The Justice Division on Friday launched transcripts of Deputy Legal professional Common Todd Blanche’s two-day interview with convicted intercourse trafficker and Jeffrey Epstein affiliate Ghislaine Maxwell.
The transcripts — which run for over 300 pages — got here after Blanche traveled to Florida final month to satisfy with Maxwell, following pushback over the Trump administration’s dealing with of the Epstein case’s fallout. The discharge of the transcripts got here because the Justice Division additionally turned over 1000’s of pages of information within the Epstein case to the Home Oversight Committee, which mentioned it might publish, after little one sexual abuse materials and any data figuring out victims is redacted.
The Justice Division additionally launched audio recordings of the Blanche-Maxwell dialog.
On the outset, Blanche advised Maxwell the interview was not a part of a “cooperation deal.” He mentioned that she had immunity throughout their conversations, that means the federal government would not use something she mentioned in opposition to her, however he made no guarantees to ask the choose in Maxwell’s case for leniency. He did say that the federal government might prosecute her if she made false statements throughout the interview.
“By you assembly with us right this moment, we’re actually simply assembly, I am not promising to do something,” he mentioned.
What do the Maxwell-Blanche transcripts say?
All through the interviews, Blanche requested Maxwell about her relationship with Epstein and others within the late financier’s orbit. He additionally requested about among the allegations made in opposition to her and Epstein, who died in federal custody in 2019 whereas awaiting trial on intercourse trafficking expenses. Maxwell is serving a 20-year jail sentence on expenses that she helped Epstein recruit and abuse underage victims.
In some circumstances, the names of accusers seem like redacted.
Maxwell mentioned she might have first met President Trump in 1990. She mentioned her father, British publishing magnate Robert Maxwell, was “pleasant with him and appreciated him very a lot,” and he was keen on Mr. Trump’s ex-wive Ivana Trump.
Later within the interview, Blanche requested about Maxwell and Epstein’s relationships with well-known folks, together with Mr. Trump. She mentioned Mr. Trump “was at all times very cordial and really sort to me,” including that “I love his extraordinary achievement in changing into the President now.” She additionally mentioned Mr. Trump and Epstein “appeared pleasant,” however she “solely ever noticed them in social settings,” not non-public settings.
She mentioned she “by no means witnessed the President in any inappropriate setting in any manner.”
She additionally claimed she “cannot ever recollect” recruiting any individual from Mr. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago membership to provide Epstein a therapeutic massage. Late Epstein accuser Virginia Giuffre had alleged that Maxwell recruited her whereas she labored at Mar-a-Lago within the early 2000s. Mr. Trump advised reporters final month he lower off ties with Epstein after he “stole” workers from Mar-a-Lago, together with Giuffre.
She additionally spoke about former President Invoice Clinton, whom she claimed was “my pal, not Epstein’s pal.” She famous that she attended Chelsea Clinton’s marriage ceremony along with her then-boyfriend, Ted Waitte. She mentioned she didn’t imagine Clinton ever acquired a therapeutic massage whereas the previous president was with Epstein. And she or he advised Blanche that Clinton flew on Epstein’s non-public aircraft, however didn’t go to Epstein’s non-public island.
Maxwell didn’t seem to accuse Clinton or Mr. Trump of inappropriate conduct.
Maxwell additionally seems to handle Prince Andrew’s relationship with Epstein and an individual whose identify is redacted. From context, that individual seems to be Giuffre, who alleged that Andrew sexually assaulted her as a minor after she traveled to London with Epstein. Andrew had denied the allegations, however settled a lawsuit introduced by Giuffre out of court docket.
When requested about Andrew’s relationship with the accuser, she responds, “what’s a fair greater phrase than bullshit?” She claimed a well-known photograph displaying Andrew together with his arm round Giuffre as Maxwell smiles within the background was “faux.” She mentioned “categorically” that she “by no means, at any time, set Andrew as much as have relations along with her or every other human being ever.”
