Note: This column first appeared on Cashill’s substack.
Of the twelve – count ’em, 12 – New York Times articles on Chelsea Clinton’s August 2010 wedding in upstate New York, one particular article calls attention to itself. Headlined “Clinton Wedding Is Leaving Some Feeling Left Out,” reporter Ashley Parker wondered what it took “to score an invitation to the hottest, not to mention most secretive, political wedding of the summer.”
Well, whatever it took, Jeffery Epstein co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell had it. Maxwell secured an aisle seat on a wedding also attended by the likes of Barack Obama, Steven Speilberg, Oprah Winfrey, and Barbra Streisand. Not every one was so lucky. “Some are privately grumbling about who made the cut,” Parker reported. “And the whole affair has left donors, supporters, aides and even true A-listers wondering just how inside the inner circle they really are.”
Maxwell almost didn’t get herself to the church on time. She was actually scheduled to appear at a deposition right beforehand. Unsealed court documents from January 2024 reveal that “[a]t the eleventh hour Maxwell’s lawyer informed plaintiff’s counsel that Maxwell’s mother was very ill and that consequently Maxwell was leaving the country with no plans to return.”
The document continues, “Maxwell was photographed at Chelsea Clinton’s wedding in Rhinebeck, New York, confirming the suspicion that she was indeed still in the country and willing to say anything to avoid her deposition.”
According to the New York Times, the deposition stemmed from “a 2009 lawsuit against Mr. Epstein. Virginia Giuffre alleged that Mr. Epstein and Ms. Maxwell sexually abused her starting when she was 16.” Chelsea had to know about this lawsuit. Politico reported that Chelsea vacationed on a yacht with Maxwell in 2009. Said former Clinton deep insider Doug Band, “Ghislaine had access to yachts and nice homes. Chelsea needed that.”
The reporting about the wedding suggests that the Maxwell invitation was Chelsea’s idea and that the two were globe-trotting pals, but the evidence suggests other alternatives. For starters, Maxwell was a generation older. What is more, a spokeswoman for Chelsea “disputed the idea that the two women were ever close.”
Then, too, according to The List, Chelsea “built a public persona advocating for women’s rights. She has given numerous speeches and interviews championing these causes.” Meanwhile, Maxwell was championing her sex-trafficking beau in his quest to corrupt as many young women and underage girls as time permitted.
One would need a whole lot of yacht time and more than a few margaritas to reconcile these two causes. But then again, maybe having a publicly disgraced sexual predator for a father taught Chelsea early on how to “compartmentalize.”
As to Ghislaine’s plus-one, he was nowhere to be seen. Although Epstein had completed his absurdly light jail time a year earlier, one suspects that then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had enough feel for optics to keep Epstein discreetly tucked away. His absence might not have disappointed her hound dog of a husband as it meant one more single woman to hit on at the wedding.
Whichever Clinton put Ghislaine on the guest list – my suspicion is Bill – these grifters kept Ms. Maxwell in their inner circle. This worried the more scrupulous Doug Band. He told Vanity Fair that he had advised Bill Clinton’s office to bar Maxwell from all Clinton-related events. “I knew in telling everyone to stop including Ghislaine that Chelsea and her father would be very angry.”
Chelsea did not take the request well. According to Band, she forced him out of the sacred circle. In one widely quoted Wikileaks email in 2016, Band called Chelsea a “spoiled brat kid.” On the Ghislaine front, she and her father prevailed. In 2013, Maxwell was honored at a Clinton Global Initiative event for her alleged work in cleaning up the oceans.
A spokesman explained away Maxwell’s attendance at an event five years after Epstein was very publicly disgraced. “This is about someone working on ocean conservation attending a charitable conference 12 years ago, along with thousands of other people, and nothing more,” the spokeman told the New York Post. “As we have consistently said, the Clintons know nothing about Jeffrey Epstein’s terrible crimes.”
Christopher Hitchens described Bill Clinton as “not just a liar but a lie; a phony construct.” That seemed to be a family trait.
Jack Cashill’s newest book, “Empire of Lies,” is now available in ebook and print versions at Amazon and Barnes & Noble.