Ghislaine Maxwell got caught, prosecuted, and is now serving a 20-year sentence in federal prison as a sex offender. She’s a predator, and is, unsurprisingly, part of an ongoing administration scheme to free President Trump from the raging scandal over deceased financier Jeffrey Epstein’s abuse of as many as 1,000 women and girls. Long one of his closest friends, Trump’s name appears in the files of investigators who brought charges against Epstein in 2019.
As he struggles to shed the stink of his association with his notorious former friend, Trump hopes Maxwell will be the witness who will exonerate him. She was Epstein’s constant companion, employee, and wingwoman. She recruited women and girls he abused and sometimes took part. This would make her a valuable witness to what happened, if only she could be trusted. She recently tried anyway, saying:
“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 made her claim during hours of recorded interviews with the second-in-command at the Justice Department, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, who turned the recordings over to a House committee “investigating” the Epstein scandal. I put the word in quotes because the committee is controlled by Trump loyalists who want to appear to be taking their job seriously while at the same time helping him get out of a mess of his own creation.
The mess begins with Epstein’s rise as a friend and financier to the rich and famous -- Trump, Bill Clinton, Bill Gates, Prince Andrew, etc. -- and his fall, which came with his state level sex crime conviction in 2008. He was charged again, this time by the feds, in 2019, but he allegedly killed himself while in prison awaiting trial. Ever since, millions of people in Trump’s Make America Great Again (MAGA) political base have suspected that members of the so-called liberal elite are engaged in a massive cover-up of the truth about Epstein and his liberal friends. Conspiracy theorists have had a field day speculating about what happened in Epstein’s homes and over whether he may have been murdered by a fellow prisoner who had been paid by someone who had joined in Epstein’s sex crimes.
In 2024, Trump was among those who raised doubts about whether Epstein killed himself. And he suggested there was something fishy in the way the Biden administration handled things. He campaigned for president on the promise to release the government files on the case. This helped him win, but then, with his name sure to surface, Attorney General Pam Bondi announced that disclosure would not be “appropriate or warranted.” This happened on July 8. The outrage that erupted in MAGA world has blazed ever since.
The Blanche/Maxwell interview was intended to quell the controversy. But everything about it is suspicious. First, there’s the fact that it took place in a minimum security “club fed” prison, where Maxwell was sent as an obvious inducement to cooperate. Trump has said recently that he has the power to pardon her, and there’s no doubt she’s cooperating with that in mind.
Then there’s Blanche. As deputy attorney general, Blanche ranks so high in the department that the idea of him spending hours in a federal prison questioning an inmate is ridiculous. Under normal circumstances, this chore would have been done by a career prosecutor who had been involved in the case. However, a career prosecutor would not be devoted to Trump like Blanch. As you likely remember, Blanch represented Trump in the 2024 fraud trial at which the President was convicted of 32 felonies related to his business dealings. His loyalty was rewarded with his appointment, and now he’s obviously doing his best to put the scandal to rest.
Anyone who has watched a legal drama on TV can hear, in the questions Blanche asked, that he was steering Maxwell toward answers that could help Trump. At the same time he tried to get her to implicate former President Bill Clinton. (Clinton notably used Epstein’s private jet for travel related to his foundation for global development.) Here, Maxwell didn’t play along, as she said she never saw Clinton do anything untoward. In fact, to hear Maxwell tell it, she didn’t see anyone join Epstein in his “massage” habit, and that includes her friend Prince Andrew of Great Britain.
Things got a little dicey for Blanche when Maxwell mentioned people “in your cabinet” had been vilified for their supposed involvement with Epstein’s crimes. When she mentioned current Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Blanche shut her down. He posed no questions about other cabinet members.
With prosecutors describing her as a consummate liar, Maxwell has no credibility. Blanche’s past status and Trump’s lawyer and his behavior during the interview make him less-than-credible too. Add a committee little interested in the truth, and you have to recognize that what’s going on here is political theater. Act One was about the development of the Epstein scandal and Trump’s association with him. We’re now in Act Two where he and his allies are confronting the problem. The final act will bring a resolution where we should expect the following:
The House committee will find no serious wrongdoing on Trump’s part..
Todd Blanche will be elevated to Attorney General upon Pam Bondi’s resignation.
Maxwell will be pardoned.
Trump will declare himself exonerated.
And once again, we’ll be denied the truth.
Never forget.
There are numerous women who will never forget what was done to them! When do they get justice?
I have to ask myself this question Adam- are the American people too stupid to see what’s coming? That is the “exoneration “ of Donald Trump in exchange for pardoning Maxwell. Our criminal justice will fail us yet again.