Epstein and the Clintons: As Hillary Launched Presidential Campaign, Epstein Feared Exposure
Leaked emails show Ghislaine Maxwell traveled to a south Indian village with Bill Clinton in 2006, while Epstein lavished gifts on a senior Clinton aide—after Clinton supposedly cut ties.
We have a commitment to ensuring that our journalism is not locked behind a paywall. But the only way we can sustain this is through the voluntary support of our community of readers. If you are a free subscriber and you support our work, please consider upgrading to a paid subscription or gifting one to a friend or family member. You can also make a 501(c)(3) tax-deductible donation to support our work.
Since Jeffrey Epstein’s second arrest in 2019, the Clintons have spent considerable effort distancing themselves from the enigmatic financier, and they are currently fending off House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer, who threatened contempt proceedings after the political power couple refused to testify this week regarding their relationship to Epstein.
Epstein first came into public view after accompanying former President Bill Clinton on a 2002 tour of Africa, aboard Epstein’s infamous Boeing 727 plane, later dubbed “Lolita Express.” Abundant photos from that Africa trip—with Kevin Spacey and Chris Tucker—have just been released by the Justice Department.
Through a spokesperson, Bill Clinton has acknowledged traveling on Epstein’s jet during a humanitarian tour of Africa in 2002, but has said he knew nothing of Epstein’s crimes, never visited Epstein’s properties, and ended contact in 2005. In a Justice Department interview in July 2025, Ghislaine Maxwell downplayed Epstein’s connection to the former president, telling Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, “President Clinton was my friend, not Epstein’s friend.”
Yet as Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign ramped up, it was Epstein looking to duck the Clintons. Epstein was facing increasingly dire legal consequences in South Florida, stemming from his years-long sexual exploitation of young women and girls. The glare of a presidential campaign risked unraveling what Epstein and his friend and ally Ghislaine Maxwell had so effectively constructed over the years, as they were increasingly associated with the spectacle of “Clintonworld.”
In May 2007, the news media drove a scandal around the relationship between Hillary Clinton and Vinod Gupta, an Indian technology executive accused of corrupt dealings with the Clintons related to inflated consulting fees and travel on his company’s jet.
In a May 26 email, four months before signing his “sweetheart deal” to avoid federal sex trafficking charges, Epstein predicted to Maxwell that Clinton’s opponents would “attack her ‘friends’ in any way they can,” and he warned her that Clinton’s presidential run could bring unwanted attention to Maxwell. He wrote to Maxwell, “you can see the papers are starting on hillary ‘friends’ Vin gupta,” he wrote, adding, “I think you are better off, not having your name associated.”
Epstein’s lawyers claim he was part of the original group that created the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI), a cornerstone of Bill Clinton’s post-presidential life, where world leaders met to address major issues like climate change and global health.
Leaked messages from Epstein’s Yahoo! email suggest Maxwell and Epstein’s relationship with the Clintons’ world was closer than the Clintons have publicly acknowledged. The new email cache was vetted and published by Distributed Denial of Secrets, and contains many of the same forensic signatures as the dataset reported by Bloomberg earlier this year.
In messages spanning 2005 through 2007, Maxwell and Epstein coordinated directly with Clinton Foundation personnel, met with members of the Clintons’ inner circle, and gave expensive gifts to a senior Clinton aide. The email cache was vetted by Distributed Denial of Secrets, and overlaps the dataset authenticated by Bloomberg earlier this year. The Clinton Foundation did not respond to request for comment.
With Democrats out of the White House and positioning for the 2008 presidential cycle, the Clinton Foundation served as a parallel influence network that blended philanthropy and unofficial foreign policy engagement. (Hillary Clinton would lose to Barack Obama in the primary, but her global expertise would be parlayed into a position as Secretary of State).
Bill Clinton traveled to Mumbai and New Delhi between November 29 and December 1, 2006, to meet with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and attend events tied to United Nations and Clinton Foundation work. On November 30, 2006, Maxwell emailed Epstein to inform him she was in Mumbai and “met up w/ clinton” and other Clinton-linked “usual suspects,” including Sandy Berger (a senior former Clinton national security official), Doug Band (a longtime Clinton aide and a central architect of CGI), and Eric Nonacs (a foreign-policy staffer in Clinton’s office).
