Ghislaine Maxwell, who is known for her close association with the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, faced intense questioning regarding former President Bill Clinton and his family during a highly scrutinized two-day session with the Department of Justice last month, as reported by the Daily Mail.

Clinton, 78, has long maintained that he was no more than an occasional acquaintance of the millionaire sex offender.

During her discussion with officials in Tallahassee, Florida, Maxwell – currently serving a 20-year sentence for her role in aiding Epstein’s abusive actions – refuted previous claims, asserting that she, Epstein, and Clinton were well-acquainted, according to someone with knowledge of the exchange.

In a private interview with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, Maxwell disclosed that she had developed a personal friendship with the 42nd president over time, often traveling internationally with him.

Clinton has always denied any knowledge of the ‘terrible crimes’ committed by Epstein, who died in a New York jail cell in 2019 awaiting trial for sexually abusing young women. Yet, amid suggestions that he made no fewer than 26 trips on Epstein’s private jet known as the Lolita Express, Clinton has remained under scrutiny.

And Tuesday, with speculation continuing to mount about the White House failure to release official papers concerning Epstein and the powerful circle of men he cultivated, Clinton, his wife Hillary, 77, were subpoenaed to appear before the House of Representatives in October.

Now it appears that Maxwell has cast doubt on Clinton’s version of events. The Daily Mail reached out to a representative for Clinton but did not receive a comment.

Clinton has always denied any knowledge of the ‘terrible crimes’ committed by Epstein

Amid suggestions that he made no fewer than 26 trips on Epstein’s private jet known as the Lolita Express, Clinton has remained under scrutiny. (Pictured: Clinton and Maxwell on the steps of Epstein’s jet)

Maxwell met Blanche and his officials two weeks ago in a courthouse near the Federal Correctional Institute in Tallahassee, where she was serving her sentence.

The source suggests that Maxwell maintains she knew the Clintons well enough to be friendly with their daughter Chelsea, now 45. And that she had received private gifts from the former president.

This account tallies with what Maxwell herself told me in a series of sensational jail-cell interviews I recorded for The Mail on Sunday shortly before and just after her conviction for sex trafficking in 2022. Two of those interviews – including her remarks about the Clintons – are yet to be released.

Speaking to me from behind bars in the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn and later in the Federal Correctional Institution in Tallahassee, Maxwell spoke warmly of the Clintons and her friendship with them.

Speaking to the Department of Justice, however, Maxwell was said to have been notably less warm towards the Clintons than in her conversations with me.

This might well suit President Donald Trump of course, who is a consistent critic of the Clintons and upon whom Maxwell’s hopes of an eventual pardon rest.

Maxwell is also understood to feel that, despite their previously cordial relationship, the Clintons immediately sought to distance themselves from her when she was first arrested.

Trump, in contrast, maintained a neutral stance in public.

Maxwell was also quizzed about the existence of the alleged ‘birthday book’ which – commissioned by her as a present for Epstein – is alleged by the Wall Street Journal to have contained a lewd message from Trump.

Trump denies writing the message and is suing Rupert Murdoch, owner of the WSJ, for $10 billion for defamation.

The source suggests that Maxwell refused to comment upon the claims without seeing the original book. 

Speaking to the Department of Justice, however, Maxwell was said to have been notably less warm towards the Clintons than in her conversations with me (Pictured: Clinton receiving a neck and shoulder massage from Epstein victim Chauntae Davies during a 2002 stop-over)

Maxwell was grilled about Clinton and his family during her controversial two-day interrogation by the Department of Justice last month, a source tells the Daily Mail

Maxwell is also understood to feel that, despite their previously cordial relationship, the Clintons immediately sought to distance themselves from her when she was first arrested 

The source suggests that Maxwell maintains she knew the Clintons well enough to be friendly with their daughter Chelsea. (Pictured: Ghislaine attending Chelsea Clinton’s wedding in 2010) 

There are reports of the artwork found in Epstein’s Manhattan townhouse that portray Clinton in a dress and heels (pictured) 

It has been reported, meanwhile, that Maxwell objects to any transcript of her conversations with the Department of Justice from being published – as the Trump administration is reportedly considering.

Her lawyers have said they’ve had no chance to review the transcripts which had the potential to damage her reputation and could harm her chance of an appeal against her sentence.

There are numerous pictures of Clinton and Epstein together. One photograph shows Clinton receiving a neck and shoulder massage from Epstein victim Chauntae Davies on a stop-over during a flight on Epstein’s jet in 2002.

Then there are the reports of the disturbing artwork found in Epstein’s Manhattan townhouse bizarrely portraying Clinton in a dark blue dress – not unlike the one worn by former intern Monica Lewinsky in her notorious sexual encounter with the then president.

According to lawyers for the late Virginia Giuffre, Epstein’s most prominent victim, Clinton was a ‘key person in the lives’ of the millionaire and Maxwell, his ‘madam.’

In July 2019, representatives of the former president released a statement, writing, in part: ‘President Clinton knows nothing about the terrible crimes Jeffrey Epstein pleaded guilty to in Florida some years ago, or those with which he has been recently charged in New York.’

Additionally, Clinton’s camp insists he only took a ‘total of four trips’ from 2002 to 2003 on Epstein’s aircraft, which last flew in 2016 and is slowly corroding at an airfield in Brunswick, Georgia. 

In Clinton’s memoir, Citizen: My Life After The White House, he wrote: ‘Even though it allowed me to visit the work of my foundation, traveling on Epstein’s plane was not worth the years of questioning afterward.

‘I wish I had never met him.’

Daphne Barak is an international filmmaker and interviewer.