I'm reading "Bill Clinton sent 'warm and gushing' letter for Jeffrey Epstein's 50th birthday - as Trump sues over claim he also wrote a 'bawdy' note for paedophile's half-century" in The Daily Mail.
Bill Clinton wrote a 'warm and gushing' letter which was included in Jeffrey Epstein's infamous 50th 'birthday book', The Mail on Sunday can reveal.
The former US president was one of hundreds who contributed to a heavy leather-bound, gold-embossed album of letters that Epstein's ex-lover Ghislaine Maxwelltook more than a year to compile leading up to the landmark date.
Is this Book of Bawdy letters real or not? The Wall Street Journal, by presenting it as real, attracted a $10 billion lawsuit from Donald Trump. Wouldn't you think that would make The Daily Mail more careful about asserting that the book exists and that it contains a letter that is really from the person who purportedly wrote it?
Last night, a source said: 'Ghislaine asked everyone they knew and that included presidents, princes and kings. Bill Clinton wrote a warm and gushing letter. It was one page and profuse in its admiration for Jeffrey.'...The WSJ claimed Epstein's lawyer Alan Dershowitz wrote a letter but he has yet to comment about the claim.
The whereabouts of the original book is not known. It is thought to have been seized during one of the raids on Epstein's homes in Florida and New York, where Maxwell kept 'dozens of albums' filled with pictures of their trips together including holidays to visit Prince Andrew at Balmoral, Buckingham Palace and Windsor.
She would have huge leather-bound albums made up after every trip, often with blue leather covers.
But if Bill Clinton were to sue The Daily Mail, he'd be giving support to Trump's position: The letters are fake. And yet if he doesn't sue, he'd be implying that these letters — if they are what the newspaper asserts they are — are just frivolous nonsense. That would help Trump politically, but it would undercut Trump's argument that he's damaged to the tune of $10 billion.
Maybe wait and see what Dershowitz does.
Posts
86 comments:
Expect a Clintonparse worthy of a thorough Altparse…
Why is the existence of this strange book only now coming to light? Qui bono?
Smells like Ghislaine is the source for this story. Maybe both. Excerpt above is told from her POV.
Isn't it possible (likely) the 50th birthday anniversary book exists, but the alleged Trump letter is false? Maybe Trump sent a different letter that he hasn't admitted to, not the "bawdy" letter.
Qui bono?
Si. The timing is odd for the usual saturation bombing designed to lower Trump’s approval, so distraction for other shenanigans seems more likely…but what exactly?
So slow to learn! Sexual misconduct is a private matter unrelated to politics when Democrats do it. Just ask Gennifer Flowers, Juanita Broaddrick, Paula Jones, Kathleen Willey, Elizabeth Ward Gracen, Sally Perdue, Dolly Kyle Browning, and Monica Lewinsky.
It's okay for Hollywood producers to do it as long as they can get you a job (Harvey Weinstein), but not when they are quirky and way past their prime (Woody Allen).
This has something to do with the cleansing power of green paper with Presidential portraits. Inexplicable magic.
Warm and gushing isn’t exactly defamatory.
Keep in mind the 'self-licking ice cream cone' move of one source providing the same or similar material to multiple outlets and subsequent reports then claiming 'corroboration' (in this case of the existence/contents of the the book) has been a fixture of fake news. This could be Comey's daughter again as she handled Maxwell's prosecution.
The best fake stories contain some accurate information. Gives them truthiness.
After Hillary Clinton's loss in 2016, it was widely reported that a core segment of Clinton donors started backing Harris and trying to raise her profile in advance of the 2020 election cycle (Harris and no one else). Given all the baggage that Bill Clinton carries, the Democrats still made a point of having him appear at the 2024 convention. There are still many people in the Clinton universe who have major influence over party control who will never disavow Bill Clinton. Larry Summers who also maintained a close relationship with Epstein has been welcomed by the same political circles.
If it was so incredibly easy for the party to separate itself from the Clintons and Epstein, it would have been done. Yet they didn't. The question kind of answers itself as to the "why" and also why it is so incredibly important now to actually get some separation from that political family, and the people who have defended Bill Clinton and rationalized his own conduct for decades.
