Page 12 QQQ Daily Mail, Monday, August 12, 2019
Friend of
Trump and
Clinton...
with jet
called
the Lolita
Express
Jeffrey epstein was a
university drop-out and
maths teacher who managed
to become friends with not
just one but two presidents.
In his glory days as a hugely
generous multi-millionaire fin-
ancier, both Bill Clinton and
Donald Trump were more than
happy to know epstein.
They sat at the pinnacle of a vast
social web of the world’s elite, influ-
ential friends and acquaintances
that included film and rock stars,
politicians, scientists and royalty.
Now the two presidents are at
the centre of the epstein scandal
once again after the disgraced fin-
ancier was found hanged in his cell
in a Manhattan jail on Saturday.
Within hours of the news of what
officials called an ‘apparent sui-
cide’, President Trump had taken
to Twitter and retweeted an
unfounded conspiracy theory link-
meaning ‘hugs and kisses’ – was
scrawled on the pavement outside
epstein’s Manhattan mansion.
Mr Trump also retweeted an
incorrect claim from a conserva-
tive news website that newly
unsealed court documents revealed
that ‘top Democrats, including Bill
Clinton, took private trips to Jef-
frey epstein’s “paedophilia island”’
in the Caribbean.
A spokesman for Mr Clinton dis-
missed Mr Trump’s retweets, say-
ing: ‘ridiculous, and of course not
true – and Donald Trump knows
it.’ The spokesman then mockingly
asked: ‘Has he triggered the 25th
Amendment yet?’ – a reference to
a constitutional provision allowing
for the removal of a mentally
unstable president.
The ugly presidential spat has
reminded the world of the power-
ful company that the disgraced
epstein once kept. And given that
both men have themselves been
accused of sexual misconduct by
various women over the years, it
has inevitably fuelled suspicions
that they might have at the very
least known something about
epstein’s sordid private life.
recently, both Mr Trump and Mr
Clinton have been at pains to
stress how they broke their ties
with epstein many years ago.
Mr Clinton has gone further, deny-
ing that he ever had a close rela-
tionship with epstein, despite the
latter having 20 different contact
numbers and addresses for the ex-
president in his ‘little black book’ of
contacts (actually a rolodex).
In a statement last month, MrClinton insisted he ‘knows nothing
about the terrible crimes’ of which
epstein was accused and that he
hadn’t spoken to the financier for
more than a decade.
However, the former president was
once close enough to accept
repeated flights on epstein’s Gulf-
stream jet. According to Mr Clinton,
the pair only met after he left office.
epstein was an enthusiastic phi-
lanthropist – a ruse, say some, to
win access to powerful people –
and encountered Mr Clinton
through a foundation the latter set
up after leaving office in 2001.
Insiders say the introduction
came about because epstein’s
socialite girlfriend, Ghislaine Max-
well, was a friend of Mr Clinton’s
daughter Chelsea. The following
year, epstein flew him to Africa todiscuss economic development and
Aids. ‘Jeffrey is both a highly suc-
cessful financier and a committed
philanthropist,’ gushed Mr Clinton
to a magazine that year, adding
that he ‘especially appreciated his
insights and generosity during the
recent trip to Africa’.
friends of epstein told the maga-been claimed, it was used to fly
underage girls to sex parties – and
flight records show that his harem
of young women frequently joined
his VIP guests for trips.
A spokesman for Mr Clinton said
he took just four trips on the plane
between 2002 and 2003 – two to
Africa, one to europe and one to
Asia – accompanied by staff and
Secret Service bodyguards. Apart
from that, the two men only met
briefly on two other occasions.
However, this possibly wasn’t the
full story. According to pilot flight
logs, Mr Clinton took repeated trips
on the epstein plane with, among
other passengers, a young actress
in adult films who described herself
as epstein’s ‘private masseuse’.
The logs also showed that on a
flight to Asia, Mr Clinton andFrom To m
Leonard
IN NEW YORK‘Had information
on Bill Clinton’‘I invest in people,
it’s what I do’ing Bill and Hillary Clinton to
epstein’s death.
The offending post – originally
made by Trump-supporting, US
comedian Terrence Williams –
stated that epstein ‘had informa-
tion on Bill Clinton & now he’s
dead’. In an accompanying two-
minute video, Williams repeated a
popular right-wing accusation,
noting that ‘for some odd reason,
people that have information on
the Clintons end up dead and they
usually die from suicide’.
Such is Trump’s Twitter power –
he has 63million followers – that by
yesterday morning, the video had
been watched nearly four million
times. ‘XOXO Hillary and Bill’ –
Happy to know him: Epstein with Bill Clinton – who says he knew nothing of Epstein’s crimeszine that epstein had been keen to
add the ex-president to his network
of contacts. ‘I invest in people – be
it politics or science,’ he reportedly
told friends. ‘It’s what I do.’
epstein’s plane was nicknamed
the Lolita express – because, it hasDEATH OF A PREDATOR
V