Blanche requested her briefly about a number of different folks whom she claimed to know, together with Invoice Gates, Elon Musk, Alan Dershowitz and now-Well being and Human Providers Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., with whom she mentioned she went “dinosaur bone looking.”
Maxwell describes her relationship with Epstein
In 1991, Maxwell mentioned she struck up a friendship with Epstein. Maxwell was requested by Blanche intimately about her sexual relationship with Epstein, which she says began in 1992. She advised the deputy legal professional normal that it’s a “misnomer” that she was with Epstein constantly as a associate, and that she didn’t know he had different girlfriends till the Epstein flight logs have been launched.
“Contemporaneously, I completely didn’t know,” about different girls Epstein was with, Maxwell mentioned, including that by 1999, their relationship had “foundered.”
Maxwell advised Blanche that regardless of their bodily relationship ending, she was nonetheless being paid by the disgraced financier, and that the 2 often shared a mattress collectively as “pals with advantages, if you’ll, simply not intercourse.”
Maxwell mentioned at first she was paid $25,000 a yr to work for Epstein, beginning in 1992, and by the tip of the funds in 2009, she was being paid $250,000 per yr. Between 2010 and Epstein’s 2019 dying, Maxwell mentioned her relationship with him was “virtually nonexistent,” although she acknowledges they exchanged occasional telephone calls and emails.
She acknowledged to Blanche that she helped Epstein discover folks to provide him massages at house — however she mentioned she met them in “authentic spas” and didn’t imagine any of the folks she discovered have been below the age of 18. She additionally claimed it “by no means would cross my thoughts” that these folks have been requested to carry out sexual favors for Epstein.
At different factors, Blanche requested Maxwell about Epstein’s profession on Wall Road — a persistent focus of hypothesis. She famous former Victoria’s Secret CEO Lex Wexner was “one very well-known” monetary shopper of Epstein’s, and mentioned former JPMorgan Chase banker Jes Staley was “enterprise companions” with Epstein. However she mentioned she was “not a part of Epstein’s enterprise world, besides tangentially.”
Maxwell addresses Epstein’s case — and dying
Maxwell advised Blanche there may be “no checklist,” referring to the conspiracy idea that Epstein maintained a black ebook of shoppers who engaged in sexual exercise with minors on his properties.
She speculated that she doesn’t imagine that Epstein died by suicide in jail, however she additionally would not suppose anyone on the surface brought about him to be killed. She famous that, within the jail the place she served on the time, “any individual pays a prisoner to kill you for $25 value of commissary” (she was moved to a lower-security facility following the interview).
“Whether it is certainly homicide, I imagine it was an inside scenario,” Maxwell mentioned, including that she does “not have any cause to imagine that” he was killed to cowl up data Epstein had.
“I additionally suppose it is ludicrous, as a result of if that — I additionally occur to suppose if that’s what they wished, they’d’ve had loads of alternative when he wasn’t in jail. And in the event that they have been anxious about blackmail or something from him, he would’ve been a very simple goal,” Maxwell mentioned.
Maxwell mentioned legislation enforcement didn’t contact her throughout an preliminary investigation into Epstein in Florida within the 2000s, and she or he did not focus on the case with Epstein. That probe controversially ended with federal authorities in Miami agreeing to not prosecute him, in change for Epstein pleading responsible to prostitution in state court docket. That deal is now key to Maxwell’s efforts to enchantment her prison conviction, as she claims she’s lined by a clause within the non-prosecution settlement that covers “any potential co-conspirators.”
Maxwell’s legal professional David Oscar Markus thanked the Trump administration for releasing the transcripts in an announcement posted to X. He additionally insisted that Maxwell is harmless.
“Ms. Maxwell answered each query. She didn’t refuse to reply and didn’t dodge any query. She supported her solutions with paperwork and different goal proof. Her demeanor and credibility are clear for anybody to listen to,” Markus wrote.
Learn the Ghislaine Maxwell interview transcripts
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