{"id":125538,"date":"2019-07-21T10:48:23","date_gmt":"2019-07-21T14:48:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/?p=125538"},"modified":"2019-07-21T10:50:40","modified_gmt":"2019-07-21T14:50:40","slug":"ghislanegate-oh-what-a-tangle-web-we-weave","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/?p=125538","title":{"rendered":"Why isn&#8217;t Ghislaine Maxwell on the <b>Pedogate<\/b> list of &#8220;Women Operatives In Very High Places&#8221;?"},"content":{"rendered":"<h1>GHISLANEgate: <i>&#8220;Oh, what a tangle web we weave!&#8221;<\/i><\/h1>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>SOTN Editor&#8217;s Note:<\/strong> We only have one question about Jeffrey Epstein&#8217;s handler&#8212;Ghislaine Maxwell.\u00a0 Why is she not included on this extensive <strong>Pedogate<\/strong> list of <a href=\"http:\/\/themillenniumreport.com\/2017\/03\/pedogate-operatives-in-very-high-places\/\">Women Operatives In Very High Places<\/a>?<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<div class=\" story-intro format-s\">\n<div class=\"summary \">\n<header class=\"\">\n<h2 class=\" \">Meet the woman who ties Jeffrey Epstein to Trump and the Clintons<\/h2>\n<h3 class=\"subhead\">Heiress Ghislaine Maxwell paved the way to presidents.<\/h3>\n<p class=\"subhead\">By <a class=\"url fn\" href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/staff\/ben-schreckinger\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"author noopener noreferrer\">BEN SCHRECKINGER<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<a class=\"url fn\" href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/staff\/daniel-lippman\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"author noopener noreferrer\">DANIEL LIPPMAN<\/a><\/p>\n<\/header>\n<footer class=\"meta\">\n<p class=\"byline\">POLITICO<\/p>\n<\/footer>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>How did wealthy sex offender Jeffrey Epstein come to be palling around with Bill Clinton and Donald Trump?<\/p>\n<p>People who know those involved say Epstein\u2019s connections to two U.S. presidents ran through one bubbly British heiress: Ghislaine Maxwell.<\/p>\n<p>Maxwell, who has denied accusations made in civil suits of aiding and participating in Epstein\u2019s sexual abuse of minors, has been among the financier\u2019s closest associates. Unlike Epstein, she comes from a rarefied background that gave her entr\u00e9e to the rich and powerful.<\/p>\n<p>For years, beginning in the early \u201990s, she and Epstein cut glittering figures on the Manhattan and Palm Beach social circuits, with Maxwell taking the lead. While people who knew Epstein in Palm Beach described him as \u201cvery odd\u201d and said \u201che didn\u2019t go out much,\u201d those who know Maxwell described her as \u201cvivacious,\u201d \u201cwarm\u201d and \u201ceffusive.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Her family knew Trump before Epstein arrived on the scene, and she continued to socialize with Chelsea Clinton after Epstein was jailed on sex offenses.<\/p>\n<p>Maxwell first grew close with the Clintons after Bill Clinton left office, vacationing on a yacht with Chelsea Clinton in 2009, attending her wedding in 2010, and participating in the Clinton Global Initiative as recently as 2013, years after her name first emerged in accounts of Epstein\u2019s alleged sexual abuse.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cGhislaine was the contact between Epstein and Clinton,\u201d said a person familiar with the relationship. \u201cShe ended up being close to the family because she and Chelsea ended up becoming close.\u201d (Lawyers for Maxwell did not respond to requests for comment, and a spokesperson for Clinton disputed the idea that the two women were ever close.)<\/p>\n<p>Trump\u2019s ties to Maxwell and her late father, the publishing tycoon Robert Maxwell, meanwhile, go back even further, to at least the late 1980s.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;He really likes her,\u201d said Steven Hoffenberg, a former mentor to Epstein who pleaded guilty in 1995 to running a massive Ponzi scheme, of Trump and Maxwell. \u201cHe was friendly with her father.\u201d<\/p>\n<aside class=\"story-related cl-l db no-border\">\n<div class=\"content layout-bi-unequal\">\n<section class=\"content-groupset db pos-omega\">\n<div class=\"content-group video-trump-plays-down-calling-jeffrey-epstein-a-terrific-guy-defends-acosta\"><\/div>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<p>In the 1980s, Trump and Robert Maxwell, the Czech-born owner of London\u2019s Daily Mirror tabloid, rubbed shoulders on the high-flying Manhattan party circuit.<\/p>\n<p>An item from a May 1989 gossip column placed Trump and both Maxwells together at a party aboard the elder Maxwell\u2019s yacht, named the Lady Ghislaine, that featured caviar flown in from Paris and former Republican senator John Tower of Texas. The item notes that Trump compared his own larger yacht with Maxwell\u2019s.<\/p>\n<p>As it happened, Trump\u2019s yacht, the Trump Princess, had originally belonged to the Saudi arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi (uncle of the slain Washington Post contributor Jamal), and Maxwell\u2019s yacht had originally belonged to one of Adnan\u2019s\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/1991\/11\/06\/world\/robert-maxwell-found-dead-off-canary-islands.