Inside Bill Clinton’s decade-long ties to Epstein and that infamous jet as House panel demands answers
WASHINGTON, DC: When Bill Clinton gazed out the window of a private jet heading toward Africa back in 2002, he probably thought he was embarking on a noble mission to launch a new nonprofit AIDS initiative. The tour spanned five countries, complete with a high-profile hangout with the legendary Nelson Mandela.
But that’s not what people remember about that trip. The former president was flying alongside Kevin Spacey, Chris Tucker, and several other guests of disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein. They were all aboard his now-notorious jet, later nicknamed the "Lolita Express."
The plane was reportedly staffed with young girls. Epstein reportedly used the tactic to woo and entrap powerful figures.
“I felt Epstein put the President at risk with those young girls on board,” Spacey told Piers Morgan last year. “It was disturbing. There were young girls on those flights. I didn’t understand at the time who they were or why they were there.”
One photo from the Africa trip that didn't age well shows Clinton, then 56, getting a shoulder massage from then 22-year-old Chauntae Davies. She was later identified as one of Epstein’s employees.
From the White House to the House Oversight Committee
This week, the ghosts of Jeffrey Epstein’s manifest are rattling louder than ever. Bill and Hillary Clinton have both been subpoenaed by the House Oversight Committee to testify about their ties to Epstein, who died behind bars in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.
A letter from the committee to the former secretary of state reportedly referred to a potential “close relationship” between the Clintons and Epstein and his longtime associate, Ghislaine Maxwell.
By the time the former president took that 2002 flight, his links to Epstein had already stretched back about a decade. Epstein gave Bill's 1992 campaign a $1,000 donation, then slid Hillary $20,000 during her 2000 run for the US Senate, according to public records.
It wasn’t just money. Epstein and Maxwell visited the White House 17 times during Bill's presidency, starting in 1993. In the same year as the Africa trip, Epstein reportedly also visited the 42nd president at his Harlem office, which was tied to the Clinton Foundation.
The African jaunt was the second of what would eventually total 26 flights Bill took aboard Epstein’s private jet, according to flight logs. Some of those legs were reportedly taken without Secret Service protection.
Now, those excursions are under a fresh microscope, with lawmakers reopening the investigation into Clinton’s ties to Epstein. The push comes in the wake of the Justice Department’s interview with Maxwell, who is currently serving 20 years for procuring underage girls for Epstein. She reportedly gave her lawyers a list of 100 names connected to the disgraced financier.
Bill Clinton just couldn't cut ties with Jeffrey Epstein
In a 2020 interview, Bill Clinton’s longtime aide Doug Band told Vanity Fair that he had tried repeatedly to keep Jeffrey Epstein at arm’s length after the 2002 trip, but Clinton just couldn’t quit him.
Band even alleged that in early 2003, the former president visited Epstein’s private island in the Caribbean.
The Clinton camp has long denied that Bill ever set foot on Little St James, but Epstein accuser Virginia Giuffre claimed otherwise.
In a memoir included in a legal filing against Maxwell, whom she sued for defamation in 2015, Giuffre claimed she saw Bill on the island, sitting across from her at dinner with “two lovely girls.”
“Teasing the girls on either side of him with playful pokes and brassy comments, there was no modesty between any of them,” she wrote in an unpublished manuscript titled 'The Billionaire’s Playboy Club'.
“We all finished our meals and scattered in our own different directions. Strolling into the darkness with two beautiful girls around either arm, Bill seemed content to retire for the evening,” she added.
Despite mounting claims, Bill has consistently downplayed his relationship with Epstein, claiming he cut ties well before the financier’s 2007 and 2019 arrests.
In a 2019 statement, a spokesperson insisted the former president “knows nothing about the terrible crimes Jeffrey Epstein pleaded guilty to in Florida some years ago, or those with which he has been recently charged in New York.”
Clintons appeared to maintain contact with Ghislaine Maxwell
Even as Bill Clinton tried to put daylight between himself and Jeffrey Epstein, the financier seemed eager to show off the friendship.
A journalist who met Epstein a year before his death noted that the disgraced financier had a picture of himself with Bill proudly on display.
Furthermore, when the FBI raided Epstein’s Manhattan mansion after his 2019 death, they found a bizarre painting of Clinton lounging in a blue dress eerily similar to the one worn by Monica Lewinsky during their infamous scandal.
While Bill kept his distance from Epstein, the family still appeared to maintain contact with Maxwell. She even scored an invite to Chelsea Clinton’s wedding in 2010.
Now, the Clinton-Epstein connection is heading straight into congressional crosshairs.
Former Attorney General William Barr is scheduled to testify before the House Oversight Committee on August 18. Hillary is slated for a deposition on October 9, with Bill’s testimony to follow on October 14.
