National Post (National Edition)
Maxwell told me powerful were taped, author says
Book claims Epstein recorded Clinton, Trump
Ghislaine Maxwell admitted that Jeffrey Epstein had secret recordings of Donald Trump and Bill Clinton, a CBS News producer has claimed in a book.
The British socialite, who has been charged with procuring girls for the millionaire pedophile and sex offender to abuse in the mid-nineties, was apparently duped by the journalist Ira Rosen into confirming that Epstein had taped his famous friends.
Rumours had circulated for years that Epstein had installed recording devices in his homes and had potentially incriminating tapes of his powerful associates, but they had never been verified. Rosen, an award-winning producer, said he spoke to Maxwell before the 2016 presidential election and, acting on a “hunch” that recordings existed, duped her into apparently confirming his theory.
In his memoir, Rosen writes that he told Maxwell: “I want the tapes. I know he (Epstein) was videotaping everyone.” He claims Maxwell “gave me a stern look and pointed a finger in my face. She said: `I am the daughter of a press baron. I know the way you people think. If you do one side, you must do the other. If you get the tapes on Trump you have to do Clinton.'” Rosen says that he replied: “I will. I will go wherever the story goes.”
Last year Trump said he had met Maxwell “numerous times” but was “not a fan” of Epstein, with whom he'd had a falling out about 15 years ago. A spokesman for Clinton has previously said his friendship with Epstein ended before the financier's conviction for soliciting a minor for sex in 2008.
Rosen believes Maxwell's comments confirmed reports that Epstein, accused by dozens of women of procuring them for sex, had secretly recorded the elite friends he hosted at his various properties. No tapes have ever been produced.
Maxwell, 59, the daughter of Robert Maxwell, a media tycoon who died in 1991, is in a Manhattan jail before trial in July. She has always denied any wrongdoing.
Her lawyers have repeatedly complained about her treatment at the Metropolitan Detention Centre in Brooklyn, and this week accused prison guards of physically abusing her. They said she was losing her hair and had withered “to a shell of her former self.”
In a letter to a New York judge, Bobbi Sternheim alleged: “Out of view of the security camera, Ms. Maxwell was placed in her isolation cell and physically abused during a pat down search. Ms. Maxwell recoiled in pain and when she said she would report the mistreatment, she was threatened with disciplinary action.”
The Federal Bureau of Prisons did not respond to the latest claims but in December defended the jail conditions.