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">brothers<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Two years later, Maxwell fell off his yacht in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean and drowned, a sensational death that was ruled accidental.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe was a character and a colorful guy, and I think we were lucky to have seen even a short time of him in New York,\u201d Trump told Larry King during an appearance on CNN two weeks later. \u201cHe was my kind of a guy.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Robert Maxwell\u2019s biographer later related an incident from around the same period when Ghislaine was working for one of her father\u2019s business enterprises selling corporate gifts.<\/p>\n<p>While planning a trip to New York, she asked her father to use his friendship with Trump to get her a meeting with the mogul.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHave you got your bum in your head?\u201d the elder Maxwell responded, according to an account by the late Nicholas Davies, a former Mirror editor who wrote Maxwell\u2019s biography. \u201cWhy the f*** would Donald Trump want to waste his time seeing you with your crappy gifts when he has a multi-million-dollar business to run?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It appears Robert Maxwell sold his daughter short. A 1997 New Yorker\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/magazine\/1997\/05\/19\/trump-solo\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">profile<\/a>\u00a0of Trump notes that the article\u2019s author shared a ride to Palm Beach on Trump\u2019s private jet with Ghislaine Maxwell, as well as a teenage Eric Trump and Matthew Calamari, a longtime member of Trump\u2019s private security team.<\/p>\n<p>It is not clear whether Maxwell first introduced Trump and Epstein, who socialized together at least as early as 1992, but Maxwell was crucial in ensuring Epstein\u2019s access to Trump\u2019s world. Archival\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/nightly-news\/video\/newly-surfaced-video-offers-glimpse-into-donald-trump-and-jeffrey-epstein-s-past-relationship-64047685590\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">video<\/a>\u00a0unearthed on Wednesday by NBC from that year shows Trump and Epstein surrounded by dancing women at Mar-a-Lago, with Maxwell smiling in the background.<\/p>\n<div class=\"story-interrupt pos-alpha format-m \">\n<aside class=\"interrupt-item\">\n<div class=\"story-media\">\n<figure class=\"media-item type-photo\">\n<div class=\"fig-graphic \"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\" lazy-loaded\" src=\"https:\/\/static.politico.com\/a2\/27\/d5c5cd9d4b3bbc5dafe9d07f2296\/19729-epstein-ap-773.jpg\" alt=\"Jeffery Epstein\" \/><\/div><figcaption>\n<h5>In this courtroom artist&#8217;s sketch, Jeffrey Epstein (center) sits with attorneys Martin Weinberg (left) and Marc Fernich during his arraignment in New York federal court on July 8. | Elizabeth Williams via AP<\/h5>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<\/div>\n<p>&#8220;Ghislaine was his path to social acceptance,\u201d said Thomas Volscho, a professor at the City University of New York who has been researching Epstein. \u201cThey don\u2019t always accept you. Ghislaine was really a conduit for him to start to socialize with people who are way beyond his level.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>According to \u201cFilthy Rich,\u201d a 2016 book about Epstein by best-selling author and Mar-a-Lago member James Patterson, \u201cAlthough Epstein had never properly joined the club, Trump\u2019s friendship with Ghislaine Maxwell gave Epstein unlimited use of the facilities.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Virginia Roberts Giuffre, a former changing room attendant at Mar-a-Lago who has accused Epstein of sexually abusing her as a minor, alleges in a lawsuit that she was first approached at the club in 1998 by Ghislaine Maxwell, who convinced her to meet Epstein and joined him in the abuse. Maxwell has denied wrongdoing.<\/p>\n<p>It is not clear whether Maxwell ever officially joined the club. A directory of Mar-a-Lago members obtained by POLITICO in 2016 does not contain her name. Private clubs generally do not disclose information about members. In several calls to Mar-a-Lago\u2019s main line, staffers said no one was on hand to field press inquiries and suggested calling back at other times. The White House did not respond to an email requesting comment.<\/p>\n<p>But her visits to Mar-a-Lago spanned at least the better part of a decade.<\/p>\n<p>Trump, his future wife Melania, Epstein and Maxwell were all photographed together at the club in 2000. That year, Epstein and Maxwell were also\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailymail.co.uk\/news\/article-2897753\/Ghislaine-Maxwell-woman-accused-facilitating-Prince-Andrew-s-acts-abuse.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">spotted<\/a>\u00a0at the club with Prince Andrew, according to the Daily Mail. According to the Daily Telegraph, it was Maxwell who introduced Epstein to the British royal, whose association with the sex offender has been a long-running scandal in the United Kingdom. Epstein also attended a birthday party for Queen Elizabeth at Windsor Castle in 2000. That same year, Maxwell and Prince Andrew\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailymail.co.uk\/news\/article-2900787\/Prince-Andrew-Heidi-Klum-Hookers-Pimps-party-New-York-socialite-accused-procuring-underage-girls-billionaire-pedophile-Jeffrey-Epstein.