The former US president’s close relationship with the convicted sex offender is under examination as part of a congressional inquiry
Former US President Bill Clinton is due to testify today as part of an investigation into a sex trafficking network set up by late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
The disgraced financier visited the White House 17 times between 1993 and 1995 during Clinton’s term in office.
The former president is believed to have flown on Epstein’s private jet, nicknamed the ‘Lolita Express’, up to 26 times between 2001 and 2003.
Clinton’s deposition before the House Oversight Committee follows his wife Hillary’s nearly seven-hour testimony on Thursday. After that session, Committee Chairman James Comer told reporters he expected the former president’s deposition “will last even longer.”
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“We have a lot of questions for her husband tomorrow,” Comer said, noting that Hillary Clinton responded with “I don’t know, you’ll have to ask my husband” more than a dozen times.
Newly released Justice Department files include photographs showing Bill Clinton with Epstein and his accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell. Maxwell is currently serving 20 years in prison for sex trafficking and related offenses. One undated image shows Clinton in a hot tub next to a person whose face is redacted. Another photograph shows him swimming at night with Maxwell.
© Global Look Press / House Oversight Committee via Capital Pictures
© Global Look Press / Keystone Press Agency / Department Of Justice
A key Epstein accuser, Chauntae Davies, was once photographed giving Bill Clinton a neck massage. Davies has stated, however, that Clinton behaved appropriately toward her.
© Win McNamee / Getty Images
Bill Clinton was impeached in 1998 following his affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky and subsequent accusations of perjury and obstruction of justice. The Senate acquitted him in a trial the next year. Lewinsky later called their relationship “a gross abuse of power.”
The release of millions of pages of Epstein-related documents has triggered a wave of resignations across several countries. In the UK, the political fallout has been most severe. Disgraced former UK ambassador to the US Peter Mandelson has been arrested, and the brother of King Charles, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, has been stripped of his titles and was briefly detained last week as part of the investigation, according to multiple media reports.
The United Nations Human Rights Council stated last week that abuses detailed in the released files “may reasonably meet the legal threshold of crimes against humanity” and demanded suspected perpetrators be prosecuted regardless of their status or wealth.
