According to a hacked email published by Wikileaks, the Democratic National Committee blocked Roy Black from hosting a potential Barack Obama fundraising event, due to reports on Epstein’s trial from The Daily Beast and other outlets.
Black is the lawyer of billionaire and level-three sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The email states the DNC would still allow Black to donate and attend future events, despite the hosting ban.
In an email thread from May 12th of this year, titled “Host for POTUS in Miami,” DNC finance assistant Karina Marquez originally asked the committee’s vetting team to “vet the following folks for POTUS please.” The list of six possible hosts for the event included Black and his wife Lea, who is a star on Real Housewives of Miami. The couple had previously approved to host the president in 2007.
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“We were also asked to vet the following for POTUS hosting. The only issue is Roy Black,” DNC Deputy Compliance Officer Kevin Snowden wrote back. “New issues have come up since his last vet in February 2016.”
In a third email, DNC deputy finance director Laura Lopez clarified: “Roy Black has been submitted to potentially attend meetings with (Jim) Messina—there isn’t an event code yet. He and his wife co-hosted a fundraiser for POTUS in 2007, all the stories are new since then.”
Messina is the CEO of the Messina Group political strategy firm and led President Obama’s reelection campaign in 2012.
“All the stories” refer to, in part, a 2011 Daily Beast investigation called “Behind Pedophile Jeffrey Epstein’s Sweetheart Deal” which was cited in a follow-up story in the New York Daily News, and other articles that are later embedded into the email thread.
To close off the chain, White House political advisor Bobby Schmuck responded that he agreed with DNC compliance director Alan Reed. “No hosting, fine to attend,” he wrote.
President Obama attended a Miami fundraiser at the home of Robert Rubenstein, one of the five other names listed in the vetting email, on the weekend of June 3rd, and Black was allowed to attend.
Black’s client Epstein was convicted of soliciting sex from an underage girl in 2008 and paid out settlements to “scores of alleged victims who said he serially molested them,” according to The Daily Beast’s Brandy Zadrozny.
President Bill Clinton was said to have flown on Epstein’s private jet, dubbed the “Lolita Express,” up to 26 times, sometimes eschewing Secret Service protection, according to Fox News.
Epstein’s “little black book” of high-profile fellow travelers also included Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump. In June, a “Jane Doe” accused Epstein and Trump of “raping her at a series of sex parties when she was only 13,” according to Zadrozny’s report.
Just last week, attorneys representing two of the 30 women who have accused Epstein of using them as “sex slaves” filed motions seeking to overturn Epstein’s plea deal that allowed him to serve only 18 months in prison for his sex crimes.
Black’s other clients include Justin Bieber, Girls Gone Wild creator Joe Francis and Rush Limbaugh. Black also represented former Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy’s nephew William Kennedy Smith during a high-profile rape case—in which he was acquitted.
Wikileaks released more than 19,000 emails that were hacked from seven major DNC employees on Friday.