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">attended<\/a>\u00a0what The Daily Mail described as a \u201chookers and pimps\u201d-themed Halloween party hosted by Heidi Klum.<\/p>\n<p>A month later, in early December 2000, Trump, his future wife Melania, Epstein and Maxwell all attended a surprise 60th birthday for Barbara Amiel, a British socialite, that was also attended by the likes of Anna Wintour, Charlie Rose and William F. Buckley.<\/p>\n<p>Tina Brown, the magazine editor, recalled that around this period Maxwell would reach out to her to socialize when Prince Andrew came to New York. \u201cShe was a bit mysterious,\u201d Brown recalled.<\/p>\n<p>One regular on the social scene in Palm Beach and other exclusive locales recalled attending an event at Ascot, the English horse racing course, around the late 1990s, where, upon entering the course\u2019s \u201croyal enclosure,\u201d the person saw Epstein sitting with the royal family.<\/p>\n<p>Much of Epstein\u2019s access to Clinton\u2019s world also flowed through Maxwell. \u201cThe Clintons were relatively intimate with her,\u201d said a Maxwell friend.<\/p>\n<p>In 2002 and 2003, flight logs reportedly\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/us\/flight-logs-show-bill-clinton-flew-on-sex-offenders-jet-much-more-than-previously-known\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">show<\/a>\u00a0that Bill Clinton flew on 26 flight legs on Epstein\u2019s private jet.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPresident Clinton knows nothing about the terrible crimes Jeffrey Epstein pleaded guilty to in Florida some years ago, or those with which he has been recently charged in New York,\u201d said a spokesman for Bill Clinton, Angel Urena, in a statement. Urena said the flight legs comprised four trips total in 2002 and 2003, and that staff and Secret Service were present on all flights. Urena said that Epstein visited Bill Clinton at his Harlem office once in 2002, and that he briefly visited Epstein\u2019s apartment one time.<\/p>\n<p>Maxwell\u2019s ties to Clinton world, meanwhile, would last another decade.<\/p>\n<p>One friend of Maxwell\u2019s, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, described their surprise upon showing up at a dinner party at her Upper East Side apartment around 2005 to find Doug Band, then a top advisor to Bill Clinton and the Clinton Foundation, among the 8 to 10 guests. In 2006, a charity run by Epstein, C.O.U.Q. Foundation, gave $25,000 to the Clinton Foundation, the Daily Beast\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.thedailybeast.com\/jeffrey-epstein-has-a-secret-charity-heres-who-it-gave-money-to\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">reported<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>But allegations of misconduct by Epstein, and then Maxwell, began to pile up, making associations with them increasingly fraught. In 2006, it emerged that police in Palm Beach were investigating Epstein for allegedly soliciting underage girls for sex, and he would eventually plead guilty to sex offenses, serving jail time in Florida. For several years afterward, allegations about Maxwell\u2019s involvement in Epstein\u2019s misconduct escalated in severity.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"story-related cl-l db no-border\">\n<div class=\"content layout-bi-unequal\">\n<section class=\"content-groupset db pos-omega\">\n<div class=\"content-group video-billionaire-jeffrey-epstein-accused-of-sexually-abusing-underage-girls\"><\/div>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<p>In 2007, The Daily Mail reported allegations by a woman named Johanna Sjoberg that Maxwell recruited her to work for Epstein, who then induced her \u201cto perform demeaning sexual services.\u201d The paper reported, \u201cThere is no suggestion that Ghislaine was aware that some of the girls were underage, or aware of Jeffrey\u2019s sexual requests.\u201d In 2009, Giuffre filed a lawsuit in which she alleged she was recruited by Maxwell as a 15-year-old to work for Epstein, who proceeded to sexually abuse her. That year, the New York Post\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/pagesix.com\/2009\/10\/12\/heiress-quizzed-in-sex-suits\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">reported<\/a>\u00a0that Maxwell was served with a subpoena by a lawyer representing some of Epstein\u2019s accusers as she left a Clinton Global Initiative conference.<\/p>\n<p>In March 2011, Giuffre\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailymail.co.uk\/news\/article-1363444\/Jeffrey-Epstein-Robert-Maxwells-daughter-Ghislaine-hired-girls-paedophile.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">elaborated<\/a>\u00a0on her claims, telling the Daily Mail that Maxwell instructed her to take off her clothes as she was massaging Epstein, who proceeded to have sex with her. Maxwell issued a statement\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.prnewswire.co.uk\/news-releases\/statement-on-behalf-of-ghislaine-maxwell-156665045.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">denying<\/a>\u00a0the claim. In 2015, Giuffre\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nydailynews.com\/new-york\/alleged-sex-slave-didn-sex-bill-clinton-article-1.2087614\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">accused<\/a>\u00a0Maxwell in a court filing of engaging in sex with underage girls.