Epstein files: Maxwell courts a pardon

Donald Trump and Ghislaine Maxwell — Trump will be disappointed if he thinks Maxwell's testimony will make the Epstein issue disappear

(Image credit: Getty Images)

Ghislaine Maxwell wants to make it clear that the man who could pardon her never did anything wrong, said Dan Friedman in Mother Jones. That's the big takeaway from the newly released transcripts of the Jeffrey Epstein associate's prison interviews with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche. Now serving a 20-year sentence for sex trafficking minors, Maxwell, 63, told Blanche in July that she never saw President Trump "in any inappropriate setting" during his 15-year friendship with the pedophile Epstein—and indeed never saw "any man" act improperly. She called Trump "a gentleman in all respects," adding that she admires his "extraordinary achievement" in becoming president. Blanche, Trump's former personal lawyer, was "unusually deferential" to Maxwell, said Chris Cameron in The New York Times. He didn't follow up on or challenge the convicted perjurer's statements—even when Maxwell denied recruiting underage girls for sex or claimed that Epstein enjoyed the company of young girls merely because "they were up to date on music."

This interview was intended to calm the "wrath" of the president's conspiracy-inclined supporters, said Margaret Sullivan in The Guardian. After the Trump administration refused to honor a campaign pledge to release all the investigative files on Epstein, including a fabled list of the financier's pedophile clients, some MAGA devotees were starting to suspect a cover-up. Enter Maxwell. She hasn't yet received a pardon for her glowing testimony, but a few days after her interview she was transferred from a low-security Florida prison to a minimum-security one in Texas "known for its arts and crafts programs." That move was a "slap in the face" to Epstein's hundreds of victims, who remain "shamefully low" on everyone's list of priorities. The administration, said the relatives of late Epstein accuser Virginia Giuffre, has given Maxwell a "platform to rewrite history."

Still, Trump will be disappointed if he thinks Maxwell's testimony will make the Epstein issue disappear, said Ankush Khardori in Politico. Top House Republican James Comer (R-Ky.) this week subpoenaed Epstein's estate for the book Maxwell created for the financier for his 50th birthday, which reportedly contains a suggestive note from Trump, along with any record of Epstein clients potentially involved in "sex, sex acts, or sex trafficking." Comer's committee is starting to receive subpoenaed Epstein files from the Justice Department. And Giuffre's memoir, written before her April suicide, hits shelves in October. With "roughly half the country" now suspecting Trump of involvement in Epstein's crimes, it will only become harder for the administration to "tamp things down."