Bill Clinton: Bill Clinton opens up about Monica Lewinsky, Epstein in memoir: ‘Frustration’, ‘regret’
Former president Bill Clinton has answered the most asked questions about him in his upcoming memoir Citizen: My Life After the White House, scheduled to be published this week: Monica Lewinsky and Jeffrey Epstein. The first was one of the biggest political scandals which he initially denied when it emerged in 1998 that he had a sexual relationship with then-22-year-old White House intern Lewinsky. The second pulled down many men of his time though Clinton said he never visited Epstein island in the Caribbean.
‘Was caught off guard’
Clinton wrote that he was caught off guard on the NBC 2018 interview and he was frustrated at being questioned about his affair with Lewinsky after so many years. The 2018 interview was over a book but Clinton was asked about the MeToo movement. He was asked if the same thing that triggered his impeachment happened today, would Clinton resign.
“I said, ‘No, I felt terrible then.’ ‘Did you ever apologize to her?’ I said that I had apologized to her and everybody else I wronged. I was caught off guard by what came next. ‘But you didn’t apologize to her, at least according to folks that we’ve talked to.’ I fought to contain my frustration as I replied that while I’d never talked to her directly, I did say publicly on more than [one] occasion I was sorry.”
‘I wish I had never met him’
On his connection to sex offender Jefferey Epstein, Clinton wrote that he never visited his infamous private island but he flew on his private plane named ‘Lolita Express’ in connection to his work with the Clinton Global Initiative. But that trip took place before Epstein was convicted on charges of child sex in Florida in 2005.
“The bottom line is, 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,” Clinton wrote.
“I had always thought Epstein was odd but had no inkling of the crimes he was committing.”
“He hurt a lot of people, but I knew nothing about it, and by the time he was first arrested in 2005, I had stopped contact with him. I’ve never visited his island.” “I wish I had never met him,” he added.
