Ghislaine Maxwell understood the assignment.
In her recent interview with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, the convicted sex trafficker and former Jeffrey Epstein accomplice made sure to flatter Donald Trump as much as possible, while saying nothing that might make the president look bad, as she publicly seeks a pardon.
“As far as I’m concerned, President Trump was always very cordial and very kind to me,” Maxwell told Blanche, who was previously Trump’s personal attorney. “And I just want to say that I admire his extraordinary achievement in becoming the president now. And I like him, and I’ve always liked him.” She added, “That is the sum and substance of my entire relationship with him.”
The Justice Department on Friday released redacted transcripts of Blanche’s interview with Maxwell, who is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence. The release of the interview comes after weeks of public criticism over the Trump administration’s handling of evidence related to Epstein, a convicted sex offender who allegedly committed suicide in prison during Trump’s first term.
The president, who was friends for years with Epstein, famously said in 2002: “I’ve known Jeff for 15 years. Terrific guy. He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side. No doubt about it — Jeffrey enjoys his social life.”
Despite promising on the campaign trail he would release the so-called “Epstein files” as president — a longtime demand of the MAGA right — Trump and his administration have since tried to close the book on the subject. Trump on Friday called “the whole Epstein thing a Democrat hoax.”
Maxwell was granted immunity to answer the Justice Department’s questions, which included several about Trump’s relationship with Epstein.
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“Did you ever observe President Trump receive a massage?” asked Blanche. Maxwell responded, “Never.”
Blanche posed a similar question: “Did you ever hear Mr. Epstein or anybody say that President Trump had done anything inappropriate with masseuses or with anybody in your world?”
“Absolutely never, in any context,” Maxwell replied, in another moment she added that she believed she had only ever seen the men “in social settings,” and didn’t “recall any private settings.”
Blanche also asked Maxwell about the salacious birthday note that Trump reportedly wrote to Epstein, in which he called Epstein “a pal,” and wrote: “We have certain things in common, Jeffrey.”
Trump and his team furiously tried to kill the story before it was published by The Wall Street Journal, and Trump promptly sued the conservative newspaper, claiming the birthday note was “fake and nonexistent.”
Asked if she remembered Trump submitting a letter or card for Epstein’s 50th birthday, Maxwell said, “I do not remember.” She said she didn’t recall asking Trump to submit such a card, but added that “Epstein also asked people himself directly.”
Maxwell was separately asked about claims — including those made by Trump himself — that Epstein had poached young women from the staff of his Mar-a-Lago resort spa.
Maxwell, who was often involved in recruiting and grooming the girls and young women that Epstein would go on to abuse, said she “never recruited a masseuse from Mar-a-Lago for that, as far as I remember.”
While Blanche was clear in the interview that their conversation was not tied to any sort of leniency agreement, and would not — at least for now — result in any action regarding her conviction, Trump has not fully discarded the possibility of a pardon.
“Well, I’m allowed to give her a pardon,” the president said in July. “But nobody’s approached me with it. Nobody’s asked me about it. It’s in the news, about that, that aspect of it.”
From Rolling Stone US
