Douglas Band and Lily Rafii.Photo: Patrick McMullan
On Wednesday we noted that Clinton’s aide Douglas Band had a no-good, very bad day. He was deemed responsible for hooking the Clintons up with shady real-estate developer (and Anne Hathaway boyfriend) Raffaello Follieri in a Page One Wall Street Journal story (which also made mention of the possibly embarrassing-for-Band fact that one of his duties for Clinton was carrying the President’s mobile phone) and busted on Page Six for sending a snippy note to Osso Buco asking the restaurant to take down a photo of the owner and Chelsea, though as it turns out it is the owner’s constitutional right to put up said photo, even if Chelsea does not look that cute in it. But we really didn’t know who this Douglas Band was. So we did some digging around, and it turns out he’s a little more intersting than your average wonk.
• He is 34.
• He started out as a White House intern. Then he became Clinton’s personal aide. Now he serves as his “counselor.” He is the ringleader of a group of Clinton top aides who reportedly refer to themselves as the White Boys.
• In addition to having introduced the Clintons to Follieri, he also brokered an introduction between Clinton and international moneyman of mystery and admirer of the underage Jeffrey Epstein.
• Band is married to handbag designer Lily Rafii, described on On the Inside as such: “A midtown girl and Columbia graduate who treasures her Central Park proximity, Rafii is as colorful a character as the bright hues you find in her product lines. A noted culture buff, this Ivy Leaguer soaks up the city’s museums and art shows at every spare moment and considers it one of the finest perks of her glamorous Manhattan lifestyle. ‘My hobbies definitely include visiting the latest exhibits and touring galleries,’ she says.”
• Doug and Lily were married in Paris in August, at the Chateau of Vaux le Vicomte, the self-same seventeenth-century castle where Eva Longoria and Tony Parker got hitched.
• Doug’s bachelor party sounds like every bride-to-be’s worst nightmare. Guests included intern-sexer Bill Clinton, modelizer Ron Burkle, and actress-impregnator Steven Bing. Gee, why wasn’t Jeff Epstein there? Oh. Hm. Guess he was busy.
