How Ghislaine Maxwell brought Bill Clinton into Epstein's orbit

There is a photo that shows Bill Clinton taking a night-time swim alongside Ghislaine Maxwell, the British socialite now convicted of sex trafficking.

Another captures him smiling backstage at a Rolling Stones concert in Hong Kong with Jeffrey Epstein, the late financier and now globally notorious sex offender.

A third undated snap shows the former US president reclining in a hot tub beside someone whose face is blacked out to protect their identity.

Clinton's links to Epstein have been well known for years, with the former president stating it was his charity work after leaving the White House that brought them together.

Now images and emails released by the Department of Justice provide clues about the extent of the relationship, and reveal the work going on behind the scenes by Maxwell to nurture the connection between the two men.

The newly released material is likely to play a central part in tough questioning the former Democratic president will undergo by a Republican-led congressional committee on Friday. It will make Clinton the latest powerful figure to face scrutiny for their association with the late disgraced financier.

The files do not implicate Clinton in any wrongdoing; he has not been accused of misconduct by Epstein's victims who have come forward so far, and there is no proof he knew of his crimes. Clinton's spokesperson has said the photos are decades old and Clinton had stopped associating with Epstein before his crimes came to light.

But the new material does apparently indicate how Clinton's world collided with Epstein's in the early 2000s, when Clinton was redefining himself as an ex-president on a philanthropic mission. He was in the market for wealthy donors to the Clinton Foundation and later to the Clinton Global Initiative, a gathering of leaders devoted to addressing world problems.

At the time, Epstein was a money manager and jet-setting financier who, with his girlfriend Maxwell, was hobnobbing with the world's wealthiest from Buckingham Palace to Palm Beach and collecting powerful friends along the way.

There are no direct messages between Clinton and Epstein in emails reviewed by the BBC, but the two men are the subject of much correspondence between Maxwell and Clinton's top aide, Doug Band.

Maxwell's emails with Band between 2002 and 2004 reveal a cosy relationship, rife with flattery and sexual innuendo. He called her his "social matchmaker" and "lover"; she complimented his social and physical prowess.

Their extensive communications help explain the former president's proximity to Epstein and how keen the people working on behalf of both men were to maintain that connection. There is no suggestion of any wrongdoing by Band.

Maxwell and Band set up meetings for the Clinton Global Initiative and were involved in arranging Clinton's flights on Epstein's private jet, the documents indicate. He flew on the plane at least 24 times, flight logs show

Clinton's spokesperson said the former president took trips on the plane including "stops in connection with the work of the Clinton Foundation".

The flight logs, documents and correspondence corroborate the former president's assertions that he cut off contact with Epstein well before the disgraced financier was indicted in 2006, and before pleading guilty in 2008 to soliciting prostitution from a minor. Hillary Clinton, then a US senator from New York, did not accompany her husband on trips with Epstein and has said she doesn't remember meeting him.

Bill Clinton's Deputy Chief of Staff Angel Ureña told the BBC in a statement that "President Clinton knew nothing about Epstein's crimes and has nothing to hide." Ureña said Clinton did not send any of the emails in the Epstein files.

"We have told the media everything we know about President Clinton's travel with Jeffrey Epstein," he said. "The facts are the facts and the truth is the truth, and they're both on our side."

On 21 September 2002, Clinton boarded Epstein's private jet, and embarked on a whirlwind tour of African countries with several celebrities, according to flight logs.

The trip received high-profile press coverage as did the Clinton-Epstein connection.

Clinton told New York Magazine through a spokesperson at the time that Epstein was "both a highly successful financier and a committed philanthropist" and he "especially appreciated his insights and generosity during the recent trip to Africa to work on democratisation, empowering the poor, citizen service, and combating HIV/AIDS".

The magazine described a transactional attachment: "What attracted Clinton to Epstein was quite simple: He had a plane."

"Mr Epstein offered a plane that was large enough to accommodate me, my staff, and my US Secret Service detail, in support of visiting the Foundation's philanthropic work," the president said in a sworn statement submitted to Congress last month and obtained by the BBC.

He said he and his staff took flights "visiting Foundation projects and attending conferences and meetings" and said he never visited Epstein's island.

• Hillary Clinton testifies she 'had no idea' of Epstein's crimes
• Who is in the Epstein files?

Over nearly two years, from February 2002 to November 2003, Clinton flew on Epstein's plane to Europe, Africa, Asia, Russia and - closer to home - Miami and New York, according to the flight logs. At the time, Clinton's team was trying to raise money for his foundation - as much as $100m (£74.3m), according to a memo published by WikiLeaks.

Recently released images taken during the trips include photos of Clinton smiling as he walks with staff, and shakes hands with local officials.

But there are also the images that have already drawn lawmakers' curiosity and questions. Clinton swimming with Ghislaine Maxwell in one undated photo; reclining in the hot tub next to the person whose face has been blacked out. And the previously published image with a young woman perched next to him on an armrest.

Maxwell was the key link between Epstein and Clinton, she told the justice department in a 2025 deposition. Epstein had visited the White House for events in the early 1990s - along with hundreds of other guests - and was photographed with Clinton, then president.

"Epstein had gone to the White House, but they had not met," she told Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche. "They met because of me."

