Ghislaine Maxwell exchanged frantic emails with sex offender Jeffrey Epstein in 2015 as claims from one of his alleged victims were making international news, according to newly unsealed court records. Epstein encouraged Maxwell to rope Bill Clinton into the mess as a way to cast doubt on the accusations.
“I am convinced your statement should be be about the clinton story being easily dsiporived [sic],” he wrote in one message, which seemingly referred to disputed claims about whether Clinton had visited Epstein’s private island.
“Ask press to investigate whether Clinton was ever there,” he added in another. “Challenge the press.” Epstein separately encouraged Maxwell to quit acting like an escaped “convict,” while her advisers pushed her to dispute accusations of misconduct, as former Harvard professor Alan “Dershowitz urges and Prince Andrew has.”
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The emails shed light on Epstein and Maxwell’s mental states as they faced an extreme threat to their reputations and potential legal jeopardy. Their stress was well founded: Epstein was arrested in 2019 on sex trafficking charges (he died by suicide while in custody), while Maxwell was sentenced to 20 years in prison in 2022.
The emails are part of a massive trove of documents from Epstein victim Virginia Giuffre’s 2015 lawsuit that have recently been unsealed by a federal court. The filings offer an inside look at Epstein’s operations, from his roster of celebrity guests to his creepy phone logs.
Clinton’s trips on Epstein’s private jets are well documented, but the former president has firmly denied that he visited the island. Former Epstein employee Steve Scully has said otherwise, as has Giuffre and Clinton’s former aide Doug Band, who told Vanity Fair that it “was one of the few trips he declined to go on in his time with Clinton.”
Epstein’s “convict” email from January 2015 was sparked by Maxwell’s plea for an unnamed woman to publicly “come out and say” she was once his girlfriend—seemingly as a way to disprove allegations that the woman had been trafficked or abused.
“Ok, with me,” Epstein replied. “You have done nothing wrong and i woudl urge you to start acting like it. go outside, head high, not as an esacping convict. go to parties. deal with it.”
In his typo-ridden message, he noted that he had spoken with a prominent Scandinavian diplomat about Maxwell’s environmental work. The diplomat allegedly told Epstein that “no one on her ocean panel takes [the allegations] seriously” and that Maxwell would be welcome at an ocean conference.
The same month, Epstein had drafted a potential statement for Maxwell, and he repeatedly followed up to ask whether she planned to issue an official denial to the media.
“Since JE was charged in 2007 for solicitation of a prostitute I have been the target of outright lies, innuendo, slander, defamation and salacious gossip and harrasment,” the statement began. It claimed that Maxwell had repeatedly been smeared through “made up of quotes I have never given, statements I have never made, trips with people to places I have never been, holidays with people I have never met, false allegations of impropriety and offensive behavior that I abhor and have never ever been party to… and the list goes on.”
Maxwell was hesitant to speak out, however, telling her advisers: “I am out of my depth to understanding defamation and other legal hazards and don't want to end up in a law suit aimed at me from anyone if I can help it. Apparently even saying Virginia is a lier has hazard!”
She added, portentously, that she had “never been in a suit criminal or civil and want it to stay that way.”
Maxwell’s attorney had encouraged her repeatedly to comment to the press. “I will speak to Jeffery Epstein's lawyer but JE has a conflict with you and will want your silence as whilst you are being attacked there is less heat on him,” he wrote.
"We can’t sit back and let you be a conspirator by silence,” the lawyer added, encouraging Maxwell to speak to Dershowitz and follow his lead in proclaiming his innocence.
“Don’t allay yourself to JE as that is not the way to go.”
Roughly two weeks later, Maxwell emailed Epstein to inform him that Gawker had published a redacted copy of his address book.
“Should not be legal,” Epstein responded. Maxwell noted that her friends were “apoplectic.”
Soon after, she messaged Epstein again to complain that the stories about his misconduct had not yet fizzled.
“All had quietened down over here in last 24 hours but just googled you… the daily mail printed a story 6 hours ago that they picked up from the daily beast which is jane doe l's testimony (and video interview) about how Haley robson recruited her to give [Epstein] one massage when she was 14,” she wrote.
Epstein replied simply, with another misspelling, “thnaks.”
