Fact Check: Are Epstein files photos showing Bill Clinton with Stephen Hawking in costumes real?
WASHINGTON, DC: Amid the controversies surrounding the release of a massive tranche of files related to the convicted offender Jeffrey Epstein, photographs began circulating on social media platforms showing former President Bill Clinton and scientist Stephen Hawking in costumes. Let us analyze the viral photos and fact-check them.
Claim: Images show Bill Clinton and Stephen Hawking in costumes
The images surfaced amid the renewed controversy surrounding the disgraced financier, after which the former president appeared for a deposition before the United States House Committee on Oversight and Accountability.
Among the two images that appeared on social media, one shows Clinton carrying Hawking in his arms. In the other, Hawking is seen in a wheelchair, wearing what appears to be a princess costume, with Clinton playing with a doll.
The images were widely circulated, with many believing them to be authentic, while a few remained skeptical.
Fact Check: Fake, the images were AI-generated
The images, however, are generated using AI and are not part of the newly released Epstein files.
A reverse image search for one of the images led to posts on a Facebook group called ‘Crazed AI’ by a digital creator, Marc-André Lavoie (@lavoie.marc9903).
The image showing Clinton carrying Hawking was posted in the group on February 28, while the same user uploaded the second image on March 1.
Lavoie told Snopes that the images were created using Grok and shared them in communities that clearly focus on AI-generated content to make it clear they were not real. He added that he did not expect anyone to believe the images were genuine.
The images were even run through AI detection tools such as Hive Moderation, which flagged them as likely deepfakes and highly likely to be AI-generated.
The deposition of Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton
The images surfaced amid the deposition of the Clintons, in which both Bill and Hillary Clinton denied knowledge of Jeffrey Epstein's crimes before his pleading guilty in 2008 to state charges in Florida.
In an opening statement shared ahead of his deposition in the Clintons' hometown of Chappaqua, Bill Clinton stated, “I saw nothing, and I did nothing wrong.”
While neither Clinton has been accused of any wrongdoing, Bill appears several times in the trove of Epstein records released by the committee, including in photographs.
The former president told the committee he met Epstein in 2001 or 2002 after leaving the White House. He said he was introduced to Epstein by Larry Summers, his onetime Treasury Secretary, whose own ties to the financier have come under scrutiny in recent months.
