Jeffrey Epstein court documents: Bill Clinton ‘threatened’ magazine not to publish articles about his ‘good friend’

Published

1 year ago

January 5, 2024

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Bill Clinton “threatened” a prominent magazine and told staff not to publish articles about Jeffrey Epstein, newly unsealed court documents suggest.

The claim is made in an email that was written by Virginia Giuffre – Epstein’s first public accuser – in 2011.

In the message to a journalist, Ms Giuffre alleges that the former US president had walked into the offices of Vanity Fair, and said stories about his “good friend” should not be written.

Latest updates: Second batch of files released

Graydon Carter, a former Vanity Fair editor, told The Daily Telegraph: “This categorically did not happen.”

Ms Giuffre was preparing to release a new book at the time – and describes being worried about what the magazine might publish about her.

Mr Clinton is among several high-profile figures who have been named in court filings relating to Ghislaine Maxwell, her relationship with Epstein and alleged victims of sexual abuse.

In documents released on Wednesday, it was claimed that Epstein had said Clinton “likes them young, referring to girls”.

Back in 2019, a spokesperson for the former president said he had “not spoken to Epstein in well over a decade” and “knows nothing about the terrible crimes”.

There is no indication of any wrongdoing by Mr Clinton, and Sky News has contacted his foundation for a response to the latest court documents.

Epstein – a disgraced financier – had been accused of abusing underage girls as young as 14. In 2019, he killed himself in prison as he awaited trial on sex trafficking charges.

Ghislaine Maxwell is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence after being convicted of helping recruit and groom teenagers for Epstein to molest.

Prince Andrew reported to police

Allegations of sexual assault made against the Duke of York have also re-emerged in the unsealed court documents.

Republic, a pressure group calling for the abolition of the monarchy, has reported Prince Andrew to the police after the filings were made public.

The group’s chief executive, Graham Smith, is urging the Met to reopen its investigations – and has called on the King to make a public statement on the matter.

Mr Smith said: “To date, there appears to have been no serious criminal investigation, no interview of the accused or other witnesses, and no clear justification for taking no action.”

There will be sleepless nights for some wealthy and high-profile individuals

When Judge Loretta Preska ruled that these documents, relating to the many crimes of Jeffrey Epstein, be unsealed, she said it was because there is a public interest in doing so.

But she also said it was because much of the information contained within them, and many of the names of Epstein’s associates, were already in the public domain. That has proven to be accurate.

Social media has been alive with chatter about a list of Epstein “clients” or co-conspirators being released imminently and conspiracy theories about celebrity paedophiles. But, as with the first tranche of documents, there was no bombshell revelation to be found anywhere in these 327 pages.

There were no allegations of new third parties being involved in sexual abuse. The documents included 19 different exhibits, from legal arguments to depositions recounting alleged crimes. The details were mostly already known because of how extensive the reporting around Epstein’s offending has been and years of evidence and testimony contained in connected criminal and civil cases.

Nevertheless, there are fascinating nuggets to be found among them about the circles Epstein moved in. Epstein allegedly boasted about his association with two former presidents, Donald Trump and Bill Clinton. Both men are mentioned numerous times in the documents but neither is accused of any wrongdoing.

About 240 files are expected to be unsealed in total so this gradual release, day by day, could last well into next week. Judge Preska is also weighing arguments from additional Does who are seeking to have their names withheld from future disclosures.

Even though many of those named in the documents are not accused of wrongdoing, there will still be a lot of sleepless nights for some wealthy and high-profile individuals, sweating over what is contained on these pages.

Prince Andrew has strenuously denied the allegations against him in the past.

In 2022, he settled a civil case out of court with Virginia Giuffre after she claimed she was sexually assaulted by the prince when she was 17 years old.

That settlement, which was reported to be as much as £12m, carried no admission of guilt.

Buckingham Palace, which no longer speaks on behalf of the duke after he stepped down as a working royal in 2019 over his friendship with Epstein, has not commented on the documents.

Among the unsealed filings was evidence given by Johanna Sjoberg, who had worked for Epstein as a masseuse.

She alleged that Prince Andrew had touched her breast while sitting on a couch inside Epstein’s Manhattan apartment in 2001.

In other court documents, Ms Giuffre alleges she was sex trafficked to the duke and “two of the world’s most respected politicians” – but their names remain redacted.

Another filing shows that Ghislaine Maxwell claimed a journalist helped “concoct” the allegations against Prince Andrew and knew them to be “false”.

More documents to emerge

The court documents being unsealed relate to a 2015 civil lawsuit filed by Ms Giuffre against Maxwell, who was Epstein’s former girlfriend and household manager.

Ms Giuffre was suing Maxwell for defamation after her spokesperson issued a statement describing her allegations as “obvious lies”.

In December, New York district judge Loretta Preska ruled papers related to the case should no longer remain secret as many of the individuals mentioned have already given media interviews.

About 60 documents have been released so far, and approximately 190 more are set to enter the public domain in the coming days.

Dozens of Epstein’s associates are being named as a result, although many of them are not accused of wrongdoing.

Michael Jackson, Donald Trump, Stephen Hawking, Leonardo DiCaprio and Cameron Diaz are among those referred to in the filings.

UK

Rachel Reeves hints at tax rises in autumn budget after welfare bill U-turn

Published

1 hour ago

July 5, 2025

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Rachel Reeves hints at tax rises in autumn budget after welfare bill U-turn

Rachel Reeves has hinted that taxes are likely to be raised this autumn after a major U-turn on the government’s controversial welfare bill.

Sir Keir Starmer’s Universal Credit and Personal Independent Payment Bill passed through the House of Commons on Tuesday after multiple concessions and threats of a major rebellion.

