The 2016 campaign is getting into full swing and there are two things that are certain. The first is that Hillary Clinton is trying to clear the decks for a coronation. In 2008, Clinton proved she had a glass jaw. Her strategy for 2016 seems to be to try to take a page out of the Planned Parenthood playbook and kill her opponents in utero rather than face them in the primaries. My colleague Moe Lane observed that the rather lame and recycled hit piece circulated on Jim Webb only benefited Clinton (full disclosure, I think some of the rather graphic pedophilia scenes in his novels require explanation but I felt the same way when he was running against a self-immolating George Allen.)

But it seems that two… or more… can play that game.

The central figure in this story is a billionaire, Democrat named Jeffrey Epstein:

While it might be unfair to call Mr. Epstein a pedophile, though many have, he was accused of recruiting underage girls to perform sex acts on him, and it seems, on various friends of his while he surreptitiously videoed the encounters. And he did serve a short prison term. Short because prosecutors shied away from prosecuting the politically powerful man. A woman, at the time anonymous, filed a $50 million lawsuit against Epstein in 2008 alleging that she and others had been used as “sex slaves.”

Why is this important?

Flight logs pinpoint Clinton’s trips on Epstein’s jet between the years 2002 and 2005, while he was working on his philanthropic post-presidential career and while his wife Hillary was a Senator for their adopted state of New York.

‘I remember asking Jeffrey what’s Bill Clinton doing here kind fo thing, and he laughed it off and said well he owes me a favor,’ one unidentified woman said in the lawsuit, which was filed in Palm Beach Circuit Court.

The woman went on to say how orgies were a regular occurrence and she recalled two young girls from New York who were always seen around the five-house compound but their personal backstories were never revealed.

….

Clinton’s connection to Epstein, who worked as a financier and education philanthropist before more than 40 women came forward with claims about him being a sexual predator, has been long-established, but The Enquirer also tells how the former president was also friends with some of Epstein’s seedy acquaintances.

The lawsuit claims that Clinton was friends with an unnamed woman who ‘kept images of naked underage children on her computer, helped to recruit underage children for Epstein… and photographed underage females in sexually explicit poses’.

While he cut off ties with Epstein, this woman’s abuses apparently did not end their relationship as she was reportedly one of the 400 guests at Chelsea Clinton’s 2010 wedding.

Oh, yes, and this:

Though the lawsuit may be bringing up sexual skeleton’s from Clinton’s past, he has added to the drama of late by posing for a photo with two known prostitutes at a fundraiser in Los Angeles last month.

The central focus of this ongoing drama is Great Britain’s Prince Andrew who is alleged to have rogered the no longer anonymous complainant in the lawsuit.

Miss Roberts makes the extraordinary claim that she was paid about $15,000 (just under £10,000) by the 58-year-old Epstein as a reward for sleeping with the Prince and other sexual services for Epstein.

There is no suggestion that the Prince knew that Epstein paid her.

‘I was totally under Jeffrey’s spell. I was his personal sex slave. Ghislaine joked about how young I was when they introduced me to Andrew.’

Despite the Palace’s vehement denials of impropriety, Miss Roberts says: ‘It was made clear to me that my job was to do whatever pleased him’ – adding that she ‘wouldn’t have dared object’ to any demand.

‘The Prince didn’t give me money with his own hands,’ she added. ‘Jeffrey always took care of paying me after I “entertained” his friends.’’

Andrew was at the time a special trade envoy, but after Epstein was prosecuted he resigned. He subsequently broke off his friendship with the financier and has been working to rebuild his reputation with his charitable trust. His focus is on trying to grow British prosperity, including training young people to become ‘economically active’ through schemes such as apprentices and a digital enterprise award.

The celebrity focus of the lawsuit ensures that it won’t go away. And neither will Bill Clinton’s connection. Does anyone believe that if a friend of Bill Clinton was shopping underage poontang that Clinton didn’t end up on video tape somewhere sampling the wares? Video tape that may be made public at some very inconvenient time.

I’ve long been convinced that while Hillary Clinton would love to be president she lacks the heart and the guts for a campaign against an opponent who isn’t afraid to punch a 70-year old hag in the face. That was her problem in 2008. That will be her problem again this year.