Maxwell honored at Clinton event years after sexual abuse allegations emerged

Ghislaine Maxwell was honored by the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) in 2013, four years after sexual abuse accusations against her emerged – and two years after the former president Bill Clinton’s staff recommended banning her from official events, CNN has reported.

Maxwell – who in 2022 was sentenced to 20 years in prison for sex trafficking and related crimes – attended the CGI conference as a guest of merit, where she was applauded for her work on ocean conservation alongside other “Commitment to Action” leaders, according to the network.

Maxwell’s complimentary access to the conference indicated that her invitation was personally recommended by either Bill or Hillary Clinton, the former first lady, secretary of state and US senator, the outlet said. That is because a top Clinton aide, Doug Band, had instructed CGI staff to “remove Ghislaine, from all lists” for Clinton-related events, as CNN put it.

The conference invite came four years after Jeffrey Epstein’s accuser Virginia Roberts Giuffre claimed in a 2009 lawsuit against Epstein that Maxwell had recruited and groomed her for – as well as participated in – her sexual abuse. And the claims had already surfaced in press reports.

In that same year, Maxwell was hit with a subpoena to testify in that suit as she was leaving a CGI event – and a year later attended the 2010 wedding of Chelsea Clinton.

A representative for Clinton said more than 600 complimentary tickets were approved for the CGI conference in 2013. “The decisions on those comps were made, as they have been historically, at the staff level, which included the office of President Clinton,” they said.

A spokesperson for the former president said that Maxwell’s appearance at the event “is about someone working on ocean conservation attending a charitable conference 12 years ago, along with thousands of other people, and nothing more”.

“As we have consistently said, the Clintons know nothing about Jeffrey Epstein’s terrible crimes,” the spokesperson added.

But the report will add to questions about the Clinton family’s continued association with Maxwell even after she was accused of involvement in Epstein’s sex-trafficking operation.

In an interview with the deputy attorney general posted online by the Trump justice department on Friday, Maxwell said Bill Clinton never went to Epstein’s island – and described his trips on Epstein’s plane as connected to humanitarian projects.

Flight logs record that Clinton travelled on Epstein’s plane 26 times but Maxwell characterized it as “one journey” – and said he had never received a massage.

“So they spent time on the plane together, and I don’t believe there was ever a massage on the plane,” she said. “So that would’ve been the only time that I think that President Clinton could have even received a massage. And he didn’t, because I was there.”

Maxwell’s attendance at the 2013 event hints at stress over Maxwell’s continued presence in the Clintons’ orbit after the allegations against her surfaced.

Band, the Clinton aide, told Vanity Fair that Chelsea Clinton remained friends with Maxwell because “Ghislaine had access to yachts and nice homes. Chelsea needed that.”

A Clinton spokesperson told CNN: “If Doug Band instructed anyone to bar Maxwell, he didn’t communicate it broadly and didn’t say why.”

Sunday’s report about Maxwell and the 2013 CGI conference came as Donald Trump’s administration has been struggling to contain a bipartisan uproar surrounding the White House’s unfulfilled promises to release all of the federal government’s records on Epstein, who was friends with Trump before a falling out before Epstein’s 2019 death.