ABC News viewers who wanted to know about any ties between former President Bill Clinton and registered sex offender Jeffrey Epstein received 38 seconds of coverage.
The Democrat who flew on Mr. Epstein’s Boeing 727 more than 20 times has been mentioned in the network’s coverage since Sunday, but the time was allotted to a statement distancing himself from the billionaire.
“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 with in New York,’” his office said Monday in reference to sex-trafficking charges involving underage girls.
The media watchdog NewsBusters calculated 21 minutes and 3 seconds of Epstein coverage on ABC, which included “a full report on Donald Trump’s Secretary of Labor, Alexander Acosta. At the time, he was a U.S. attorney who authorized a plea deal for previous Epstein charges.”
Mr. Clinton’s statement Monday asserted that a meeting with Mr. Epstein happened in Harlem in 2002, along with “one brief visit to Epstein’s New York apartment with a staff member and his security detail.”
“He’s not spoken to Epstein in well over a decade, and he has never been to Little St. James Island, Epstein’s ranch in New Mexico, or his residence in Florida,” it said,” Mr. Clinton’s office added.
Mr. Clinton, according to a 2016 Fox report citing official flight logs filed with the Federal Aviation Administration, flew on Mr. Epstein’s plane — referred to by pundits as the “Lolita Express” — 26 times.
• Douglas Ernst can be reached at dernst@washingtontimes.com.
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