Amid claims by his party of his possible arrest by the Enforcement Directorate today, Delhi Chief Minister and AAP Chief Arvind Kejriwal has alleged that summons were issued to him so that he cannot campaign for the Lok Sabha elections. He said no corruption had taken place in the Delhi liquor policy case and reiterated his party’s claims that the BJP is trying to arrest him. 

“You must have heard about the liquor policy scam several times in the past two years. In these two years, all of the BJP’s agencies have carried out several raids and arrested several people, but they haven’t been able to find corruption amounting to even a single paisa. If there has actually been corruption, where have all the crores gone? Has all the money vanished into thin air,” the Chief Minister asked in Hindi. 

Mr Kejriwal claimed that no corruption had taken place at all, and pointed out that money would have been found if that hadn’t been the case. 

Hitting out at the BJP, the AAP chief, who has skipped three summons issued by the Enforcement Directorate, said, “They have jailed several AAP leaders in this fictitious case. There is no evidence against anyone and nothing is being proven… They are just putting anyone in jail. Now the BJP wants to arrest me. My biggest asset is my honesty and they are trying to tarnish my reputation by levelling false allegations and issuing baseless summons.”

“My lawyers have told me that the summons are illegal, and I have laid out the reasons for this in detail in letters to the Enforcement Directorate. But they have not responded to a single reason, indicating that they don’t have any answers… The BJP’s intent is not investigation, they want to make sure that I cannot campaign for the Lok Sabha elections. The investigation has been going on for two years but they have summoned me right before the elections. Why didn’t they summon me before,” he asked.

Pointing out that he had appeared before the CBI when the agency had summoned him eight months ago, Mr Kejriwal said the notice by the Enforcement Directorate two months before the elections indicates that the BJP wants to get him arrested in the guise of questioning.

‘Trying To Break Up Parties’

Repeating an allegation made several times by his party and its allies in the INDIA bloc, the AAP chief said the ruling party is not going after the corrupt but simply trying to break up parties using central agencies so that it can get their leaders to join the BJP. 

“There have been several instances of leaders of opposition parties facing cases by Central agencies or serious allegations which are then closed or put in cold storage when they join the BJP… Manish Sisodia, Sanjay Singh and Vijay Nair are not in jail because they indulged in corruption, but because they refused to join the BJP,” he said. 

“The country can’t progress if they put honest leaders in jail and induct the corrupt into their party… This is wrong for our democracy. We need to stop this,” he added.

In a significant legal development, hundreds of sealed court filings linked to the notorious late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein are slated to be revealed this week. US District Judge Loretta Preska, who made a ruling earlier this month, claimed that there was no legal basis for maintaining confidentiality regarding the names of individuals, including prominent figures such as Britain’s Prince Andrew and former President Bill Clinton. The unsealing process, ordered to begin after January 1, is expected to provide insight into the connections between Epstein and these prominent figures. 

This comes several years after Virginia Giuffre, a victim, filed a case against British socialite, Ghislaine Maxwell, accusing her of being involved in the alleged sex trafficking activities of Jeffrey Epstein. Giuffre accused Maxwell of defaming her by publicly denying Giuffre’s claims of sexual trafficking and abuse that she suffered as a minor during 1999-2002. Despite facing legal scrutiny for these accusations, Epstein’s prosecution abruptly came to a halt when he took his own life by hanging in a New York prison in August 2019.

Bill Clinton’s Connection To Jeffrey Epstein

Bill Clinton, referred to as “Doe 36” in court documents, is mentioned 50 times in sealed records. Although Virginia Giuffre didn’t accuse Clinton, she claimed to have seen him with two young women on Epstein’s island, which he denies ever visiting. Despite Clinton’s denial, flight records show he used Epstein’s plane for international trips after his presidency, going to places like Paris, Bangkok, and Brunei. 

According to the records, another victim, Johanna Sjoberg testified that Epstein once told her that Bill Clinton “likes them young,” referring to girls. Bill Clinton also had an affair with a 22-year-old White House intern during his time as the U.S. president.

Stephen Hawking’s Connection To Jeffrey Epstein

In 2015, shortly after Virginia Giuffre filed a civil claim in the U.S., an email from Jeffrey Epstein to the disgraced British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell revealed that Epstein had asked her to “issue a reward” to any of Giuffre’s friends as a means to counter her claims of Professor Stephen Hawking participating in an underage orgy. 

“You can issue a reward to any of Virginia’s friends, acquaints, family that come forward and help prove her allegations are false. The strongest is the Clinton dinner, and the new version in the Virgin Islands that Stephen Hawking participated in an underage orgy,” the email read, as per Irish News.

Prince Andrew’s Connection To Jeffrey Epstein

Virginia Giuffre mentioned a disturbing incident in March 2001 when she claimed to be trafficked to Prince Andrew, describing it as a “wicked” and “really scary time.” She claimed that after a nightclub visit, Ghislaine Maxwell instructed her to “do for Andrew what I do for Jeffrey.” Prince Andrew said he never met Virginia Giuffre and denied her claims. 

The files also mention Johanna Sjoberg,  who has claimed that Prince Andrew groped her breast while they were seated on a couch inside Jeffrey Epstein’s Manhattan apartment in 2001. In one reported deposition, Sjoberg claimed Prince Andrew placed his hand on her breast for a photo, reports BBC.

Larry Page’s Connection To Jeffrey Epstein

The US Virgin Islands government attempted to serve a subpoena on Google co-founder Larry Page to obtain documents for its civil lawsuit against JPMorgan Chase. The lawsuit is connected to allegations of sex trafficking by the bank’s longtime customer, Jeffrey Epstein. “Larry Page —the co-founder and co-owner of Alphabet Inc. (Google LLC’s parent company)—is a high-net-worth individual who Epstein may have referred or attempted to refer to JPMorgan” as a customer, lawyers said in their court filing.

Glenn Dubin’s Connection To Jeffrey Epstein

In her lawsuit, Virginia Giuffre stated that Ghislaine Maxwell had asked her to give Billionaire hedge fund manager Glenn Dubin a “massage”.  She said, “And when they say massage, that means erotic, okay? That’s their term for it. I think there are plenty of other witnesses who can attest to what massage actually means. And I’m telling you that Ghislaine told me to go to Glenn Dubin and give him a massage, which means sex,” as per court documents, released by Forbes.

In addition to the mentioned figures, other personalities such as Nobel laureate Lawrence Krauss, Michael Jackson, magician David Copperfield, comedian Chris Tucker, actor Kevin Spacey, Victoria’s Secret magnate Les Wexner and model Naomi Campbell were reported to have visited Jeffrey Epstein’s island.

In court documents from a civil suit unsealed in 2019, Virginia Giuffre named several individuals whom she claims Epstein and Maxwell instructed her to have sex with, including attorney Alan Dershowitz, politician Bill Richardson, the late MIT scientist Marvin Minsky, lawyer George J. Mitchell, and MC2 modelling agent Jean-Luc Brunel.  Many of the accused have denied Giuffre’s allegations.

Ahead of the release of Sriram Raghavan’s much-awaited Merry Christmas, the film’s team got together for a press conference.