Yesterday, our friends over at The Journal got something of an exclusive scoop:
The Tipperary Peace Convention intends to remain vigilant, it says, about the outcome of an investigation into a Norwegian diplomat called Mona Juul and her husband Terje Larsen, who are linked in email correspondence to Jeffrey Epstein.
This was news to me on several levels: First, because I am a long-term resident of Tipperary and a keen observer of the news who had never, until yesterday, even heard of the Tipperary Peace Convention, let alone a Norwegian diplomat called Mona Juul or her husband.
Second, because the award in question was granted to Mona Juul all the way back in 1993. It is not significant enough to merit a mention either on Juul’s Wikipedia page or in any public profile of her that I could find. Nevertheless, let it be known: The Tipperary Peace convention is monitoring events closely over her links to Epstein.
Everyone who is anyone, and even some people who are pretty obscure, is worried these days about links to Epstein and sex crimes.
Well, almost everyone. Because meanwhile, up in UCD, the Clinton Centre remains one of the crown jewels of that University’s offering, and – unlike Queen’s University, which unpersoned former Senator George Mitchell despite noting “no findings of wrongdoing made against him – there has not been so much as a murmur of discontent or self-reflection over Bill Clinton’s links to Epstein.
Those links are extensive. They began during Clinton’s Presidential campaign, to which Epstein was a donor. They continued during his Presidency, when Epstein was a regular overnight guest at the White House. When Clinton left the White House, he made at least 17 individual trips on Epstein’s Boeing 727 private Jet, popularly characterised as the “Lolita Express” because of the number of very young women transported hither and tither aboard it.
A witness to Epstein’s crimes, Johana Sjoberg, recalled Epstein saying of Clinton that “Clinton likes them young”. This, evidently is hearsay, but here’s the rub: It is also consistent with Clinton’s public non-Epstein record.
What is that record? At least four claims made against him of serious sexual misconduct at a criminal level, with one $850,000 civil settlement to Paula Jones for an alleged incident of indecent exposure. In that case, the Judge found Clinton in contempt of court for misleading denials of the incident. When it took place, Jones was 26 years old, Clinton was 43.
Clinton’s best known incident of sexual misconduct does not need much recounting, other than to note that he was 49 years old when he had the 22 year old Monica Lewinsky – who says she was groomed by the President – providing services the Oval Office is not a normal venue for.
There is enough on the public record already, vis a vis Clinton, for any reasonable person to say that he is “problematic” in the modern era in terms of his record with women. And then you have the ties to Epstein.
Defenders of Clinton note that there is no evidence that the two associated publicly or privately after Epstein’s 2008 conviction: That, of course, is the excuse used to nobble Mitchell up in Belfast. But this is a nonsensical line of reasoning: Clinton’s association with Epstein was long-standing and took place during a period when both men are known to have – independently of each other – engaged in sexual impropriety. It also took place during a period when Epstein is known to have surrounded himself consistently with trafficked and often under-aged women. We are expected to believe, it seems, that Clinton never saw a thing from his dear friend and supporter and regular houseguest and host that made him raise an eyebrow.
Like many tens of millions of people worldwide, I do not find that credible. Here’s Clinton, by the way, getting a back massage from confirmed Epstein victim Chauntae Davis, on Epstein’s island:
Here’s another one of Clinton, in the pool at Epstein’s island, wearing not much of anything, with an unidentified woman (the US DOJ censored her face) of unknown age:
I further do not find it credible that UCD – an institution that prides itself on being progressive and liberal and feminist institutionally – is overlooking the case of Clinton, at the same time as our new friends down in the Tipperary Peace Convention are agonising over an award made to an obscure Norwegian diplomat in 1993. 1993 is the same year as Epstein’s first visit to the White House under Clinton’s presidency, by the by.
Indeed, last week there was some disquiet in UCD over that University’s ties to Noam Chomsky, the old leftist linguist who, it turns out, had very close ties to Epstein in the latter years of Epstein’s life, including advising him on how to deal with the bad PR arising from his sex crimes. Chomsky has never been accused of any crimes himself, but the association is apparently something UCD academics are reviewing.
So why the silence on Clinton? Money, one assumes, is the obvious answer, given the prestige that the Clinton Institute accrues for UCD. Perhaps UCD’s ties to the Clinton Global Institute, the former President’s slush fund for his pet causes to which Epstein was a donor, is too valuable to sever. Perhaps some of it is plain old-fashioned ideological loyalty to a US President who remains the favourite holder of that office for many Irish academics of a certain vintage.
But these questions are unlikely to go away. And in any case, even if there were no links to Epstein, Clinton’s individual record with women is something that a supposedly feminist insititution should surely find to be a source of embarrassment. No?
If we’re going to have public moral purges over Epstein, it is surely curious that one of his most famous, and most public, and most long-standing associates, with a sexual record of his own that would make the Empress Messalina blush, is escaping any attention at all.