Maxwell sent Epstein another message on December 1, 2006, “going to a tsunami village today,” and a few hours later, “fun - at a Tsunami zone - so wild.” That day, Bill Clinton visited Thazhanguda village in Cuddalore, Tamil Nadu, to see new homes and a school constructed in the tsunami-ravaged region.
Doug Band
In a 2020 interview with Vanity Fair, Doug Band, a loyal Clinton “fixer” for nearly two decades, claimed he had been trying to push Epstein “out of Clinton’s orbit” ever since their famous 2002 tour of Africa on Epstein’s plane; Band said he got “bad vibes” from Epstein and advised Clinton to end the relationship in 2002. Band also claimed to have tried to break up Ghislaine Maxwell’s friendship with Chelsea Clinton (with whom he had a frosty rivalry) by advising Bill Clinton’s office to ban Maxwell from all Clinton-related events.
The emails obtained by Drop Site show that Band, despite his proclaimed protestations, remained on good terms with both Maxwell and Epstein for at least a few years after the Africa trip. Band did not respond to a request for comment.
On December 10, 2005, Maxwell informed Epstein that Band was interested in Epstein’s Audemars Piguet watch, a luxury brand with five- and six-figure price tags — she wrote, “he just e mailed me to say he can find it and it costs 30 - guess that is his way of saying I’m going to get money and he wants his??” (The emails don’t offer any context about what Maxwell was being compensated for).
Five days later, Maxwell followed up with Band, “Any news on the audemars watch?” Band replied, telling Maxwell he’d rather have lunch with her; he declined to accept a luxury gift from Epstein, writing, “If its bc he wants to buy me one then no can do.” Maxwell forwarded the thread to Epstein, and guessed about Band’s intentions, writing “I think he wants me to get a second hand one - tell me what to do.” Epstein pressed her to follow through: “have him tell you.”
A week later, on December 21, 2005, Maxwell reported that she’d purchased the watch for Band for “35” ($35,000). Epstein messaged back, “good..make sure he gets it for xmas.” Maxwell asked Epstein, “what do you want the note to say - is it from you, from me, from us?” Epstein replied, “us.”
In April 2006, Band, a University of Florida graduate, asked to use Maxwell’s plane for a last-minute trip to Indianapolis to watch his team play in the NCAA men’s basketball finals. Commercial flights were unavailable. He wrote, “You still have air force gmax?” After getting Epstein’s approval, Maxwell offered a free round-trip on her “flight options plane,” a Beechjet 400 owned by “Air Ghislaine, Inc.” Band declined, saying he had already reserved a Learjet. Epstein was still eager to do a favor for Band, advising Maxwell, “we should pay...at least offer.” The Gators won.
Band did not respond to a request for comment. Maxwell has previously denied any connection to Air Ghislaine, Inc., and her lawyer told the Justice Department in July the company had “nothing to do with her.”
The Clinton Foundation
Epstein was far from frozen out of the Clinton Foundation for years after his 2002 Africa trip with Bill Clinton. In January 2006, Tascha Alvarez, Assistant Director of Foreign Policy at the Clinton Foundation, contacted Epstein’s lawyer Darren Indyke to request a meeting between Epstein and two Rwandan students he was supporting at the City College of New York. Alvarez followed up several times to schedule the meeting, but Epstein repeatedly postponed it.
Maxwell’s name was perceived to hold some caché in Clinton’s world. In February 2006, Maxwell received a request for a reference letter for an internship with Clinton; the person who made the request wrote, “I’m sure it would speak loudly coming from you.” Maxwell asked Epstein’s permission before agreeing.
That year, Epstein donated $25,000 to the Clinton Foundation.
Before Epstein’s crimes became known to the public, Bill Clinton seemed to consider Epstein a good friend. In 2003, he penned a handwritten note in Epstein’s fiftieth “birthday book,” celebrating their friendship:
Jeffrey —
Happy 50th —
It’s reassuring isn’t it, to have
lasted so long, across all the years
of learning and knowing,
adventures and wonder, and still
to have your childlike curiosity,
the drive to make a difference,
and the solace of friends —Bill Clinton
So Clinton's are corrupt. Tell me something I didn't already suspect. And here we are, talking about them instead of the man currently dismantling democracy before our very eyes.
The revelations continue! Thank you Ryan and Murtaza for contextualizing a monumental trove of photos and documents with the historic record we already have on hand.