Trump’s Epstein Problem Is Great News for Ghislaine Maxwell
Ghislaine Maxwell, the convicted trafficker and accomplice of the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, is back in the public eye following weeks of backlash against the Trump administration over its handling of the so-called Epstein files. The 63-year-old former British socialite, who is currently serving a 20-year sentence in Florida, has emerged as a potential source of information on Epstein’s sex crimes — and also someone seeking to overturn her conviction. President Donald Trump has left the door open for pardoning her, even as her victims have said offering her any clemency deal would be a miscarriage of justice. So, what is going on? Here’s everything you need to know.
What did Ghislaine Maxwell do?
First, a quick refresher: Maxwell was Epstein’s ex-girlfriend and right-hand woman; she is also the only person currently behind bars for crimes associated with him. She was arrested and charged for her involvement in Epstein’s crimes in 2020, nearly a year after Epstein died by suicide in jail while awaiting his sex-trafficking trial. Maxwell has been accused of helping the disgraced financier recruit, groom, and sexually exploit and abuse girls — some as young as 14 — for years, starting in or around 1994. Prosecutors also said she lied under oath “in an effort to conceal her crimes.” Maxwell has denied the charges, but in 2021 a jury found her guilty on five of the six counts brought against her, including one count of sex-trafficking a minor, one count of sex-trafficking conspiracy, and three counts of conspiracy regarding transporting minors with intent of illegal sexual activity. She is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence.
Why is Maxwell back in the news?
Maxwell filed an appeal with the Supreme Court in April asking for her conviction to be overturned. Four months later, public attention on the Epstein files exploded. After Trump allies spent years hyping up conspiracy theories about the documents the government possesses related to Epstein’s sex-trafficking case, the Justice Department and the FBI said in a July 7 memo that there was no “client list” tying powerful figures to the late financier’s sex crimes and confirmed that Epstein had indeed died by suicide. The news unleashed a furious MAGA backlash against Trump. In an apparent attempt at damage control, the Justice Department decided to conduct a meeting with Maxwell.
“President Trump has told us to release all credible evidence. If Ghislaine Maxwell has information about anyone who has committed crimes against victims, the FBI and the DoJ will hear what she has to say,” Todd Blanche, Trump’s former personal attorney and current deputy attorney general, said in a statement posted on X by Attorney General Pam Bondi on July 22.
Last week, Blanche led the two-day interview with Maxwell at the U.S. attorney’s office in Tallahassee, Florida, where she reportedly answered questions about more than 100 people, though it’s not clear whether that included victims, perpetrators, or anyone else involved in sex-trafficking crimes. Blanche characterized the interviews as a neutral fact-finding effort, emphasizing that the DoJ is not reopening the investigation to consider other potential suspects. But the fact that the Justice Department is speaking with Maxwell in the first place has created concerns that Trump could pardon her or commute her sentence in exchange for her cooperation.
In a letter reportedly sent to Blanche Monday, Senators Dick Durbin and Sheldon Whitehouse called his meeting with Maxwell “highly unusual, if not unprecedented,” explaining that it should have been conducted by “line prosecutors who are familiar with the details of the case and can more readily determine if the witness is lying.” They went on: “In light of troves of corroborating evidence collected through multiple investigations, a federal jury conviction, and Ms. Maxwell’s history and willingness to lie under oath, as it relates to her dealings with Jeffrey Epstein, why would DoJ depart from long-standing precedent and now seek her cooperation?”
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer also questioned whether Blanche had offered Maxwell “some kind of a corrupt deal so that she can exonerate Donald Trump,” given the president’s decades-long friendship with Epstein.
Can Trump actually pardon Maxwell’s crimes?
Yes, since she was found guilty of federal charges. So far, Trump hasn’t ruled out the possibility of issuing her a pardon — even though he has positioned himself as a tough-on-crime president and made combatting sex trafficking a priority for his administration. (His policy record over the past six months shows otherwise, with experts saying his administration has actually decimated services for trafficking survivors.)
On July 25, when asked about the issue, Trump said, “I’m allowed to do it, but it’s something I haven’t thought about.” On Monday, Trump repeated this sentiment, telling reporters, “Well, I’m allowed to give her a pardon, but I — nobody’s approached me with it.”
Could Maxwell be granted immunity?
Amid the Epstein files controversy, the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform announced on July 23 that it had issued a subpoena to depose Maxwell on August 11. “In particular, the Committee seeks your testimony to inform the consideration of potential legislative solutions to improve federal efforts to combat sex trafficking and reform the use of non-prosecution agreements and/or plea agreements in sex-crime investigations,” Republican Representative James Comer, the committee’s chairman, wrote in the subpoena letter to Maxwell.
Her attorneys responded to the subpoena on Tuesday, writing that Maxwell is willing to testify before lawmakers “if a fair and safe path forward can be established.” Some of the conditions her attorneys are proposing in exchange for Maxwell’s testimony are granting her formal immunity, having access to the committee’s questions in advance, deposing her somewhere that is not the correctional facility where’s she’s currently serving her sentence, and scheduling her testimony “only after the resolution of her Supreme Court petition and her forthcoming habeas petition.”
These conditions would protect Maxwell’s rights, the attorneys argued, because “any testimony she provides now could … prejudice her legal claims, and potentially taint a future jury pool.” An Oversight Committee spokeswoman told CNN that lawmakers “will not consider granting congressional immunity for her testimony” and will respond to her other proposed conditions soon.
What about Maxwell’s Supreme Court appeal?
In April, Maxwell asked the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn her sex-trafficking conviction, arguing that she should not have faced charges in the first place because of the 2007 non-prosecution agreement between Epstein and federal prosecutors in Florida. In their petition, her legal team wrote that the U.S. had violated a part of the agreement “promising in plain language that the United States would not prosecute any co-conspirator of Jeffrey Epstein.”
On July 15, the Justice Department filed a brief in response, urging the Court not to toss her criminal conviction. The DoJ says that Maxwell doesn’t have the standing to enforce the 2007 deal, which they argue is nonbinding in New York, where she and Epstein faced charges.
The Court is expected to decide whether to take up the appeal by late September.
What are Epstein and Maxwell’s accusers saying about this?
The few accusers whose identities are known publicly and their families have expressed distress and rage at the possibility that Maxwell could walk free. Annie Farmer, one of Epstein and Maxwell’s victims who testified in the latter’s 2021 trial, told the Daily Mail that if Trump issued a pardon “it would be devastating. It would feel like a slap in the face.” She also said any clemency deal could come across as “an admission of guilt” from Trump.
The family of Virginia Giuffre — Epstein and Maxwell’s most prominent accuser, who died by suicide in April — said in a statement to The Atlantic that Trump should not show any lenience toward the convicted trafficker. “Ghislaine Maxwell is a monster who deserves to rot in prison for the rest of her life for the extraordinary violence and abuse she put not just our sister Virginia through, but many other survivors, who may number in the thousands,” Giuffre’s brothers and sister-in-law added.
The family also questioned whether Trump knew of Maxwell and Epstein’s crimes more than two decades ago after the president told reporters Monday that the late financier “stole” Giuffre from Mar-a-Lago in 2000 when she was 16 and working as a locker-room assistant.
“It was shocking to hear President Trump invoke our sister and say that he was aware that Virginia had been ‘stolen’ from Mar-a-Lago,” they said. “It makes us ask if he was aware of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell’s criminal actions, especially given his statement two years later that his good friend Jeffrey ‘likes women on the younger side … no doubt about it.’ We and the public are asking for answers; survivors deserve this.”
Related