Skepticism abounds following the release of transcripts and recordings of Ghislaine Maxwell’s testimony to Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche regarding the Jeffrey Epstein case.
Four years after her conviction and sentencing on charges of conspiracy to commit sex trafficking and other crimes, how credible is her testimony?
Ranking House Oversight Committee Democrat Rep. Robert Garcia was especially damning in the hours after the interview transcripts were released Friday, writing on X: “Ghislaine Maxwell is a convicted sex trafficker and known liar. Her interview with Trump’s DOJ lawyer shows she’s desperate for a pardon.
“She claims no involvement in wrongdoing, which is insulting to the girls and young women she victimized and trafficked. She cannot be trusted.”
Blanche interviewed Maxwell, a former girlfriend and accomplice of Epstein’s, last month over two days in Tallahassee, Florida. The disgraced British socialite is currently serving a 20-year sentence for sex trafficking conspiracy and other crimes — helping Epstein recruit, groom, and abuse young girls.
The interviews came as the Trump administration attempted to quell backlash from Republicans and Democrats alike over its handling of the Epstein investigation.
President Donald Trump’s MAGA base was especially incensed at the announcement that the so-called Epstein files would not be released, no further charges would be filed, and that there was no “client list” of associates of the late sex offender, who died in prison while awaiting trial in August 2019.
Having propagated conspiracy theories regarding Epstein and promising the release of the case files, senior Trump administration officials saw new testimony from Maxwell as one way of tamping down the anger.
Democrats seized on the outrage and kept reminding the public that Trump and Epstein had been friends for some 15 years. Many suggested the reason the infamous files were not being released was because the president’s name was mentioned in them. Trump has not been accused of any wrongdoing.
On Friday evening, some hours after the release of the transcripts and recordings, CNN’s Abby Phillip noted on her show Newsnight that Maxwell “clearly understood the assignment here,” referring to her flattering portrayal of Trump and denial of any wrongdoing on his part.
Having been convicted of federal crimes, her only likely hope for getting out of prison early is either a pardon or a commutation from the president.
Maxwell told Blanche she never witnessed Trump doing anything “inappropriate.”
“I actually never saw the President in any type of massage setting,” Maxwell said, according to the transcripts. “I never witnessed the president in any inappropriate setting in any way. The president was never inappropriate with anybody. In the times that I was with him, he was a gentleman in all respects.”
About a week after the interview, the 63-year-old British socialite was moved to a minimum-security prison camp in Bryan, Texas.
CNN Senior Legal Analyst Elie Honig expressed skepticism about what she had to say in her interviews with Blanche. Speaking to Phil Mattingly, guest host of The Lead with Jake Tapper, Honig was asked Friday whether this was a credible interview.
“Oh my gosh, no, Phil … in this transcript, Ghislaine Maxwell provides a simply bizarre worldview wherein almost nobody did anything wrong. She doesn’t even actually implicate Jeffrey Epstein.”
“If one believes that worldview, fine,” the former federal prosecutor continued. “Then maybe Ghislaine Maxwell is credible. I certainly do not. I find it impossible to believe her account of things.”
As to the timing of the release by the Justice Department — mid-afternoon on a Friday in late August — Honig said: “It tells me they’re gonna do nothing next with respect to actually making criminal cases.”
He continued: “I said from the start, the fact that DOJ is even considering releasing this transcript, which they now have done, that in itself is a tell, because if you were planning to ever make new criminal cases based on Ghislaine Maxwell’s information, releasing her transcript like they’ve just done is the last thing you would ever do. It would tip off your potential targets. It would tip off your investigative methods.”
Honig added:” And beyond that, Phil, as I just said, I’m actually surprised to see she doesn’t even implicate anybody. I mean, even if a juror was to take everything in this transcript as true, there would be nobody else to charge or convict with anything. Yet another reason why I’m just not buying this.”
Mattingly raised the pertinent question of the hour: What does Maxwell gain from this?
“Is there a chance that Maxwell could get a reduced sentence because of this?” he asked.
“There’s a couple of chances,” Honig replied. “So first of all, she still has an appeal pending. She’s trying to get the U.S. Supreme Court to take her case. It’s unlikely, but it’s possible.”
He continued: “She also could receive what’s called a Rule 35 letter from the Justice Department. That’s when a prosecutor goes to her judge after sentencing, where we are now, and says, ‘I’d like you to reduce her sentence.’ That’s up to DOJ, whether they want to make that motion.”
Honig concluded: “But finally, she could get a pardon or commutation… She’s absolutely playing for that. She goes out of her way to praise Donald Trump.”
In addition to her flattering portrayal of Trump, Maxwell also denied the existence of the infamous Epstein client list.
That echoes what the Department of Justice said in early July, which sparked such a furore among the MAGA base. While Attorney General Pam Bondi had said early this year that she had it on her desk, she later clarified that she meant the files relating to the case, not a specific list itself.
On The Will Cain Show this afternoon on Fox News, correspondent Shannon Bream noted that this tracks with what former Epstein lawyer Alan Dershowitz told her some time before — there was no formal list, and you wouldn’t expect anyone involved in a criminal enterprise to keep one.
Later in the evening on Fox News, prime time host Jesse Watters seemed put out by the lack of a specific list but reminded viewers of the existence of a trove of other potential evidence: “The list doesn’t exist? So, flight manifests don’t exist? The surveillance tapes don’t exist? The bank records don’t exist?”
Attorney and legal scholar Jonathan Turley joined Watters to share his thoughts and noted the “sense of disappointment” in Washington when Maxwell said there was no client list.
“She was immediately denounced as a liar, and that there has to be a list and that she was protecting the president,” he said. “There is another possibility, and that is she didn’t have anything on the president, and perhaps there is not a list… is she gaming the system? Probably.”
He went on to say: “She clearly also does want something from Trump; she wants a commutation. That might not come until the end of the term. She is clearly angling for it.”
Trump has, notably, nothing negative to say about the case against a woman he knows, the accusations against her, or the jury’s verdict.
The president has not ruled out pardoning Maxwell.
Congressman Garcia also noted on All In With Chris Hayes on MSNBC that, in addition to Maxwell, he remains extremely skeptical about the Trump Justice Department. Today, his committee received the first batch of documents from the Epstein files — also on a Friday afternoon in August.
He posted on X after the interview: “We are in the process of reviewing 33,000 pages of Epstein documents. It appears that most of these files are already in the public domain. Bondi needs to release all the files immediately, and we must remember that Trump’s Department of Justice cannot be trusted.”
