A representative for former President Bill Clinton’s spokesperson said Monday he did not know anything about the crimes financier Jeffrey Epstein pleaded guilty to more than a decade ago or the new sex trafficking charges filed against him.
Fox News is among several outlets that have reported that Clinton took numerous flights on Epstein’s plane between 2001 and 2003. Vanity Fair detailed a trip they took to “explore the problems of AIDS and economic development in Africa.” The Center for Responsive Politics reported that Epstein donated $139,000 to Democratic federal candidates and committees between 1989 to 2003.
“President Clinton 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,” Clinton’s press secretary, Angel Ureña, tweeted in a statement Monday.
He added: “In 2002 and 2003, President Clinton took a total of four trips on Jeffrey Epstein’s airplane: one to Europe, one to Asia and two to Africa, which included stops in connection with the work of the Clinton Foundation. Staff, supporters of the Foundation, and his Secret Service detail traveled on every leg of every trip.”
“He had one meeting with Epstein in his Harlem office in 2002, and around the same time made one brief visit to Epstein’s New York apartment with a staff member and his security detail,” Ureña continued. “He’s not spoken to Epstein in well over a decade, and has never been to Little St. James Island, Epstein’s ranch in New Mexico, or his residence in Florida.”
Epstein was arrested on Saturday on one count of sex trafficking and one count of conspiracy to commit sex trafficking. Prosecutors said Epstein used cash to solicit sex from underage girls as young as 14, asking them for “massages” and then molesting or sexually abusing them between 1999 and 2005. Epstein has pleaded not guilty to these charges.
He pleaded not guilty. Epstein was ordered to stay in jail until his bail hearing next Monday, the Associated Press reported.
Epstein also has connections to President Trump. In a 2002 New York Magazine piece, Trump said, “I’ve known Jeff for fifteen years. Terrific guy. He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.”
Epstein pleaded guilty in 2008 to soliciting sex from a minor, and served only 13 months in a county jail in Florida.
In November, the Miami Herald reported that Trump Administration Labor Secretary Alex Acosta, who was the U.S. attorney in Florida at the time, brokered the plea deal, which has received new scrutiny in light of the new charges.