MPs ended up voting for only one part of the plan: a cut to universal credit (UC) sickness benefits for new claimants from £97 a week to £50 from 2026/7.

Initially aimed at saving £5.5bn, it now leaves the government with an estimated £5.5bn black hole – close to breaching Ms Reeves’s fiscal rules set out last year.

In an interview with The Guardian, the chancellor did not rule out tax rises later in the year, saying there were “costs” to watering down the welfare bill.

“I’m not going to [rule out tax rises], because it would be irresponsible for a chancellor to do that,” Ms Reeves told the outlet.

“We took the decisions last year to draw a line under unfunded commitments and economic mismanagement.

“So we’ll never have to do something like that again. But there are costs to what happened.”

Meanwhile, The Times reported that, ahead of the Commons vote on the welfare bill, Ms Reeves told cabinet ministers the decision to offer concessions would mean taxes would have to be raised.

The outlet reported that the chancellor said the tax rises would be smaller than those announced in the 2024 budget, but that she is expected to have to raise tens of billions more.

It comes after Ms Reeves said she was “totally” up to continuing as chancellor after appearing tearful at Prime Minister’s Questions.

Criticising Sir Keir for the U-turns on benefit reform during PMQs, Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch said the chancellor looked “absolutely miserable”, and questioned whether she would remain in post until the next election.

Sir Keir did not explicitly say that she would, and Ms Badenoch interjected to say: “How awful for the chancellor that he couldn’t confirm that she would stay in place.”

In her first comments after the incident, Ms Reeves said she was having a “tough day” before adding: “People saw I was upset, but that was yesterday.

“Today’s a new day and I’m just cracking on with the job.”

Sir Keir also told Sky News’ political editor Beth Rigby on Thursday that he “didn’t appreciate” that Ms Reeves was crying in the Commons.

“In PMQs, it is bang, bang, bang,” he said. “That’s what it was yesterday.

“And therefore, I was probably the last to appreciate anything else going on in the chamber, and that’s just a straightforward human explanation, common sense explanation.”

UK

Diogo Jota and Andre Silva’s funeral in pictures

Published

3 hours ago

July 5, 2025

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Diogo Jota and Andre Silva's funeral in pictures

The family and friends of Diogo Jota and his brother Andre Silva have been joined by Liverpool stars past and present and other Portuguese players at the pair’s funeral near Porto.

The Liverpool forward, 28, and his brother died in a car crash in Spain on Thursday.

Pictures below show the funeral at the Igreja Matriz de Gondomar church in the town of Gondomar near Porto. Click here for our liveblog coverage of the day’s events.

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Miguell Rocha played with Jota for around ten years with Gondomar Sport Clube in Portugal.

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The former captain was seen wiping away tears as he read messages and laid his tribute down.

UK

How Britain’s most notorious gangster turned up at a charity lunch to fact-check a retired detective’s talk

Published

7 hours ago

July 5, 2025

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How Britain's most notorious gangster turned up at a charity lunch to fact-check a retired detective's talk

Britain’s most notorious gangster and the detective who pursued him have been involved in a bizarre confrontation…at a charity lunch.

Former Detective Superintendent Ian Brown was at a Kent golf club and about to give a talk on the infamous £26m Brink’s-Mat gold robbery when he was summoned from the stage by officials.

Mr Brown, who appeared on the award-winning Sky News StoryCast podcast The Hunt For The Brink’s-Mat Gold in 2019, said: “I go outside and they say ‘he’s here’ and I say ‘who’s here’ and they say that table over there in the corner, that’s Kenny Noye with a baseball cap pulled down over his head.”

Noye stabbed to death an undercover policeman during the Brink’s-Mat investigation, but was acquitted of murder, though he was jailed for handling the stolen gold.

After his release, he used a knife again in the M25 road-rage murder of motorist Stephen Cameron.

“They said what are we going to do?” said Mr Brown.

“I said are you serving food? Well, just use plastic knives.”

Although Mr Brown had not personally arrested Noye over Brink’s-Mat he had identified him as a suspect months after the robbery.

Years later he met him during an ill-fated TV interview in which he quizzed him about his role in the robbery.

He said: “He told me everything I wanted to know except the truth. He still insists he had nothing to do with it.”

The interview was never broadcast after the prison authorities threatened to send Noye back to jail for a breach of his parole.

Mr Brown, 86, said: “I went over to him and said ‘thanks for coming, nice of you to pop in’, but I don’t believe you’ve turned up with your sons and grandkids to listen to me telling how you killed a police officer.

“And he said ‘I want to make sure you don’t say I’ve been dealing drugs’ and I said ‘I’ve never said that Kenny’.”

The retired detective told Noye he wasn’t going to change his presentation just because he was there.

“He said ‘mate, I wouldn’t expect you to and I’ll come up [on stage] if you want me to’.

“Can you think how he’s turned up with his family to listen to somebody talking about you killing the police? Now, you put logic on that.”

The bizarre story emerged when I rang Mr Brown after I’d been told about the meeting.

I also wanted to ask him about the recent BBC hit drama series The Gold which retold the story of the Brink’s-Mat heist at Heathrow Airport in 1983.

“It was an absolute shambles, far too much dramatic licence and the real story was so much better,” said the ex-detective, whose job had been to follow the trail of the 6,800 gold bars to the US and the Caribbean.

He said he chatted to one of the show’s writers for a long time in a phone call but then heard no more.

“They invented people, changed a bit here and there and made it politically correct in so many ways. I’m just very sad that that is what people will believe.

“And I couldn’t work out who my character was supposed to be. I could have been one of the female cops.”

He also criticised the portrayal of Noye, now 78, as a likeable jack-the-lad character when the truth about the double killer with a volatile temper was quite different.