Half a century is a long time to be getting away with it… in his pajamas. Before walking around in pajamas was okay, that is.
It's a sickness.
You cannot think for yourself.
You're thinking like a sleazy defense lawyer trying to protect ...what? Who? You don't even know who you represent...
Try to think freely, ma'am. What do YOUR instincts tell you? Of course there is a book... you think somebody forged TWO letters? You really would not have run that story, letter in hand, if you were the Daily News? Hm. You can't think for yourself. But sure... game out what the white boys will do. Try to play their games: thinking like a guilty white man who wants to say in power. Your advice, counsellor?
…in these ops there is always the need to have a physical object to anchor these political myths- the dossier, the birthday card book, as if the political smear team is made up of writers poached from The Hallmark Channel, who cling to the classic Hallmark formula of object as plot device. You know, the old nutcracker, mom’s favorite glass ornament, the pee pee tape…
In some ways this makes the Trump letter sound fake, as in the letter as reported in the WSJ sounds like something a certain group of people would either imagine Trump wrote, or what Trump supporters would find abhorrent, without really understanding. A 'warm and gushing' rather than bawdy letter from Trump would have been a better sell as indicating a close relationship between the two men.
R C Belaire said...
Isn't it possible (likely) the 50th birthday anniversary book exists, but the alleged Trump letter is false?
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Yes, an independent mind would concede this is a possibility. Think like a person, ann.
Try to formulate independent questions too: does the Epstein scandal really deserve this much attention? He's dead, the victims grown, Trump married w/children and no recent allegations of sexual abuse or past abuse that has stuck with details of dates, victims, etc. There's no there there...
Focus on the billions America is sending for Israel's war crimes. That will have a long lasting impact on the US. The Mossad Epstein connection is worth looking at only if that is why the American president ordered our military to attack a sovereign nation on an evil ally's request. All the rest is distraction. One is hard news, serious news that affects lives. The other... is distraction. To keep your minds off what is happening in our world.
The masculine find follows the life and death stories. The ladies and old men with low t levels like the sex and young girls allegations of faked letters and crimes and diddling themselves thinking about the high-society parties they missed out on back in the day, busy raising money and making babies...
Eyes on the Prize, people. Israel's actions are going to get Americans killed in the end... How long do you think Epstein's weiner was? I'm thinking a lil one, like in those old statues. You got any comments, or expertise here ann? Old statues, I mean...
After relocating hurricanes and women's pubic hair, Sharpie© is pleading with Trump to stop using their product. One thing we’ve gotta give Trump credit for is that he’d never use an autopen to draw pubic hair. 😂
Dersh could portray himself as an "elderly man with a poor memory". But he won’t.
Trump has denied sending sexually suggestive letters to pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. Why haven't Obama and Biden?
Biden has yet to host a solo press conference over the Epstein files. Is he hiding something? 🤣
Huh. Among her many other skills, Ghislane is a scrapbooker.
One big thing to keep in mind here is that one of the authors of the WSJ hit piece on Trump was Mary Jacoby. She’s the wife of Glenn Simpson, founder of Fusion GPS, which was hired by the Clinton campaign and DNC for generating political dirt on Trump in 2016. To that end, they hired Christopher Steele and Nellie Ohr, who together apparently produced the fraudulent Steele Dossier. Which we found out this week was used, at Obama’s orders, to disrupt Trump’s first term with RussiaGate, etc. as well as the basis for the four FISA warrants on Carter Page, in order for the FBI to electronically surveil President Trump for and his inner circle for much of his first year in office.
No one has yet said the book of letters is false. Only Trump has contended that the letter purported to be his, is not of his hand.
“ Which we found out this week was used, at Obama’s orders, to disrupt Trump’s first term with RussiaGate, etc.”
To clarify - what was new last week was the verification that RussiaGate was at Obama’s orders.
The Latin phrase is "Cui bono," not "Qui bono."
Six ways from Sunday. But this is the Acme version.
I think we can all agree:
Our guy didn’t do it but so what if he did.
Their guy definitely did it and it’s depraved.
