President Donald Trump retweeted a conspiracy theory on Saturday evening alleging without evidence that former President Bill Clinton was connected to the death of wealthy financier and accused sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, hours after Epstein was found dead by apparent suicide in his federal prison cell.
“Died of SUICIDE on 24/7 SUICIDE WATCH ? Yeah right! How does that happen,” wrote Terrence K. Williams — a commentator, comedian, and actor according to his Twitter bio — in the message retweeted by Trump. “#JefferyEpstein had information on Bill Clinton & now he’s dead. I see #TrumpBodyCount trending but we know who did this!”
Williams is a headliner on the Deplorables Comedy Tour, which promises to “unleash the conservative mindset, transcending politics and unabashedly mocking liberals.”
In the tweet, he includes a two-minute video apparently claiming vindication by Epstein’s death. He also tied it to the 1994 suicide of White House aide Vince Foster that conspiracy theorists have long blamed on the Clintons.
“For some odd reason, people that have information on the Clintons end up dead and they usually die from suicide. Come on now, come on now, now how do everybody die from suicide that have information on you?” Williams said in the selfie recording. “I don’t want to know nothing about the Clintons, don’t tell me nothing. I’m not trying to end up dead. I don’t even want to know if Hillary was digging in her nose.”
Epstein was arrested July 6 at an airport in Teterboro, New Jersey, and charged with one count of sex trafficking conspiracy and one count of sex trafficking, and faced up to 45 years in prison if found guilty. His death came the day after a trove of court documents was unsealed, providing new details about Epstein’s alleged crimes.
The indictment in his case showed that he sought out minors, some as young as 14, from at least 2002 through 2005 and paid them hundreds of dollars in cash for sex at either his Manhattan townhouse or his estate in Palm Beach, Florida, federal prosecutors revealed last month. He pleaded not guilty and was denied bail.
Epstein’s circle of powerful friends and acquaintances at one time included the future president, as they were both fixtures on the glitzy Palm Beach social scene. More than a decade before Epstein pleaded guilty to felony prostitution charges in Florida, they both appeared in footage filmed by NBC at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate, now a private club. The two wealthy men are laughing and pointing as they appear to discuss young women dancing at a party.
Trump said last month that he had not spoken to Epstein since his 2008 guilty plea, and that his relationship with Epstein was no different than that of anyone else in their elite circle.
Epstein also visited the Clinton White House in the 1990s, and Clinton flew on Epstein’s plane after leaving office.