A lawyer for Maxwell, who is in prison for sex trafficking, did not return messages from the BBC seeking comment. When summoned to testify before the House committee this month, she declined to answer questions, citing her constitutional right against self-incrimination.

She was convicted in 2021 of recruiting and trafficking four teenage girls for sexual abuse by Epstein when he was her boyfriend. Epstein killed himself in prison in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges. He previously was convicted of soliciting prostitution from a minor in 2008, and spent a year in jail as part of a plea deal widely seen as lenient after he had been accused of trafficking dozens of women and girls.

Maxwell told Blanche last year that Clinton would not have been on Epstein's jet if it were not for her.

"I was the one who asked Epstein to provide the plane," she said.

"I thought it was an honour and a privilege to be part of something so amazing and to have an opportunity to spend time with a man that I found truly extraordinary. And please, I don't mean it in any other way, other than as a former fantastic ex-president."

There was no staff member closer to the former president than Band, his so-called body man during Clinton's second term. Band's name often appears alongside Clinton's on flight logs for the major international trips the former president took with Epstein and Maxwell.

Band describes himself as the "key architect" of Clinton's post presidency role, having been "instrumental in the creation and growth" of his signature Clinton Global Initiative conference. He later co-founded a consulting firm valued last year at $2.3bn.

He had entered Clintonworld as a White House intern during Clinton's first term in 1995. He worked his way up through the ranks in the White House Counsel's Office and then into the Oval Office, where he became deputy assistant to the president.

He stayed on as Clinton's chief adviser after he left office in 2000 and helped him transition from president into a jet-setting elder statesman.

Band's travel with Clinton and Maxwell in 2002 and 2003 included stops in London, Morocco, Hong Kong, Japan, Brunei, Norway, Siberia, and China.

Maxwell and Band developed a flirty rapport, the recently released emails show.

In the emails, he addressed Maxwell as "booboo" and "babycakes".

She told him he was "a supper stud", she had a "crush" on him and he was "hung like a horse."

Band called Maxwell his "social matchmaker" and "pimp", according to the recently released emails.

"But at the same time, you are my lover," he wrote.

The BBC made multiple attempts to contact Band at numbers and email addresses listed for him in public records but received no response. He has not been accused of any crimes or wrongdoing associated with Epstein.

In a statement to The New York Times earlier this month, he said his communications with Maxwell occurred when he was unmarried and in his 20s. He called her a "monster" and denied having a physical relationship with her.

Their recently released correspondence often mixed logistics with innuendo. They stayed in touch about their movements, and when they would be in New York together with Epstein or Clinton.

London was a recurring stop, including as part of the trip to Africa in September 2002, the flight logs show. A recently released undated album labelled "Clinton London/Africa" features a photo of the former president visiting the Churchill War Rooms.

A few weeks after the trip with Epstein, Band asked Maxwell for "Andrew's address to send a ty for dinner for Clinton." Her reply: "Buckingham Palace SW1 London HRH Prince Andrew."

The Epstein file emails suggest that Band sought Maxwell's help in brokering connections advantageous to the Clinton Global Initiative.

Band called upon her to help set up meetings, including with Richard Attias. The Moroccan events mogul played a crucial role connecting global elites at Davos - a role he would later help fulfil for the Clinton Global Initiative conference.

Maxwell told Band she would "talk to Attias Mon and set it up for you."

"He has been involved w/Davos for large no of yrs so he is probably one if not the only person for you to talk to," Maxwell wrote in February 2004. "I think there is big money to be made from a possible assoc w/him _ I have ideas I want to talk to you about but only after I have seen him."

Attias confirmed to the BBC that he subsequently met with Band. He said he had initially talked to Clinton at Davos, where he proposed an opportunity to use Clinton's political stardom to effect change on a global scale.

He said he worked with Band to bring that vision to fruition in Clinton's global conference.

Maxwell told the Department of Justice last year that she was "very central" to the effort as a convener - she "helped bring key personnel" to the project. Attias called her a "catalyst".

"Ghislaine was a point of contact, and definitely, she put me in touch with Doug Band, who was the right hand of President Clinton," he told the BBC.

On 16 September 2005, Bill Clinton took the stage at the inaugural Clinton Global Initiative gathering in New York. The event, styled as an American answer to Davos and an opportunity to solve "the world's most pressing challenges", was an opportunity for Clinton to solidify his role as a global force after leaving the White House.

He played moderator for a panel of power players: former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, King Abdullah II of Jordan, and then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

In his 2024 memoir, Clinton wrote that he "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."

Ureña, Clinton's deputy chief of staff, declined to comment to the BBC about Band's entanglement with Maxwell and Epstein and what role it may have played in the former president's signature Global Initiative. "We'll leave it to others to describe their own relationships," he said.

Ureña also did not answer questions about the photos in the Epstein files of Clinton in the hot tub, swimming with Maxwell, and with the woman on his armrest.

Band - now exiled from Clintonworld after a falling out around 2015 - told Vanity Fair in 2020 that he had tried to push the former president away from Epstein after the Africa trip in 2002. The magazine reported that Band said he did not know about Epstein's crimes but got a bad feeling and so advised his boss to cut ties.

In his memoir, Citizen: My Life After the White House, Clinton expressed deep regret.

"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," he wrote. "I wish I had never met him."