Former president Bill Clinton has revealed that he regrets ever having met with convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
In his new book ‘Citizen’, which is scheduled to come out next week, Clinton, now 78, described his interactions with the convicted pedophile.
The excerpts, first reported by The US Sun, show him admitting that he had flown on Esptein’s private jet, the Lolita Express, in 2002 and 2003.
He explained that travelling aboard Epstein’s jet was not worth the years of speculation around his character, and the questioning that has come with it.
Clinton wrote: ‘The bottom line is, even though it allowed me to visit the work of my foundation, traveling on Epstein’s plane was not worth the years of questioning afterward. I wish I had never met him.’
Clinton claims in his memoir that Epstein, who died in 2019, had offered the plane in support of Clinton’s foundation and that they spoke about economics and politics.
He also outrighted dismissed allegations that he had ever visited Little Saint James, a private island in the US Virgin Islands owned by Epstein.
Clinton also said that the two only had brief meetings, one in his Harlem office and another in Epstein’s New York home.
In his new book Citizen, which is scheduled to come out next week, Clinton, now 78, described his interactions with the convicted pedophile
Clinton claims in his memoir that Epstein, seen here with associate Ghislaine Maxwell, had offered the plane in support of his foundation
Clinton lies back in a chair as he receives a neck massage from a former victim of Jeffrey Epstein Chauntae Davies
The former president wrote: ‘I had always thought Epstein was odd but had no inkling of the crimes he was committing.
‘He hurt a lot of people, but I knew nothing about it, and by the time he was first arrested in 2005, I had stopped contact with him. I’ve never visited his island.’
In January of this year bombshell court documents had claimed that Clinton ‘liked them young’.
Details involving the testimony of Johanna Sjoberg, who was recruited at the age of 20 to work as a massage therapist, were released after a ruling was handed down.
Sjoberg told the lawyers in 2016 that Epstein told her ‘Clinton likes them young, referring to girls’.
Clinton has long faced questions about his associate with Epstein, who took his own life while awaiting trial on charges of sex trafficking minors.
He had invited him to the White House, with the financier visiting at least 17 times between 1993 and 1995 according to logs obtained by DailyMail.com.
Epstein’s former girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell was invited to Chelsea Clinton’s July 2010 wedding.
Maxwell was sentenced in June 2022 to 20 years in prison for conspiring with Epstein to sexually abuse minors.
Clinton speaks at a campaign rally for Kamala Harris in Augusta, Georgia, on November 3, 2024
Clinton has long faced questions about his associate with Epstein, who took his own life while awaiting trial on charges of sex trafficking minors. He is seen here aboard his jet
Epstein appears in a photograph taken for the New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services’ sex offender registry on March 28, 2017
In a April 2016 deposition, Maxwell was asked about the travels with Epstein and Clinton.
‘The allegation that Clinton had a meal on Jeffrey’s island is 100 per cent false,’ Maxwell said. ‘I’m sure he had a meal on Jeffrey’s plane.’
She said she did not know how many times Clinton had flown on Epstein’s plane.
Maxwell was also asked about her relationship with Doug Band – a lawyer, who helped rebuild Clinton’s image in his post presidency following the Monica Lewinsky scandal.
Band worked in Clinton’s White House counsel’s office and served as deputy assistant to the President before becoming his chief advisor from 2002 to 2011.
With Band’s help, Clinton fashioned a new role for his post presidency with his Clinton Global Initiative which donated millions to good causes.
Band was also with Clinton during some of his encounters with Epstein and was on the infamous 2002 trip to Africa aboard the pedophile’s private jet where the passengers included Kevin Spacey and Chris Tucker.
Photos from the trip show Clinton getting a massage from Chauntae Davies, an Epstein victim who worked as a flight attendant on Epstein’s jet.
Lawyer’s for Virginia Giuffre, a trafficking victim of Epstein, had previously argued that Clinton was a crucial witness in the case against him, but Clinton has never been accused of any wrongdoing.
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Read more at DailyMail.co.uk