“One big thing to keep in mind here is that one of the authors of the WSJ hit piece on Trump was Mary Jacoby. She’s the wife of Glenn Simpson, founder of Fusion GPS…”
My prediction, right now, is that the WSJ folds almost immediately, apologizing, retracting the article, and letting Jacoby resign. This is not the time or place to pick a fight with Trump when DNI Gabbord and AG Bondi are on the warpath against, for one thing the husband of one of the authors of their article.
I thought Trump already had Obama arrested and sent to Guantanamo.
It's pretty disturbing how readily some people accept a narrative with zero proof. Tulsi Gabbard is trying to gaslight an entire nation, and for a good chunk of people it's working.
Gabbard is just trying to get back in Trump’s graces after the Iran bombing disagreement.
“ This is not the time or place to pick a fight with Trump when DNI Gabbord…”
As someone pointed out last fall te DNI is in the unique position that she can reach down into any Intelligence Community silo, see what she wants to see, declassify it at will, and publish it.
1. For the first time in her life, Hillary should do the right thing and divorce Bill. She’s been humiliated enough. What kind of feminist is she? Bill was a regular at Lolita Island banging underage chicks.
2. I heard Dershowitz say that Congress should give Maxwell use immunity and she can name the names on the client list. She knows everything.
Qui bono?
Es una estrella de rock irlandesa.
Ann Althouse said...The Latin phrase is "Cui bono," not "Qui bono."
Cui sera, sera.
I can imagine Maxwell creating or jazzing up letters from their famous friends to stroke Epstein's...ego.
I haven't heard what happened to Epstein's money after his death. Anyone know, and know how much?
In Japanese culture koi is mucho mucho bueno.
The federal agencies are full of losers who become sources (e.g., leaks of Dobbs opinion at SCOTUS). That Epstein stuff got grabbed by the feds and anyone from Boston to Atlanta could be leaking about it with almost any level of knowledge, including none. A country that can embrace both Pizzagate and Russiagate is capable of anything.
Re: Epstein's money. Where did it go? I think a lot ($130 million more or less) went to various victims and their lawyers. But a better and more mysterious question is where did it come from. Wexner says that Epstein stole from him. Leon Black said he paid Epstein more than $100 million at some point. Who else? Anyone? Bueller? Anyone?
qui in equitatem venit, cum clean manibus veniat
Never let a homophone go to waste -probably some leftie political strategist
Anyone else getting tired of cliffhanger journalism?
If there is a birthday book to which Trump contributed, then let's see the book and see his submission. At that point, we can discuss whether or not it's phony. If it's real, we can talk about whether or not it is significant.
The Russia-Russia-Russia hoax shows that there are partisans who will go to great lengths to generate controversy.
They need to retrain the honeypot department of the CIA. What sort of adult doesn't find this sort of request suspicious? Don't they have competent aides? If true, what self-inflicted idiocy.
Bruce Hayden said...
“One big thing to keep in mind here is that one of the authors of the WSJ hit piece on Trump was Mary Jacoby. She’s the wife of Glenn Simpson, founder of Fusion GPS…”
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Jesus, that's a glaring conflict of interest.
What editor thought it was good to have her byline on that story??
(maybe ann could ask Alan Dershowitz or AI and get back to us... )
The term "gushing" is particularly disturbing, in light of Clinton's unfortunate stained history.
Thanks, Althouse. It didn't look cuite right when I wrote it.
Earnest Prole said...
I think we can all agree:
Our guy didn’t do it but so what if he did.
Their guy definitely did it and it’s depraved.
I think if you have a 90 IQ and you don't want to think about each situation or circumstance based on it's own merits this would be a good outlook.
We don't need to see a letter from Horn Dog Clinton to Epstein. We already know he was a frequent flier on Epstein Island Airlines. If Billy Boy isn't suing, its because he's keeping to his gameplan of not commenting on Epstein and hoping it will go away.
Prince Andrew was an obvious target for people like Epstein. He is a model of how not to be the second son. Traditionally, the second sons found a role in the professions while they waited out the heir: the army, the navy, the church, the law, or the farm. For a long time second sons married rich Americans (see Lord Randolph Churchill and Jennie Jerome) who would keep them in clover. Andrew has been idle, entitled, aimless, mediocre intellect, mediocre talent, looking for a role. Prince Harry is another one. Neither has married well. If you have a title but don't have a purpose, the grifters surround you. Have you met Mr. Epstein? He is a very clever fellow. He has his own island!
