How Bill Clinton And Jeffrey Epstein Knew Each Other

Back in March 1995, former U.S. President Bill Clinton was running for re-election. Among his guests at a posh three-hour Palm Beach banquet — at which some diners paid as much as $100,000 to attend — was one Jeffrey Epstein, who was listed as "a business executive," according to The Palm Beach Post. This seems to be the first press report that links Clinton with Epstein. Fast forward 20-plus years. In 2019, federal prosecutors in New York charged Epstein with sex trafficking, per the Associated Press. The name of the billionaire financier, who had already served prison time for soliciting prostitution from a minor, would soon be linked with many of the world's rich and famous, per The New York Times.

Clinton's name — as well as that of another former U.S. president, Donald Trump — have come up in relation to Epstein and his girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell, who is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence for her role in these crimes. But there are no allegations that either Clinton or Trump were involved in any wrongdoing. In the early 2000s, Clinton flew on Epstein's private jet to various locations around the world as part of his humanitarian work with his nonprofit Clinton Foundation. He has denied ever having a close relationship with Epstein.

Back in 2003, Bill Clinton called Jeffrey Epstein "a highly successful financier and a committed philanthropist with a keen sense of global markets and an in-depth knowledge of twenty-first-century science," per New York Magazine. "I especially appreciated his insights and generosity during the recent trip to Africa to work on democratization, empowering the poor, citizen service, and combating HIV/AIDS," the former president told the magazine through a spokesperson. Clinton had flown on Epstein's jet to various locales in Africa in 2002 — as well as England, Japan, China, Singapore, Morocco, the Azores, and New York, that year and into 2003, per Newsweek.

Epstein liked to collect "beautiful minds" and went out of his way to befriend Clinton, according to New York magazine."I invest in people — be it politics or science," the publication reported Epstein telling friends. "It's what I do." The disgraced financier and registered sex offender died by suicide in 2019 in a federal jail in New York City while awaiting his trial on charges he trafficked minors for sex in the early 2000s.

In 2019, Bill Clinton released a statement to the press in which he said that on all the flights he took on Jeffrey Epstein's private jet, members of his foundation's staff and secret service detail were with him, per The New York Times. In 2022, Clinton, through a spokesperson, told Newsweek that he knew "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." The statement went on to say that he hadn't spoken to Epstein "in well over a decade" and "has never been to Little St. James island."

Epstein owned Little St. James Island in the Caribbean, where it is alleged he would fly underage girls on his private jet for sex, according to ABC News. Virginia Giuffre, one of Epstein's victims, said that she met Clinton there — but did not allege the former president did anything wrong. In 2024, documents from a 2015 civil lawsuit filed by Giuffre were unsealed, and Clinton's name appeared numerous times. Notably, Epstein accuser Johanna Sjöberg said the accused sex trafficker told her that "'Clinton likes them young,' referring to girls," according to her deposition transcript (per TMZ). Besides Clinton's denial of ever visiting the island, Ghislaine Maxwell also denied Clinton had ever gone there. Additionally, there are no flight logs indicating he went there.

If you or anyone you know has been a victim of sexual assault, help is available. Visit the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network website or contact RAINN's National Helpline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673).