WASHINGTON Former President Bill Clinton shocked his own aides ahead of Moroccan King Mohammed VI’s 2002 wedding by demanding to bring two unrelated plus-ones the now-notorious Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell to the royal nuptials, The Post has learned.

Clinton, who had earned goodwill in the North African nation by attending the funeral of the king’s father, Hassan II, while president three years prior, beamed with Epstein, Maxwell and his daughter, Chelsea, in a group photo shared exclusively with The Post for this story.

“[Clinton] brought them as guests to a king’s wedding. I mean, it almost sounds made up,” said one source familiar with the matter

The Post exclusively obtained a photo of former President Bill Clinton and his wedding guests in Morocco in 2002 — Ghislaine Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein.

Obtained by New York Post

The account is surfacing as Clinton downplays his ties to Epstein and as the Justice Department faces a congressionally mandated Friday deadline to release files on the financier’s crimes, which were not publicly known at the time of the Moroccan king’s wedding.

A second source said the 42nd president’s staff “insisted” and “pushed” to bring Maxwell, currently serving a 20-year prison sentence for sex-trafficking conspiracy and other offenses, and Epstein, who died in jail in August 2019 while awaiting his own trial on federal sex-trafficking charges.

Clinton joined Epstein and Maxwell aboard the financier’s “Lolita Express” private jet for a flight to Morocco. Chelsea Clinton, then a student at Oxford University, traveled independently.

A second source said that Hillary Clinton couldn’t attend the event because she was serving in the Senate at the time. However, Chelsea Clinton really wanted to go, and the president, Bill Clinton, also wanted to attend.

The source said the request to bring Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell as guests surprised many people. Still, Clinton’s office moved forward and made the request and it was approved.

As a result, the former president flew with Epstein and Maxwell on Epstein’s private jet, often called the “Lolita Express,” to Morocco. Chelsea Clinton, who was studying at Oxford University at the time, traveled separately.

The source questioned the decision, saying, “What kind of person brings extra guests to a wedding?” They added that in their own family, no one brings a guest unless they’re married or engaged.

“[Clinton] brought them as guests to a king’s wedding. I mean, it almost sounds made up,” one source said of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell. The sick duo is seen above with the then-president at the White House in 1993.
The William J. Clinton President

At one point, Chelsea Clinton insisted that the party take a photo together, the second source said with Abdeslam Jaidi, Morocco’s former ambassador to the United Nations, and an unidentified man crowding in for the snap, a grainy version of which was shared with The Post.

“It was important to her to take a picture with her father,” this insider explained.

“Everyone sat for the ceremony part and then moved to a dinner portion,” the source went on. “Clinton and Epstein and Ghislaine sat with the king. It was like a formal, sit-down, black-tie, fancy, fancy wedding.”

Both sources said the ex-president is dishonestly downplaying his former links to Epstein and Maxwell and do not fully understand why he was so drawn to the pair.

Neither believes Clinton, who was impeached in December 1998 over his affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky, was aware that Epstein was trafficking and sexually abusing young women and girls, but both say that Clinton’s relationship with him reflects poorly on his judgment.

Congress passed legislation to force the DOJ to release the Epstein files by Friday.ZUMAPRESS.com

“A lot of people around the Clintons had pushed young women on him,” the second source said, though they were unaware of any instance of Epstein doing so.

“The guy seemed like a total swindler and BS artist. It wasn’t uncommon that Clinton and those people would be taken by him.”

‘Lore in Clintonworld for a long, long time’
The July 2002 festivities in the Moroccan capital, Rabat, followed a private ceremony that March binding the then-38-year-old monarch and computer scientist Lalla Salma Bennani, whom Mohammed VI later divorced.

According to public reports,1,500 people were invited to the ceremony, including royals and leaders from across Europe and the Arab world.

The second source said that they believed fewer people actually showed up, estimating a guest count closer to 250.

“The wedding ceremony wasn’t huge. The dinner wasn’t huge. Neither of them were big … it was a relatively private, you know, high-society, tightly attended event,” this person said.

Jeffrey Epstein died in prison awaiting trial in 2019.

The people familiar with the matter who spoke with The Post said they were astonished that it took so long for the bizarre situation to be reported, especially since information about Clinton’s many flights with Epstein has long been in the public domain.

The exact reason for Clinton’s inviting Epstein and Maxwell to the exclusive event remains unclear, but The Post’s sources believe there was more at play than the prospect of a free trans-Atlantic flight on Epstein’s jet.

“The king of Morocco would have sent seven 747s to get him to that wedding,” the second source said.

“These are people that he just all of a sudden, out of thin air, takes to a wedding in Morocco. I mean, it was totally crazy … it was lore in Clintonworld for a long, long time.”

Clinton’s office has said he cut ties with Epstein in 2005, three years before the pervert pleaded guilty to child sex crimes in Florida.

Other former Epstein associates, including President Trump, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and former Treasury Secretary and Harvard University president Larry Summers, have downplayed or expressed regret over their ties to him.

Maxwell is currently in prison.

A spokesperson for Bill Clinton, Angel Ureña, did not deny that Clinton invited Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell to a Moroccan wedding. He told The Post, “We’ve said many times there was travel more than 20 years ago before Clinton cut ties with Epstein. Apparently, we have to say it again.”

After Epstein’s federal arrest in July 2019, Ureña also said Clinton “knew nothing about the terrible crimes Epstein pleaded guilty to in Florida or the charges he later faced in New York.”

He explained that in 2002 and 2003, Clinton took four trips on Epstein’s plane one to Europe, one to Asia, and two to Africa. Some stops were linked to the work of the Clinton Foundation.

Ureña added that Clinton had one meeting with Epstein at his Harlem office in 2002 and made one brief visit to Epstein’s New York apartment with staff and security present. He said Clinton had not spoken to Epstein in over a decade and had never visited Little St. James Island, his ranch in New Mexico, or his residence in Florida.

Jeffrey Epstein appears in a photograph taken for the New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services’ sex offender registry March 28, 2017.

The Moroccan Embassy in Washington and a rep for Chelsea Clinton did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The first source for this story said that Clinton aides have buzzed about a “very prosaic” purported reason for why the ex-president finally broke off contact with Epstein.