Former President Bill Clinton tried to push back on reporting about trips he took with Jeffery Epstein where Secret Service were not listed on flight manifests, but failed to address why records show he took six separate trips on the “Lolita Express.”
The Washington Examiner reports,
Clinton’s press secretary Angel Ureña said Monday that Clinton had traveled four times in total with the alleged child sex trafficker, and “Supporters of the Foundation, and his Secret Service detail, traveled on every leg of every trip.”
Ureña only responded to a Washington Examiner inquiry about the trips after publication. Ureña did not reply to repeated questions about the discrepancy between the number of trips Clinton, 72, said he took with Epstein and the flight logs. He stated that the Secret Service would say that”President Clinton has never declined protection.”
A Secret Service spokesperson said only: “Former President Clinton has never declined Secret Service protection.” The spokesperson did not answer detailed Washington Examiner questions about why the Epstein flight records indicated that Clinton was not accompanied by Secret Service on two 2002 trips — one in Asia and one in Africa.
Neither Ureña nor the Secret Service said that Secret Service agents were present during the two 2002 trips.
Clinton has come under fire for his relationship with the well-connected financier, who was charged Monday by federal prosecutors with conspiracy and sex trafficking of underage girls. Epstein, 66, pleaded not guiltyin court. The 14-page indictment against Epstein alleges that he “sexually exploited and abused dozens of minor girls at his homes in Manhattan, New York and Palm Beach, Florida, among other locations” between 2002 and 2005 and perhaps beyond.
The six Clinton-Epstein trips detailed within the travel logs include: a trip from Miami, Florida to Westchester, New York in early February 2002, which appears to be the first known time that Clinton joined Epstein on his plane; a trip to Europe in late February 2002; two trips across Asia in late May 2002 and in early November 2003; and two trips to Africa in mid-July 2002 and then late September into early October 2002.
Clinton’s Monday statement also claimed that Clinton “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.”
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