Fake News: Google Photos Of Jeffrey Epstein And Bill Clinton Have NOT Been Scrubbed And Are NOT Disappearing From The Web

Fact Check

  • by: Alan Duke
Fake News: Google Photos Of Jeffrey Epstein And Bill Clinton Have NOT Been Scrubbed And Are NOT Disappearing From The Web

Have Google photos of Jeffrey Epstein and Bill Clinton, previously available on Google Images, been scrubbed and are they disappearing from the web? No, that's not true: The photograph that accompanied this claim shows former President Clinton in a swimming pool with other men, but not accused sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. Ironically, the same photo was used last year in a false effort to link Clinton to another convicted sex offender.

The false claim is spreading virally on social media, including in a post (archived here) published on July 10, 2019 as a meme that read:

Google photos of Jeffrey Epstein and Bill Clinton, previously available on Google Images, appear to have been scrubbed and are disappearing from the web
repost the hell out of this picture and keep it alive!

This is what social media users saw:

The false meme began spreading after federal sex trafficking charges were filed against billionaire Jeffrey Epstein, who was a friend of Clinton and a contributor to the Clinton Foundation before he was investigated in 2005 on sex charges in Florida. Clinton, who flew on Epstein's private jet about 27 times (according to pilot logs obtained by Lead Stories), denied he ever visited Epstein's private caribbean island.

The photograph of Clinton with his arms around the shoulders of two men in a swimming pool were taken in January 2017 in the Dominican Republic.They were published in media reports at the time about the former president's vacation. Jeffrey Epstein is not seen in the image. The man who the meme points to as being Epstein is George N. Nader, an art entreprenuer who lives in the Dominican Republic. He posted the image (minus the big red arrow) on his own Instragram account on November 23, 2017:

View this post on Instagram

Suerte q Trump no la ha visto

A post shared by George Nader (@george_n_nader) on

Ironically, the same photograph was used by Clinton opponents in 2018 in a false claim that the man with Clinton was convicted sex offender and Donald Trump fundraiser George A. Nader. Wrong Nader!

As for the image disappearing from Google searches, that is also untrue. They're there.

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  Alan Duke

Editor-in-Chief Alan Duke co-founded Lead Stories after ending a 26-year career with CNN, where he mainly covered entertainment, current affairs and politics. Duke closely covered domestic terrorism cases for CNN, including the Oklahoma City federal building bombing, the UNABOMBER and search for Southeast bomber Eric Robert Rudolph. CNN moved Duke to Los Angeles in 2009 to cover the entertainment beat. Duke also co-hosted a daily podcast with former HLN host Nancy Grace, "Crime Stories with Nancy Grace" and hosted the podcast series "Stan Lee's World: His Real Life Battle with Heroes & Villains." You'll also see Duke in many news documentaries, including on the Reelz channel, CNN and HLN.

Read more about or contact Alan Duke

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