Photos of Clintons' intimate dinner with Harvey Weinstein weeks after her election loss surface
The nature of the relationship between the Clintons and disgraced Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein has been a matter of speculation for long.
Though some media outlets highlighted the equation between them, especially after allegations of sexual assault against Weinstein was brought into the public domain throught a New York Article in October 2017, the said relationship was never probed and died a natural death.
However, Daily Mail has exclusively brought forth photos of former presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton having dinner with Weinstein, just weeks after her monumental loss in the presidential election that changed the course of American politics.
Five weeks after Trump was elected for the office of President of the United States, the Clintons were seen chowing down with the notorious film producer at Rao's in Harlem. Accompanying him were his wife Georgina Chapman and lawyer David Boies.
Last year, just two months after he was accused of sexually assaulting multiple women in a career-ending exposé, details of the said dinner were published in a New York Times article.
Reportedly, the Clintons were in talks with Weinstein to make a TV documentary about her 2016 loss. However, after allegations of sexual harassment against the producer came to the fore, the political family backed out completely, cutting off all ties with him.
The group is seen sitting at the well-known Italian restaurant chatting over wine and dinner, according to exclusive pictures obtained by Daily Mail.
Furthermore, dining at a separate table, rapper Fat Joe is seen in the background in one of the photos.
The famed rapper had shared a photo of him and the Clintons from that night on his Instagram, but Harvey and his wife could not be spotted in his post.
The dinner reportedly took place about ten months before Weinstein's glitzy Hollywood empire would crumble and collapse.
Having said that, the motion picture mogul has always been a major donor to the Clinton family. He financed the Clinton Foundation with $250,000 and supported Bill's legal fund with $10,000 when he was under fire during the Monica Lewinsky scandal and was facing impeachment.
However, both Bill and Hillary denied having any knowledge about Weinstein's heinous acts despite having a close friendship with him for decades.
Interestingly, Clinton's campaign had already been warned about the rumors that had popped up about the movie shark, according to the same New York Times article which mentioned the dinner.
Back in 2016, one of Hillary's biggest endorsers, actress Lena Dunham, emailed her campaign's deputy communications director.
The email stated: "I just want you to let you know that Harvey's a rapist and this is going to come out at some point. I think it's a really bad idea for him to host fund-raisers and be involved because it’s an open secret in Hollywood that he has a problem with sexual assault."
But Hillary waited six days to release a statement regarding the revelations that came forth.
"I was shocked and appalled by the revelations about Harvey Weinstein," she then said in a statement posted on Twitter.
"The behavior described by the women coming forward cannot be tolerated. Their courage and the support of others is critical in helping to stop this kind of behavior."
The last time the Clintons and Weinstein made headlines together was in a February interview with celebrated chef and host Anthony Bourdain. The interview, the last of the late travel writer, was published posthumously. Bourdain killed himself in a hotel room in France on June 8.
During the chat, Bourdain ripped into the erstwhile president, his wife, and imagined the hypothetical death of Weinstein.
Bourdain hated Weinstein's guts considerably, owing to the fact that his girlfriend Asia Argento is one of the faces of the #MeToo movement who publicly accused the producer of sexual assault.
“My theory of how he goes is… he’s brushing his teeth in a bathroom, he’s naked in his famous bathrobe, which is flapping open, he’s holding his cell phone in one hand because you never know who on the Weinstein board has betrayed him recently, and he’s brushing his teeth…” said Bourdain.
“He suddenly gets a massive f**king stroke — he stumbles backwards into the bathtub, where he finds himself um, with his robe open, feet sticking out of the tub, and in his last moments of consciousness as he scrolls through his contacts list trying to figure out who he can call, who will actually answer the phone. And he dies that way, knowing that no one will help him and that he is not looking his finest at time of death.”
The famed chef then moved on to Clinton, who suffered embarrassment on a national level when he was entangled in his own sex scandal.
“[Bill Clinton is] a piece of s**t. Entitled, rape-y, grope-y, grabby, disgusting,” he said. “And the way that he — and she [Hillary] — destroyed these women and the way that everyone went along, and, and are blind to this! Screamingly apparent hypocrisy and venality.”
“How you can on the one hand howl at the moon about all these other predators and not at least look back…” he continued.
“…OK, let’s say it was all consensual: powerful men, starstruck women, OK fine, let’s accept it at its most charitable interpretation. Fine. He is a very charming man, I met him, he’s f**king magnetic, as is she. When you’re in the room, you think ‘Wow, she’s really warm and nice and funny.’ But the way they efficiently dismantled, destroyed, and shamelessly discredited these women for speaking their truth is unforgivable.”