Trump deflects Jeffrey Epstein questions; Maxwell meets DOJ
President Donald Trump speaks to reporters earlier than boarding Marine One on the South Garden of the White Home, in Washington, on his method to Turnberry, Scotland, July 25, 2025.
Jim Watson | Afp | Getty Pictures
Convicted Jeffrey Epstein confederate Ghislaine Maxwell “was requested possibly about 100 completely different folks” throughout a gathering with a high Division of Justice official in Florida on Friday, her lawyer stated.
“I feel Ghislaine did an exquisite job,” her legal professional, David Oscar Markus, informed reporters exterior U.S. District Court docket in Tallahassee, the place Maxwell met for the second day in a row with Deputy Legal professional Todd Blanche.
“She actually answered each query. She did not say, You realize what? Do not ask me that. I am not going to speak about this particular person,” Markus stated about his shopper, who’s serving a 20-year jail time period for crimes associated to procuring and grooming women for Epstein to sexually abuse.
“She was requested possibly about 100 completely different folks. She answered questions on all people, and she or he did not maintain something again,” he stated.
“They requested about each single, each potential factor you could possibly think about, every part,” he stated.
Markus didn’t establish the folks Maxwell was requested about.
Ghislaine Maxwell, longtime affiliate of accused intercourse trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, speaks at a information convention on oceans and sustainable growth on the United Nations in New York, June 25, 2013 on this screengrab taken from United Nations TV file footage.
UNTV | Reuters
Earlier Friday, President Donald Trump deflected questions on his former buddy Epstein, who died from a jailhouse suicide weeks after being arrested on little one intercourse trafficking prices in July 2019.
“I’ve nothing to do with the man,” Trump stated of Epstein, with whom he had socialized for years earlier than falling out with the now-dead pedophile within the mid-2000s.
Trump as a substitute stated folks ought to give attention to others who, like him, had beforehand socialized with Epstein, amongst them former President Invoice Clinton and ex-Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, who additionally served as president of Harvard College.
Folks “do not speak about them. They speak about me,” Trump griped earlier than departing for a visit to Scotland.
“You need to give attention to Clinton. You need to give attention to the president of Harvard, the previous president of Harvard, it is best to give attention to a number of the hedge fund guys,” Trump stated.
“I will offer you an inventory. These guys lived with Jeffrey Epstein, I positive as hell did not.”
Requested if he was contemplating a pardon or sentence commutation for Maxwell, Trump stated, “It is one thing I have never considered.”
“I am allowed to do it,” he added.
Jeffrey Epstein, in a photograph supplied by the Palm Seashore Sheriff’s Workplace, July 27, 2006.
Palm Seashore Sheriff’s Workplace | AP
Maxwell’s lawyer Markus, when requested by reporters about potential clemency from Trump in change for her cooperation with the DOJ, replied: “No provides have been made.”
Markus additionally stated, “I’m not going to touch upon what we’re hoping for” from these discussions with Blanche.
The lawyer had been requested if Maxwell hoped to get some form of deal, probably together with a beneficial sentence discount, from prosecutors.
“Ghislaine answered each single query requested of her over the past day and a half, she answered these questions truthfully, honestly, to the most effective of her skill,” Markus stated. “She by no means invoked a privilege. She by no means refused to reply a query.”
Trump has confronted rising stress to launch details about Epstein after the DOJ earlier this month reneged on guarantees by Legal professional Normal Pam Bondi and high FBI officers to reveal information prison investigators assembled of their intercourse trafficking probe of Epstein.
Trump final week ordered Bondi to hunt the unsealing of grand jury transcripts associated to investigations of Epstein and Maxwell, shortly after The Wall Avenue Journal reported he had despatched a “bawdy” letter to Epstein in 2003 for the cash supervisor’s fiftieth birthday.
“I do not even know what they’re speaking about. Now, someone may have written a letter and used my title, however that is occurred loads,” Trump stated concerning the letter on Friday.
On Tuesday, Blanche stated he would search to fulfill Maxwell and ask her if she had details about different individuals who had doubtlessly abused underage women and younger ladies related to Epstein. Blanche is a former prison protection lawyer for Trump.
Blanche met for hours with Maxwell and her legal professional on Thursday in U.S. District Court docket in Tallahassee, the town the place she is serving her jail time period.
Earlier than their second assembly, on Friday, Maxwell’s lawyer Markus informed reporters, “Ghislaine has been handled unfairly for over 5 years now.”
“In the event you seemed up scapegoat within the dictionary, her face could be subsequent to the definition, subsequent to the dictionary definition of it,” he stated. “So, , we’re grateful for this chance to lastly be capable of say what actually occurred, and that is what we will do yesterday and right this moment.”
Markus stated that Maxwell has “been in horrible, terrible circumstances for 5 years. We would not maintain animals the best way she’s been stored in jail.”
“We simply ask that folk take a look at what she has to say with an open thoughts, and that is what Deputy Legal professional Normal Todd Blanche has promised us, and every part she says could be corroborated and she or he’s telling the reality,” Markus stated.
“She’s bought no motive to lie at this level, and she or he’s going to maintain telling the reality.”