The book was seized by who? Who has it now, in custody?
Those Democrats. Not content to simply dig themselves into deep political holes, they also seem determined to make sure that Donald Trump gets out of his, too. Almost like magic !
There is no "bawdy letter". If there was, it would've been leaked years ago. Think of the damage it would've done to Trump in 2020!
And there's no proof it exists other than a reporter says he "Saw it".
I've been keeping it a secret, but I will revel it now. I've seen a signed letter from the DNC to Rupert Murdoch asking him to say Trump wrote a bawdy letter to Epstein. They wouldn't let me take a picture or make a copy. And I cant revel my source. But trust me, its true!
Ann Althouse said...
The Latin phrase is "Cui bono," not "Qui bono."
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What does that have to do with the price of eggs or butter? Proves nothing. Try to focus and keep up, prof. YOu're making UW look low on the rankings lists... heh
(Nobody cares about Latin proficiency anymore. hth.)
Rejahm
If I let a homophone go to waste is that homophonic?
John Henry
Bill Clinton was only out of office for not quite 2 years, on the occasion of Epstein's 50th. If there was a honeypot there, would he have been briefed?
“ I thought Trump already had Obama arrested and sent to Guantanamo.”
Troll level: 0. Up your game, you are embarrassing the troll Union.
I think if you have a 90 IQ and you don't want to think about each situation or circumstance based on it's own merits this would be a good outlook.
I couldn’t have said it better myself.
Andrew has been idle
The royal family may wish that he had. Andrew Lownie's book about Andrew and Fergie's financial and other shenanigans comes out in August. Boinking Epstein's girls may have been one of his lesser transgressions.
"paedophile's half-century" Question: was Epstein a "paedophile"? Normally applies to guys abusing prepubescent kids, but as far as I can tell JE did it with teen girls. Correct?
Tina Trent said...
They need to retrain the honeypot department of the CIA. What sort of adult doesn't find this sort of request suspicious?
The kind that James O’Keefe targets.
It's truly amazing what some people will do if the promise is an erotic encounter. Both males and females regularly delude themselves.
I checked, and Trump filed his wsj lawsuit in the Southern District of Florida. So it’s not a lost cause. I still read the wsj and I can’t understand how they let a reporter with her history print this. They should have laundered it under some one else’s byline.
And the picture? I looked at it, a fine line drawing with the typical thick lined Trump signature at the bottom, so Trump used two pens as an artistic statement? The “pubic hair signature” is pure bs, the signature is just scrawled at the bottom not in any shape.
WSJ really stepped in it here. Trump is not out for money. I hope he does not settle and seeks discovery even if it takes 2 years. It it never works that way.
@Amadeus 48: "Andrew has been idle, entitled, aimless, mediocre intellect, mediocre talent, looking for a role. Prince Harry is another one. Neither has married well."
That always happens with regression to the mean. The UK royal family has been in power since 1701. They were first the German House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, then renamed as the House of Windsor in 1917.
That's a long, long, long time for whatever outperformance they once may have had to descend to bland averageness, with half likely to fall below average. And, the Madness of King George (1788) and speech impediments (1939) were in the bloodline before Andrew and Harry came along.
I'd been waiting for the inbred Habsburg jaw to appear, but marrying outside the family (Diana, Fergie, Meghan) seems to have resulted in a fresh type of average offspring.
"The former US president was one of hundreds who contributed to a heavy leather-bound, gold-embossed album of letters... "
So there is a client list, and it's self written with signatures.
I think I know what all the fired late night show writers are
doing.
Now that they're asking, will Bill tell?
Air out your closet of skeletons.
R C Belaire said...Isn't it possible (likely) the 50th birthday anniversary book exists, but the alleged Trump letter is false?
This is the best explanation I can think of--not just the Trump letter, but possibly all of them are fake. The book is real, someone put it together as a birthday present for Epstein, but it's all done in fun.
Comic send-ups in the form of fake quotes (or, in this case, letters) from famous people have a long pedigree. As I recall, National Lampoon did this all the time in the 60's and 70's and I don't l think they invented the concept.
RCOCEAN II said...
