongdoing, has denied having a relationship with Epstein.
The documents trace back to a defamation lawsuit that Virginia Giuffre, an alleged sex-trafficking victim of Epstein’s, filed against Epstein’s associate, Ghislaine Maxwell, in 2015. While Giuffre and Maxwell settled the case out of court in 2017, documents from that case remained sealed until Wednesday, when Sigrid McCawley, Giuffre’s former attorney, released them following an order from U.S. District Court Judge Loretta Preska.
McCawley released 40 documents Wednesday, of an expected 250 documents Preska ordered unsealed. The documents name roughly 150 people in previously redacted parts of the suit against Maxwell, who was found guilty of child sex trafficking and other crimes in 2021. A New York judge sentenced her to 20 years’ imprisonment in June 2022.
Epstein had been convicted in 2008 on the charges of procuring a child for prostitution and of soliciting a prostitute in a controversial plea deal. Authorities arrested him on July 6, 2019, on federal charges for the sex trafficking of minors. He died in his jail cell in August 2019, and the medical examiner ruled his death a suicide.
Clinton’s name appears 73 times in the newly released documents. Maxwell refers to Epstein’s discussion of Clinton, Giuffre mentions Clinton, Maxwell cites Giuffre’s mentions of Clinton as proof Giuffre was lying about claims she made regarding Clinton, and Giuffre claims Maxwell herself bragged about flying a plane with Clinton as the passenger.
Clinton’s statement
In a statement to The Daily Signal Wednesday, Clinton spokesman Angel Ureña said Clinton and Epstein did not have a close personal relationship. He also noted that Clinton has not been accused of wrongdoing. Clinton did not object to the unsealing of the documents.
Ureña noted in a previous statement in 2019 that Clinton took four trips on Epstein’s plane in 2002 and 2003. “President Clinton knows nothing about the terrible crimes Jeffrey Epstein pleaded guilty to in Florida some years ago, or those with which he has recently been charged in New York,” he said at the time. “He’s not spoken to Epstein in well over a decade and has never been to Little St. James Island,” Epstein’s notorious private island.
“A clarification: since I issued the above in 2019, it’s now more accurate to say that it’s been nearly 20 years since President Clinton last had contact with Epstein,” Ureña added in his Wednesday statement.
Statement on Jeffrey Epstein. pic.twitter.com/98ha9YYd1l
— Angel Ureña (@angelurena) July 8, 2019
What do the documents say?
In an April 22, 2016, deposition, Maxwell responded to the question of whether “Bill Clinton was a friend of Jeffrey Epstein.”
“I knew he had dealings with Bill Clinton,” Maxwell said.
When asked, “Did Jeffrey ever talk to you about Bill Clinton?” she replied, “He said one time that Clinton likes them young, referring to girls.”
In a Jan. 12, 2015, email, Epstein told Maxwell that she “can issue a reward to any of [Virginia Giuffre’]s friends, [acquaintances], family that come forward and help prove her allegations are false.” He noted that “the strongest is the Clinton dinner, and the new version in the virgin isalnds that [Steven Hawking participated] in an underage orgy.”
This appears to be a reference to Giuffre’s claim that she had dinner with Clinton on Epstein’s island.
Sharon Churcher published a 2011 article in the British newspaper The Mail on Sunday quoting Giuffre as saying that Epstein invited “two young brunettes to dinner which he gave on his Caribbean island for Mr. Clinton shortly after he left office.”
According to Churcher, Giuffre said Clinton “did not take the bait.”
“I only met Bill twice, but Jeffrey told me they were good friends,” Giuffre reportedly said. She also said she thought Maxwell flew him back from the island.
During her April 2016 deposition, Maxwell said of Clinton and Epstein, “I can’t recollect having a meal with them, but just so we are clear, the allegations that Clinton had a meal on Jeffrey’s island is 100% false.”
Giuffre later attempted to bring Clinton in for a deposition to disprove Maxwell’s claims.
When Giuffre requested more time for depositions, partly to include testimony from Clinton, Maxwell filed a motion opposing her request. In that document, Maxwell claimed that every part of Giuffre’s story was false.
“Each and every part of [Giuffre’s] claims regarding President Clinton has conclusively been proven false,” she wrote. “Former FBI Director Louis Freeh submitted a report wherein he concluded that President Clinton ‘did not, in fact travel to, nor was he present on, Little St. James Island between January 1, 2001, and January 1, 2003.’ Further, if any Secret Service agents had accompanied Clinton to that location, ‘they would have been required to make and file shift logs, travel vouchers, and related documentation relating to the visit,’ and there was a ‘total absence’ of any such documentation. Remarkably, [Giuffre] now even denies telling Churcher that she ever witnessed Ms. Maxwell flying President Clinton or his Secret Service anywhere, or joking with Clinton about ‘what a good job she did.’”
In a May 3, 2016, deposition, Giuffre said her comments in The Mail on Sunday article were “taken out of context.”
“Ghislaine told me that she flew Bill Clinton in. And Ghislaine likes to talk a lot of stuff that sounds fantastical. And whether it’s true or not, that is what I do recall telling Sharon Churcher,” Giuffre said.
“I told Sharon Churcher that Ghislaine flew Bill Clinton onto the island, based upon what Ghislaine had told me,” she added.
This article was originally published at The Daily Signal and reprinted here with permission.
Tyler O'Neil
Tyler O'Neil is managing editor of The Daily Signal and the author of "Making Hate Pay: The Corruption of the Southern Poverty Law Center."
