The Justice Division on Friday launched transcripts of Deputy Legal professional Basic 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 recordsdata within the Epstein case to the Home Oversight Committee, which mentioned it could publish, after youngster sexual abuse materials and any info figuring out victims is redacted.
The Justice Division additionally launched audio recordings of the Blanche-Maxwell dialog.
On the outset, Blanche informed 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 decide 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 at present, 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 a few of the allegations made in opposition to her and Epstein, who died in federal custody in 2019 whereas awaiting trial on intercourse trafficking prices. Maxwell is serving a 20-year jail sentence on prices that she helped Epstein recruit and abuse underage victims.
In some circumstances, the names of accusers look 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 type to me,” including that “I love his extraordinary achievement in turning into the President now.” She additionally mentioned Mr. Trump and Epstein “appeared pleasant,” however she “solely ever noticed them in social settings,” not personal settings.
She mentioned she “by no means witnessed the President in any inappropriate setting in any means.”
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.
She additionally addressed her relationship with former President Invoice Clinton, whom she claimed was “my buddy, not Epstein’s buddy.” She didn’t seem to accuse Clinton or Mr. Trump of inappropriate conduct.
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 informed the deputy lawyer common that it’s a “misnomer” that she was with Epstein persistently as a accomplice, 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 ladies Epstein was with, Maxwell mentioned, including that by 1999, their relationship had “foundered.”
Maxwell informed 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 12 months to work for Epstein, beginning in 1992, and by the tip of the funds in 2009, she was being paid $250,000 per 12 months. Between 2010 and Epstein’s 2019 dying, Maxwell mentioned her relationship with him was “nearly nonexistent,” although she acknowledges they exchanged occasional telephone calls and emails.
Maxwell addresses Epstein’s case — and dying
Maxwell informed Blanche there may be “no checklist,” referring to the conspiracy concept that Epstein maintained a black ebook of purchasers who engaged in sexual exercise with minors on his properties.
She speculated that she doesn’t imagine that Epstein died by suicide in jail, saying that “it is attainable,” however that it’s attainable he was killed by one other inmate.
“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 info Epstein had.
“I additionally suppose it is ludicrous, as a result of if that — I additionally occur to suppose if that’s what they needed, they’d’ve had loads of alternative when he wasn’t in jail. And in the event that they have been apprehensive about blackmail or something from him, he would’ve been a very simple goal,” Maxwell mentioned.
Maxwell’s lawyer David Oscar Markus thanked the Trump administration for releasing the transcripts in a press release 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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