There is no "bawdy letter". If there was, it would've been leaked years ago. Think of the damage it would've done to Trump in 2020!
Maybe, but I don't think that works out. Maxwell's trial was either started or upcoming, I don't recall any claims that Trump was protecting Epstein in 2020, and COVID was overshadowing everything anyway.
Assuming the letter is genuine, Trump pretty well immunized himself in 2024 by at least making claims to open the Epstein files. It wasn't until he switched gears that anything which seems to implicate him would have had much traction.
Sonny Bono.
boatbuilder said...
“Qui Bono?
Es una estrella de rock irlandesa.”
Qui Bono?
Is réalta rac-cheoil as Éirinn é
Aggie said...
“Bill Clinton was only out of office for not quite 2 years, on the occasion of Epstein's 50th. If there was a honeypot there, would he have been briefed?”
If she was his type he would have been debriefed.
Nothing new here. We all know that Billy Jeff liked the young stuff. Maybe not under age, but definitely young. And mostly the American public gave him a pass. Whatever appears in the Daily Mail won't hurt him.
Josephbleau said...
And the picture? I looked at it, a fine line drawing with the typical thick lined Trump signature at the bottom, so Trump used two pens as an artistic statement? The “pubic hair signature” is pure bs, the signature is just scrawled at the bottom not in any shape.
It is what an idiot thinks Trump would put in a letter based off a caricature that leftists have created in their little insect politic brains.
It obviously wasn’t written by Trump.
Trump is lucky to have enemies this stupid.
Occam's razor. Do you, Prof. Althouse, actually think that the WSJ's lawyers would have allowed publication, with such a detailed description of Trump's note, without firm evidence of its existence and content? Not disclosing the letter was about protecting a source. If so, Trump's lawsuit would be completely without merit (just like his suit against CBS) and so would Clinton's. But we know Trump is into filing meritless lawsuits, while Clinton is not. So what's the big mystery here?
Enigma is quite mistaken as to the genealogy of the Brit royals.
The German Georges were of the house of Hanover; the Saxe-Coburg-Gotha connection only came when Victoria married Albert.
As Protestants, they didn't marry Habsburgs often, if at all.
No Habsburg lips, chins, or jaws. In fact, neither of the last two emperors or their descendants appear to be afflicted.
The current Habsburgs are actually Lorraines--they, like the Romanovs and Krupps, can retain the more famous name when they marry. The Romanovs were actually Holstein-Gottorpers.
Question: was Epstein a "paedophile"? Normally applies to guys abusing prepubescent kids, but as far as I can tell JE did it with teen girls. Correct?
The correct term for those who are attracted to post-pubescent but markedly underage children (11-14 or so) is "hebephile".
Those attracted to older teenagers in the 15-19 age cohort are called "ephebophiles." It seems likely that this was Epstein's kink. In much of the world 15 or 16 is the age of legal consent, so most of these people are not lawbreakers, distasteful though they may be to modern sensibilities. The fraction of American states that make 18 the age of consent are outliers with respect to most of the rest of the world.
Most of our ancestors were ephebophiles. In days gone by it was rare for girls to reach age 20 without being married and/or impregnated.
At this point, I just don't care.
After all this time, all we have is speculation on the existence of evidence of...what? That every person Epstein ever shook hands with is a pedophile?
Stephen said...
Occam's razor. Do you, Prof. Althouse, actually think that the WSJ's lawyers would have allowed publication, with such a detailed description of Trump's note, without firm evidence of its existence and content? Not disclosing the letter was about protecting a source. If so, Trump's lawsuit would be completely without merit (just like his suit against CBS) and so would Clinton's. But we know Trump is into filing meritless lawsuits, while Clinton is not. So what's the big mystery here?
Look at that. Steven is a moral degenerate and he thinks the WSJ can have a lawyer say it isn’t a lie if we really want to believe it.
Steven is another example of a person without the moral character necessary for a high trust society to exist.
People like Steven belong in places like China where they have a police state to keep moral degenerates in line.
Is this Book of Bawdy letters real or not?
The book was put together by a New York City bookbinder, Herbert Weitz, according to people who were involved in the process.
