Former Clinton confidante Band says former president visited Epstein's private island in 2003

Former Bill Clinton aide Doug Band alleges the 42nd president took a 2003 trip to disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein's private Caribbean Island where Epstein allegedly trafficked underage females. 

Band makes the allegation in a lengthy Vanity Fair magazine story published Tuesday about his long-time relationship with the Clinton family, which started when he landed an internship at 22 in Clinton's White House. He served as a counselor to Clinton after he left office about 19 years ago.

The story says a Clinton spokesperson told the magazine that the former president has never been to Epstein’s Little St. James Island and provided detailed travelogue entries of the period in question that did not contain a visit.

A Clinton spokesperson denied such allegation earlier this summer when they resurfaced as part of the court proceedings related to the arrest of former Epstein confidant Ghislaine Maxwell. 

Epstein pleaded guilty in 2008 in a Florida court to two charges of solicitation of prostitution with a minor. In July 2019, Epstein was charged with sex trafficking with a minor in Florida and New York. A month later, he was found dead in his New York jail cell. 

Band in the Vanity Fair essay also discusses other details about the world in which Epstein and Clinton traveled.

“It’s like a cult, that world,” he told Vanity Fair writer Gabriel Sherman. “It’s hard to get yourself out and difficult to see outside of it. And it’s even harder to understand that when you’re inside.”

The feature also takes aim at Band, highlighting questionable business deals including how he started the corporate advisory firm Teneo, then allegedly tried to create clients from donors to the Clinton Foundation, for which he was a board member.

The story also states Band encouraged Teneo clients to donate to the foundation.