Ghislaine Maxwell, speaking with US Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, claimed that the widely discussed Epstein client list does not exist and said the story behind it began in 2009.
Jeffrey Epstein’s alleged list of powerful associates has long been a focal point in the scandals surrounding the convicted sex offender. But Maxwell, Epstein’s longtime confidant, insisted during her conversation with Blanche that “there is no list.” The Justice Department has since made the transcripts of their exchange public.
Blanche asked Maxwell, “So there’s been a lot of conversations about whether Mr. Epstein maintained, like, a list of people, like a book of famous people that he knew. Like a, it’s called a black book or a client list or a list. Did you know of the existence of any such list?”
Maxwell replied that she had never known of such a record and attempted to trace the “story” of the so-called client list back to its origins.
She pointed to 2009, when civil suits against Epstein were being handled by Brad Edwards, a lawyer then employed at the disgraced firm Rothstein, Rosenfeldt & Adler. According to Maxwell, Edwards contacted the FBI and claimed to have evidence from Epstein that contained a list of clients, victims, underage girls, massage therapists, and the men allegedly exploiting them. Edwards, she said, obtained this information from Epstein’s former butler, Alfredo Rodriguez, and later became a confidential informant.
Maxwell argued that Edwards’ claims did not match what appeared in FBI affidavits or his own public statements. She further alleged that her then-boyfriend, Tedd Waitt, was asked for $10 million in exchange for keeping her name out of Epstein’s civil cases, and that supposed evidence—including flight logs and the disputed list—was shown to him at the time.
She also linked the narrative back to a 2007 case against Epstein, led by prosecutor Ann Marie Villafana. Maxwell alleged that Villafana collaborated with Edwards, who was also working with Rothstein’s firm, to create false evidence in the Epstein case.
“The masseuses that were on that list, I have never heard of some of them—not even from the civil suits that came up later,” Maxwell said, adding that the story of the list kept evolving. What began as papers allegedly in Rodriguez’s possession, she claimed, turned into rumors of a book, then a computer file, and eventually a supposed list from her own computer.
“I haven’t seen it,” Maxwell repeated, emphasizing her denial of the list’s existence.