The WSJ claimed Epstein's lawyer Alan Dershowitz wrote a letter but he has yet to comment about the claim.
That is incorrect. WSJ wrote: "Dershowitz, who represented Epstein after his first arrest, said, 'It’s been a long time and I don’t recall the content of what I may have written' ".
Achilles' comments to comments he disagrees with are always that the person is immoral or unintelligent, or both. Yawn.
Gadly: and the WSJ article tried to add color by mentioning Clinton. Who as always ignores this stuff. Which I suspect WSJ expected Trump to do as he moved on to threatening the owners of the DC NFL franchise and sharing AI content on Obama among crazy stuff of the following days.
Most of our ancestors were ephebophiles. In days gone by it was rare for girls to reach age 20 without being married and/or impregnated.
Not true in England nor it's offspring- the USA. This: "In fact, the majority of women and men married considerably older than this in the past. The graph below shows the average age at marriage over the long sweep of English and Welsh history. Apart from a few decades in the early 1800s, the only time since 1550 that the average age of first marriage for women fell below age 24 was during the baby boom of the 1950s and 1960s. " is from this study: https://www.campop.geog.cam.ac.uk/blog/2024/07/11/what-age-did-people-marry/
This is very consistent with my direct ancestry research. As far back as I can trace, first and only birth under age 21 in my tree is from one of my great-grandmothers- age 16 and 4 months. My "only child" grandfather. DNA indicates that great-grandfather had at least 5 other children, one of which the DNA match and I tracked down.
Other parts of the world are or may be a different story.
Meant to say only birth below 21 in my direct ancestry, not my tree. With living distant cousins, quite a few below 18 births in Texas from 1950 on...
As for William Jefferson Clinton (né Blythe III), the Rhodes Scholar, he is far more intelligent than Dumb Donald. He knows that suing for the mention of a letter that he may or may not have written by the UK Daily Mail will cost him significant legal fees that will only result in rejection by the court under the First Amendment. We also know from pilot logs that Slick Willy took several rides on the Lolita Express as did Donald Trump.
Gospace thanks for the link. Does change my thinking on the subject (as product of baby boom anomaly).
"Ralph L said...
I can imagine Maxwell creating or jazzing up letters from their famous friends to stroke Epstein's...ego.
Trumps note sounds distinctly feminine
I haven't heard what happened to Epstein's money after his death. Anyone know, and know how much?"
He made a will/trust two days before his suicide
"gadfly said...
Is this Book of Bawdy letters real or not?
The book was put together by a New York City bookbinder, Herbert Weitz, according to people who were involved in the process."
Weitz is dead. Clinton is in the book. Coincidence?
Trump pretty well immunized himself in 2024 by at least making claims to open the Epstein files.
Last week, Mark Halperin posted a video of himself with Trump talking to him informally in 2015, before he announced his candidacy. Trump was abusing Epstein back then, unprompted. Halperin had forgotten it until someone told him.
"gadfly said...
“Is this Book of Bawdy letters real or not?”
“The book was put together by a New York City bookbinder, Herbert Weitz, according to people who were involved in the process."
“Weitz is dead. Clinton is in the book. Coincidence?”
Of course Weitz is dead. So is Epstein, of course. So, who is going to corroborate.the book? The FBI agent who probably illegally provided the material to Weitz?
So, why was Trump confident enough to sue the WSJ? I just don’t see him taking the chance of being wrong. If he is, then not only would he lose the case, but also face retaliatory damages in the form of Wrongful Prosecution (or its civil counterpart). Making things worse, he, more than anyone else on the planet, has the ability to know, since he has Gabbord, Patel, and Bongino working for him. That would seem to put him in “should have known” (that his claims were false) territory. But more importantly, he would lose his bluff factor.
I saw a new video podcast by Dershowitz. Said he was contacted by the WSJ shortly before publication and asked if he had written a letter of birthday wishes to Epstein. Dershowitz told them that he had no memory of doing so and asked to see the letter. Was refused. Asked to at least see his alleged “signature” and was refused that.
In summary, Epstein turned 50 before the big scandals and while Dershowitz was still representing him, so Dershowitz said as I take it that it’s in the realm of possibility that he would have written a birthday wish but it didn’t sound likely and he had no memory of doing so.
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