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DOJ releases transcripts of Ghislaine Maxwell interview
The Justice Department released hours of interviews between Ghislaine Maxwell and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche. Authorities published audio recordings of the interview in addition to the hundreds of pages of transcripts.
Jeffrey Epstein's imprisoned former girlfriend repeatedly denied to the Justice Department witnessing any sexually inappropriate interactions with Donald Trump, according to records released Friday meant to distance the Republican president from the disgraced financer.
The Trump administration issued hundreds of pages of transcripts from interviews that Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche conducted with Ghislaine Maxwell last month as the administration was scrambling to present itself as transparent amid a fierce backlash over an earlier refusal to disclose a trove of records from the sex-trafficking case.
What do Epstein documents say?
What they're saying:
The records show Maxwell repeatedly showering Trump with praise and denying under questioning from Blanche that she had observed Trump engaged in any form of sexual behavior.
"I actually never saw the President in any type of massage setting," Maxwell said, according to the transcript. "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."
Maxwell recalled knowing about Trump and possibly meeting him for the first time in 1990, when her newspaper magnate father, Robert Maxwell, was the owner of the New York Daily News. She said she often had been to Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, sometimes alone, but hadn’t seen Trump since the mid-2000s.
FILE-US Attorney for the Southern District of New York Geoffrey Berman announces charges against Jeffery Epstein on July 8, 2019 in New York City. (Photo by Stephanie Keith/Getty Images)
Asked if she ever heard Epstein or anyone else say Trump "had done anything inappropriate with masseuses" or anyone else in their orbit, Maxwell replied, "Absolutely never, in any context."
Maxwell, a onetime socialite who was convicted in 2021 of helping lure teenage girls to be sexually abused by Epstein, was interviewed over the course of two days last month by Blanche at a Florida courthouse. She was given limited immunity, allowing her to speak freely without fear of prosecution for anything she said except for in the event of a false statement.
After her interview, Maxwell was moved from the low-security federal prison in Florida where she had been serving a 20-year sentence to a minimum-security prison camp in Texas. Neither her lawyers nor the federal Bureau of Prisons have explained the reason for the move, but one of her lawyers, David Oscar Marcus, said in a social media post Friday that Maxwell was "innocent and never should have been tried, much less convicted."
What's next:
Meanwhile, the Justice Department on Friday began sending to the House Oversight Committee records from the investigation that the panel says it intends to make public after removing victim's information.
The Associated Press reported that it’s not clear how many documents may be produced or whether the Justice Department’s cooperation with Congress is part of a change in stance since July, when the DOJ and FBI initially said they would not release additional records from the Jeffrey Epstein probe.
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New footage shows Jeffrey Epstein before death in jail
Newly released footage shows Jeffrey Epstein’s final moments at a New York prison on August 9, 2019, but a one-minute gap of missing footage raises questions about the nature of his death. (Credit: DOJ/FBI via Storyful)
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In a statement from House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., provided to the AP, Comer said "There are many records in DOJ’s custody, and it will take the Department time to produce all the records and ensure the identification of victims and any child sexual abuse material are redacted. "I appreciate the Trump Administration’s commitment to transparency and efforts to provide the American people with information about this matter."
House Oversight Committee subpoenas for Epstein files
The other side:
The House Oversight Committee issued subpoenas for all documents and communications from the case files of Jeffrey Epstein and his former girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell.
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President Trump on Jeffrey Epstein
President Donald Trump posted on Truth Social: "What's going on with my ‘boys’ and, in some cases, ‘gals?' They’re all going after Attorney General Pam Bondi, who is doing a FANTASTIC JOB." He added "We’re on one Team, MAGA, and I don’t like what’s happening."
According to the Associated Press, the committee also wanted records about communications between President Joe Biden’s administration and the Justice Department regarding Epstein, and documents related to an earlier federal probe into Epstein in Florida that resulted in a non-prosecution agreement.
The House Oversight panel also issued subpoenas to eight former law enforcement leaders and former Democratic President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Who was Jeffrey Epstein?
The backstory:
Jeffrey Epstein was a millionaire known for having connections to celebrities, politicians, and billionaires. In 2005, Epstein was accused of paying a 14-year-old girl for sex, and he was arrested a year later following a police investigation.
The Associated Press reported that dozens of other underage girls described similar sexual abuse allegations to authorities, but prosecutors allowed Epstein to plead guilty in 2008 to a charge involving one victim. He served 13 months in a jail work-release program.
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In 2024, documents were unsealed as part of a 2015 lawsuit filed against Epstein’s former girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell by Virginia Giuffre, one of Epstein’s victims. According to the AP, Guiffre is one of the dozens of women who sued Epstein, saying he abused them at his homes in Florida, New York, the U.S. Virgin Islands and New Mexico.
Federal prosecutors in New York charged Epstein in 2019 with sex trafficking, but he killed himself in jail while awaiting trial. Maxwell was prosecuted for helping recruit his underage victims, and she was convicted in 2021 and is currently serving a 20-year prison term.
The Source: Information for this story was provided by the Associated Press, which cites a statement from House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer about the files, and previous LIVENOW from FOX reporting. This story was reported from Washington, D.C.