For weeks, Donald Trump has been on the defensive over his handling of the Jeffrey Epstein investigative files and the extent of his own personal links to the late sex trafficker.
While Trump had promised to release files related to Epstein, his justice department announced in July there would be no more disclosures, prompting uproar among conspiracy-minded Maga adherents and many other of his supporters.
As criticism grew louder, the deputy attorney general Todd Blanche – who defended Trump in criminal proceedings – interviewed Ghislaine Maxwell, who is serving a 20-year prison sentence for her involvement in Epstein’s abuse of teen girls. After the first interview session, Blanche said “the Department of Justice will share additional information about what we learned at the appropriate time”.
The appropriate time turned out to be just before 3pm ET on Friday, 22 August when the department published redacted transcripts of Blanche’s interviews with Maxwell.
While the transcripts span hundreds of pages, their contents are unlikely to satisfy those who want to know more about Trump’s past association with Epstein – let alone those who believe that the deceased financier was part of a powerful cabal of the global elite preying on young girls.
Maxwell’s comments on Trump in the transcripts largely played into his efforts to distance himself from Epstein. If anything, the transcripts revealed Maxwell’s ongoing sense of aggrieved entitlement – as well as Blanche’s intense focus on Bill Clinton, who like Trump had past dealings with Epstein.
“I think [Trump and Epstein] were friendly like people are in social settings. I don’t – I don’t think they were close friends or I certainly never witnessed the president in any of – I don’t recall ever seeing him in his house, for instance,” said Maxwell, who had been Epstein’s on-again, off-again girlfriend.
“I actually never saw the president in any type of massage setting,” Maxwell also said, alluding to Epstein’s abuse of women and teen girls whom he’d met under the guise of them providing massages.
Maxwell was asked whether she had heard Epstein or anybody say that Trump had done anything inappropriate with masseuses, or anybody, in their world. “Absolutely never, in any context,” Maxwell said.
Such comments would be music to Trump’s ears as he has long played down the extent of his social contacts with Epstein. Maxwell, who shortly after being interviewed by Blanche was moved from her Florida jail to a much lower security one in Texas, was also asked whether she remembered if Trump had contributed to a birthday book for Epstein.
The Wall Street Journal had reported that Trump sent a “bawdy” birthday letter to Epstein in 2003 featuring a drawing of a nude woman. Trump has filed suit over this reporting. “I do not remember,” Maxwell said of the incident.
Blanche repeatedly asked Maxwell about the Clintons, who, like Trump, have also denied knowing of any of Epstein’s crimes.
When asked whether she knew if Bill Clinton had ever received a massage, Maxwell said “I don’t believe he did.” During the second interview day, Blanche asked Maxwell whether Epstein had a separate relationship with Clinton outside of the former president’s philanthropic work. He also asked whether Epstein had “any sort of visit, dealings or – associated with Hillary Clinton?” Maxwell said: “I would say no.”
Did Maxwell know whether “Epstein ever did any business transactions with the Clintons?” she was also asked. But if Blanche was looking to incriminate the Clintons, Maxwell came up short. Just like she had with Trump.
The true made-for-tabloid moments in Maxwell’s interviews in the transcripts dealt more with aspects of Epstein’s personal life and her posh asides. “He started doing testosterone and that altered his character. And I believe that started in the late 90s,” Maxwell said of Epstein. “He became more aggressive.”
As time went on, Epstein started surrounding himself with more people, including more masseuses. Maxwell said she didn’t know he was having sexual relations with them.
Blanche pushed back, saying: “I mean, you had to know at that point that there was something going on beyond just, he really needed to get massaged.”
Maxwell said that was a “very fair question” but noted that the masseuse he’d seen most frequently was in her 40s. “The second thing is that – is, he told me he didn’t – he had difficulty having an erection, and I believed him.”
She said Epstein had gotten into business “where he looked for stolen money”. Epstein had a girlfriend, the daughter of a billionaire, who had some money stolen. “And for some reason this woman introduced Jeffrey, and Jeffrey, I think that’s how that business started. That’s what I remember.”
Epstein’s potential links to the world of espionage are a staple of conspiracy theories surrounding him. As for whether Epstein had ties to law enforcement agencies or intelligence operatives, Maxwell said: “I think he would’ve bragged about it to me as a show off, because he could be a show off. And if he wasn’t, he might have dropped it like he was cool. And I don’t think – I don’t remember him doing either.”
Maxwell said there was a caveat. “Before I met him finding money, I think he may have suggested that there was some people who helped him, but that’s the only context that I recall that in.” Blanche asked what she meant.
“He showed me a photograph that he had with some African warlords or something that he told me. And, you know, I get – I don’t remember if I – that’s what I interpreted the – like that kind of thing or whether it was something like that.
“That’s the only actual active memory I have of something nefarious – not nefarious. I don’t even know if it was nefarious, but covert, I suppose would be the word.”
During various points of the interview, Maxwell also found ways to point to her prim and proper upbringing. In discussing how she felt duped by Epstein, she said: “I’m not stupid. I’m very bright. I’ve had an excellent education. I traveled all over the world.”
Maxwell also said that she did not think Epstein killed himself in prison but did not think someone from outside of prison had him killed.
“In prison, where I am, they will kill you or they will pay – somebody can pay a prisoner to kill you for $25 worth of commissary. That’s about the going rate,” Maxwell said.
Maxwell moved to her new minimum security prison camp just a few days after her sit-down with Blanche ended.
