The News
Jeffrey Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell told the Justice Department last month during a series of interviews that she does not believe the late sex trafficker died by suicide in 2019 while awaiting trial.
“I do not believe he died by suicide, no,” Maxwell said at one point, though she added that she didn’t know who would have killed him. “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.”
Maxwell spoke with deputy attorney general Todd Blanche while serving a 20-year prison sentence for helping Epstein traffic underage girls, a conviction for which she continues to seek a pardon from President Donald Trump. The 300-plus pages of interview transcripts that DOJ released on Friday afternoon appear to contain no significant new information about some of Epstein’s other well-known contacts, including the president himself.
Maxwell praised Trump’s “extraordinary achievement in becoming the president now” and said she has “always liked” him. She added that she never saw Trump “in any inappropriate setting in any way.”
Her reference to Epstein’s death comes weeks after prominent conservatives criticized the Trump administration for declining to pursue further action in the Epstein case last month; the disgraced businessman remains the subject of conspiracy theories stemming from his network of influential associates.
Maxwell often couldn’t recall certain conversations when discussing her long relationship with Epstein, but declared him to have kept “no client list.” She also sought to distance herself from Epstein’s illicit acts, at one point saying she wasn’t “saying that Mr. Epstein did not do those things.”
“I don’t feel comfortable saying that today, given what I now know to be true,” she said, while arguing that she did not participate in illegal activity.
Know More
Frustration with Attorney General Pam Bondi grew among prominent MAGA commentators and inside the administration after the DOJ and FBI released an unsigned two-page memo in early July, effectively declaring the case closed.
Part of the frustration was over Bondi’s past comments — in February, she said on Fox News that a list of Epstein’s clients was on her “desk right now to review,” raising expectations among those who have long followed the case. Bondi later argued that she was more broadly referring to files waiting for review, as opposed to any specific “client list” he may have kept.
Trump has acknowledged that he and Epstein were socially connected but said that he broke off contact with the sex trafficker about two decades ago because he “stole people that worked for me.”
Notable
- DOJ sent over a batch of Epstein files to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on Friday.