Maxwell was on the list of guests who had reportedly been personally recommended by Bill or Hillary Clinton for complimentary access.
Ghislaine Maxwell was reportedly celebrated at a Clinton Global Initiative event four years after sex crime allegations emerged against the accomplice of disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein. The report may shed more light on Maxwell's relationship with the Clintons, even as allegations against her emerged.
Maxwell, who is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence after being found guilty of sex trafficking and conspiracy charges in 2021, was praised as a guest at the Clinton Global Initiative conference in September 2013, according to a new report from CNN.
Maxwell was on the list of guests who had been personally recommended by Bill or Hillary Clinton for complimentary access to the conference, a source familiar with the list told the outlet. She was lauded alongside other "Commitment to Action” leaders at the event.
Before Maxwell was honored at the 2013 conference, major news outlets in America and the UK had covered allegations that she recruited young girls for Epstein as well as participated in the abuse. She had previously been barred from other official Clinton events in 2011, meaning the organization was likely aware of the allegations. Maxwell had been the representing the TerraMar Project, which has since gone defunct. She founded the non-profit focused on ocean conservation in 2012.
"There were more than 600 comps approved at CGI 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," the Clinton Foundation told CNN in response to the report.
The organization added, “The TerraMar Project, along with a dozen more organizations, made Commitments to Action to protect the oceans announced in 2013 at a CGI meeting. These were part of more than 4,000 commitments made since 2005."
"This 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," a representative for former President Bill Clinton said.
The report also comes after the Trump administration released transcripts of Maxwell's interview with the Department of Justice, where she said that she does not think Epstein killed himself, that President Donald Trump was "never inappropriate with anybody" when she saw him, and that there was no Epstein "client list."
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