Ghislaine Maxwell has provided new insight into Donald Trump’s association with Jeffrey Epstein.
The convicted child sex trafficker and Epstein confidante, 63, spoke with Attorney General Todd Blanche last month in a discussion officially released by the Department of Justice (DOJ) on Friday, Aug. 22.
The DOJ published a 300-plus-page transcript along with audio files from the two-day interview in late July, in which Maxwell addressed questions about Epstein and shared her suspicions regarding his 2019 death, officially ruled a suicide.
During the interview, Blanche, 51, asked Maxwell about the relationship she observed between Epstein and Trump, 79, whose administration faced scrutiny over its handling of the Epstein case.
“I don’t know how they met, and I don’t know how they became friends,” Maxwell said. “I certainly saw them together, and I remember the few times I observed them together, but they were friendly. I mean, they seemed friendly.”
As Maxwell explained, she “only ever saw them in social settings” and did not “recall any private settings” in which she observed the president and Epstein interact.
When questioned about photographs of herself, Trump, and Epstein over the years, Maxwell said they were taken in “social settings.”
“I don’t know Epstein’s — if he had — whatever the nature of the president’s friendship, if you will, or however you want to define that with Epstein, I was — never witnessed,” she said. “I think they were friendly, like people are in social settings.”
She added, “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.”
Maxwell emphasized, “I actually never saw the president in any type of massage setting. 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, who said she “never in any context” heard about Trump being inappropriate with masseuses, told the DOJ that she believed she met Trump in the 1990s through her father, British media proprietor Robert Maxwell.
Her father reportedly liked Trump “very much,” and Maxwell added that Trump was “very cordial and very kind” to her.
Regarding her last encounter with Trump, Maxwell said it occurred in the mid-2000s. “I admire his extraordinary achievement in becoming the president now. And I like him, and I’ve always liked him,” she told the DOJ. “So that is the sum and substance of my entire relationship with him.”
Maxwell was also asked about Bill Clinton, whom she described as her “friend” and not Epstein’s, adding that she did not “believe” the former president ever received a massage while with Epstein.
The DOJ’s release of Maxwell’s transcript — in which she appears to be seeking a pardon — comes six years after Epstein was arrested on sex trafficking charges in 2019 and died in his jail cell a month later, in what authorities ruled a suicide by hanging.
Maxwell was convicted in 2021 on child sex trafficking charges for facilitating Epstein’s abuse of young girls. She was recently transferred to a minimum-security federal prison camp in Texas, the same facility housing disgraced Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes.
Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel had promised additional information on the Epstein case after joining the Trump administration earlier this year. In July, the DOJ and FBI released a joint memo stating that the investigation into Epstein’s alleged crimes and subsequent death was complete and that the rumored “client list” did not exist — reigniting public interest in the case.
After leaving the Trump White House in May, Elon Musk wrote on X that Trump was “in the Epstein files,” before later retracting the statement.
Trump, whose past interactions with Epstein have been well documented, has dismissed the files as a “hoax” orchestrated by political opponents.
