Jeffrey Epstein’s co-conspirator and former girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell repeatedly told the Justice Department that she never witnessed President Trump in any sexually inappropriate situations.
The Justice Department released transcripts Friday of interviews that Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche conducted last month with Maxwell. The release comes as judges have shot down the department’s request to unseal grand jury transcripts from the sex trafficking case against Epstein.
“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,” she said.
Maxwell also said she does not believe that former President Bill Clinton, who also knew Epstein, received massages.
The interview transcript, audio files and thousands of pages of documents were turned over to Congress in response to a subpoena from the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
Maxwell is currently serving 20 years after being convicted of sex trafficking. Epstein died in a New York City jail in 2019 while awaiting trial on federal sex trafficking charges.
She told Mr. Blanche that she may have met Mr. Trump in 1990 because her father, then-New York Daily News owner Robert Maxwell, knew him and liked him. She said her father also liked Mr. Trump’s then-wife Ivana because they shared Czechoslovakian roots.
“I may have met Donald Trump at that time, because my father was friendly with him and liked him very much,” Maxwell said, according to the transcript. “I don’t remember if I did meet him or not in 1990 with my dad, but I knew that that’s how I knew about, — about Mr. Trump.”
She said Mr. Trump “was always very cordial and very kind” to her.
Maxwell said Epstein and Mr. Trump “were friendly like people are in social settings.”
“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,” she said.
Mr. Trump has acknowledged being a friend of Epstein but said they had a falling out nearly 20 years ago over a real estate deal and Epstein’s hiring away employees who had worked for Mr. Trump.
Mr. Blanche asked her if she remembered the names of people who sent letters for Epstein’s 50th birthday album in 2003. A report from The Wall Street Journal last month said Mr. Trump participated in the album, but the president has denied it.
“It’s been so long. I want to tell you, but I don’t remember,” she said.
When asked if she specifically remembered if Mr. Trump participated, she said, “I don’t.”
She said in the parts of the birthday book she saw, there was nothing from the president.
When asked about if she thought Epstein died by suicide, she said, “I do not believe he died by suicide, no,” but said she had no speculation about who could’ve killed him.
After her interview last month, she was moved from the low-security federal prison she was held in Florida, to a minimum-security prison camp in Texas. The move hasn’t been explained by her lawyer or the Federal Bureau of Prisons.
Attorney General Pam Bondi and others in the administration had promised to release to the public the files on Epstein, but did not. Ms. Bondi said there was no incriminating “client list” of people who participated in Epstein’s sex-trafficking plans and that no further files would be released.
She had led Justice Department and FBI officials in reviewing the files and said “that no further disclosure would be appropriate or warranted.” The decision created a furor among the president’s MAGA base, some of whom believe the government previously had been protecting VIPs who were Epstein’s clients.
In her interview, Maxwell said there was no client list at all.
“There is no list. We’ll start with that. The genesis of that story, I can actually trace for you from its absolute inception, if that is what you’re interested in,” she said.
When she was pushed further, she said, “There is no list. There is no — I’m not aware of any blackmail. I never heard that. I never saw it, and I never, I never imagined it.”
David Markus, Maxwell’s lawyer, thanked the Justice Department and Mr. Blanche for making the transcripts public.
He maintained that Maxwell is “innocent and never should have been tried, much less convicted, in this case.”
“She never committed or participated in sexual abuse against minors, or anyone else for that matter. In fact, the government has admitted that it did not even consider her a conspirator during the extensive investigation into Epstein in the Southern District of Florida. The only reason she was ever charged is that she served as a scapegoat after Jeffrey Epstein died in prison,” he said in a lengthy statement.
“We are also grateful to the president for his continued commitment to the truth in this matter and for refusing to cave to the mob,” he said.
