The siblings of Virginia Giuffre, one of Jeffrey Epstein’s most prominent accusers who died earlier this year, said their sister had wanted the so-called Epstein files to be released, and urged Donald Trump not to pardon his longtime associate, Ghislaine Maxwell.
In an interview with NBC News on Thursday, Giuffre’s family said she would have wanted the documents – a trove of materials related to the investigation into the years of abuse into the late sex offender – made public.
“She had a little bit of hope in her because it was said that the files were going to be released,” Amanda Roberts, Giuffre’s sister-in-law, told the network in an interview, saying Giuffre would have wanted “transparency and justice” for his victims.
“She was fighting for that to happen right up until the very end,” Roberts added. “She wanted the public to know the crimes that they had committed.”
Earlier this week, Trump said Epstein, with whom he socialized for more than a decade, “stole” Giuffre and other young female staffers from his Mar-a-Lago country club, where she worked as a spa attendant in 2000.
Trump made the remark to reporters after he was asked to elaborate on an earlier comment in which he said he had kicked Epstein out of his club “because he [Epstein] did something that was inappropriate” – specifically, that “he stole people that worked for me”.
“She’s not an object, she’s a person,” Sky Roberts, Giuffre’s other brother, said through tears. “She’s a mom. She’s a sister. And she was recruited by Maxwell. She wasn’t stolen.”
He said the family was “shocked” to hear Trump use the word “stolen” to describe what had happened to his sister, who said in a lawsuit that she was hired away from the Mar-a-Lago spa by Maxwell when she was 16.
The White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, noted the president was responding to a reporter’s question and did not bring up Giuffre himself.
“The fact remains that President Trump kicked Jeffrey Epstein out of his club for being a creep to his female employees,” Leavitt said.
Giuffre, who died this year, alleged in her complaint that she was first abused by Epstein and Maxwell together, and then “lent out to other powerful men”, including Prince Andrew. Andrew has denied wrongdoing.
Maxwell, who is serving a 20-year prison sentence for her role recruiting and trafficking minors for sex, has asked the US supreme court to overturn her conviction and is reportedly seeking a pardon from the president.
A Trump administration official said the president was not currently considering clemency action for Maxwell.
The Associated Press contributed reporting