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt wasn\u2019t until 2015 that Chelsea and Marc became aware of the horrific allegations against Ghislaine Maxwell and hope that all the victims find justice,\u201d said Chelsea Clinton\u2019s chief of staff, Bari Lurie. \u201cChelsea and Marc were friendly with her because of her relationship with a dear friend of theirs. When that relationship ended, Chelsea and Marc\u2019s friendship with her ended as well.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>For several years, Maxwell was romantically linked with Ted Waitt, the billionaire founder of Gateway computers.<\/p>\n<p>A person close to Chelsea Clinton described Waitt as a \u201cvery close family friend\u201d of Chelsea and Mezvinsky, and said the couple met Maxwell through him in 2011. The person said Chelsea Clinton and her husband ended their friendship with Maxwell when she and Waitt broke up in early 2011, and disputed that Maxwell and Chelsea Clinton were ever \u201cclose.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Two people familiar with the relationship between Maxwell and the Clintons said Maxwell, Chelsea Clinton and Mezvinsky flew together on a private plane to rendezvous with Waitt for a trip on Waitt\u2019s yacht. One of those people said the trip took place in 2009.<\/p>\n<p>Waitt, whose philanthropic endeavors focus on the world\u2019s oceans, has\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/graphics\/politics\/clinton-foundation-donor-list\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">given<\/a>somewhere between $10 million and $25 million to the Clinton Foundation. Waitt\u2019s philanthropic foundation did not respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n<p>One person familiar with the Maxwell-Clinton relationship said that while Maxwell \u201cwas incredibly close\u201d to Chelsea, \u201cShe had her own relationship with Bill Clinton and was very close to him.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In 2010, Maxwell attended Chelsea Clinton\u2019s wedding, apparently as Waitt\u2019s date. In 2012, Maxwell launched her own Ocean-focused charity, the TerraMar Project. A year later, the Clinton Global Initiative trumpeted a TerraMar initiative among the \u201ccommitments to action\u201d\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.clintonfoundation.org\/press-releases\/president-clinton-former-secretary-clinton-and-chelsea-clinton-unveil-new-commitments\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">announced<\/a>\u00a0at its annual meeting. No money changed hands.<\/p>\n<p>The initiative was the Sustainable Oceans Alliance, which sought to ensure the United Nations included oceans in its Sustainable Development Goals.<\/p>\n<p>A 2013\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/theterramarproject.org\/dc-archive\/h-e-stuart-beck-appointed-first-ambassador-on-oceans-and-seas\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">press release<\/a>\u00a0on the website for TerraMar \u2014which announced it was shuttering in the days after Epstein\u2019s arrest \u2014 describes the alliance as a four-way partnership between TerraMar; another nonprofit called the Global Partnerships Forum; the late Stuart Beck, who served as \u201cambassador on oceans and seas\u201d from the Pacific island nation of Palau; and a Trump friend, Paolo Zampolli, an Italian-born businessman who has served in diplomatic posts for Caribbean nations.<\/p>\n<p>Before his diplomatic career, Zampolli co-founded a model management company and served as the Trump Organization\u2019s director of international development. He has long been credited with introducing Trump to his third wife, Melania, though the New York Times\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2019\/07\/09\/us\/politics\/trump-epstein.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">reported<\/a>\u00a0this month that Epstein has also claimed credit for the introduction.<\/p>\n<p>Zampolli said he was unaware of Maxwell\u2019s connection to the Sustainable Oceans Initiative but that he does recall that Beck \u2014 who served on TerraMarr\u2019s board in 2013 \u2014 brought Maxwell to the United Nations twice to discuss her oceans advocacy.<\/p>\n<p>TerraMar sought to build social networks around ocean protection, issuing free \u201cOcean Passports\u201d to anyone who pledged to support its goals, making them an \u201cocean citizen.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis lady,\u201d Zampolli recalled, \u201chad some very interesting ideas.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>___<br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/story\/2019\/07\/21\/jeffrey-epstein-trump-clinton-1424120\">https:\/\/www.politico.com\/story\/2019\/07\/21\/jeffrey-epstein-trump-clinton-1424120<\/a><\/p>\n<div class=\"story-share \">\n<div class=\"interrupt-item social-share-btns\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>GHISLANEgate: &#8220;Oh, what a tangle web we weave!&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-125538","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125538","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=125538"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125538\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=125538"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=125538"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=125538"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}