Bill Clinton Epstein Files Testimony Implicates Pritzker, Spokesman Recants
Then-businessman JB Pritzker introduces former President Bill Clinton at a Clinton Global Initiative event in Chicago in 2013. (Photo: Getty)
In a video being pushed heavily by Republicans around the state and country, former President Bill Clinton appears to have drawn Governor JB Pritzker into the ongoing scandal surrounding disgraced financier and child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
A Twitter account associated with the Republican National Committee posted a clip that was released Monday from Clinton’s taped deposition with the House Oversight Committee last week. In it, Clinton tells the committee he flew on Epstein’s jet with Governor JB Pritzker, and his wife, MK.
“On occasion, I had people who had volunteered to help us and wanted to see what we’re doing,” Clinton said. “For example, I think it was on one of these trips, I think that I had my first trip for the man who’s now the Governor of Illinois, JB Pritzker and his wife, they gave me, they helped me get started.”
But, it appears the timeline doesn’t match Clinton’s statement.
Multiple published reports indicate Clinton last flew on the plane associated with Epstein in 2003.
Both the Pritzker campaign and a spokesman for Clinton say the flights Pritzker took with the former President were in 2008 and 2013.
Epstein was first convicted for procuring a minor for prostitution in Florida in 2008.
Clinton spokesman Angel Ureña posted on Twitter last night Clinton wasn’t specifically referring to a flight on Epstein’s plane.
“President Clinton was simply giving an example of the many people he traveled with to see the Clinton Foundation’s work. Governor Pritzker joined a Clinton Foundation trip in 2008,” he said. “Not on Epstein’s plane. Not with Epstein. Not with Maxwell.”
Pritzker’s campaign also said there was no affiliation with Epstein.
“Governor Pritzker was asked to travel with President Clinton on two trips, once in 2008 and once in 2013,” the campaign wrote in a statement provided to The Illinoize last night. “Neither utilized Jefferey Epstein’s aircraft, nor was he accompanied by that man or Ghislaine Maxwell. We understand that the GOP is desperate to deflect from the heinous accusations against President Trump in the Epstein Files, but this is a particularly weak effort to assign blame where there is none.”
When asked about the video at an unrelated event Tuesday, Pritzker reiterated Clinton’s confusion on the time frame and that he didn’t know Epstein.
“I have never, had never met Jeffrey Epstein. I was never on Jeffrey Epstein’s plane. I was never on any plane with Jeffrey Epstein or with Ghislaine Maxwell. Never met her,” Pritzker said,
One member of the Pritzker family was tied to the Epstein scandal in the documents released by the Department of Justice in the past few months.
The Governor’s cousin, Thomas, the former Executive Chairman of the Hyatt Hotels Corporation, resigned after he was linked to Epstein in the files.
Governor Pritzker was asked about his cousin during an interview last week on MS NOW.
“I’m not close to my cousin,” Gov. Pritzker said. “But I can tell you that it’s very important that people be held to pay the price for whatever it is that they may have done.”
Tom Pritzker resigned from his role with Hyatt after files showed his email communications with Epstein. Tom Pritzker kept in close contact with Epstein in the years after his first conviction in 2008.
Multiple Republicans we spoke to Monday night, many of whom were pushing the story, said Clinton’s words are going to be “hard for Pritzker to talk his way out of.”
We sent one Republican operative the timeline that was provided and they responded: “when you’re explaining, you’re losing.”
