The tapes and records are heavily redacted versions of a chat she had with Todd Blanche, the Deputy US Attorney General – days before she was moved to a cushier prison
Transcripts of Ghislaine Maxwell’s jail house interview have been published – and she was asked about Donald Trump’s relationship with dead paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
The tapes and records are heavily redacted versions of a chat she had with Todd Blanche, the Deputy US Attorney General – days before she was moved to a cushier prison.
Much of what she said in the interview contradicts both statements made by Trump and Epstein, and the public record of the crimes Epstein committed.
Maxwell is serving 20 years for sex trafficking. She was found guilty of finding young girls to be abused America’s most notorious paedophile, Epstein.
She has always denied this, including in her interview with Blanche.
Ahead of her sentencing in 2021, federal prosecutors said she had “lied repeatedly about her crimes, exhibited an utter failure to accept responsibility, and demonstrated repeated disrespect for the law and the Court.”
A few days after the interview, Maxwell was moved to a lesser security prison – one so cushy it’s been nicknamed “Club Fed”.
She is openly seeking a pardon from Donald Trump.
Before Todd Blanche was Deputy Attorney General, he was Donald Trump’s personal defence lawyer.
The interview took place as part of the Trump administration’s efforts to repair self-inflicted political wounds after failing to release FBI files relating to the Epstein investigation.
Donald Trump has never been accused of any involvement in Epstein’s crimes.
Bearing all that in mind, here’s what she had to say about Donald Trump.
Trump was a “gentleman”
Known liar and sex trafficker Maxwell claimed she never saw Donald Trump act inappropriately.
“I actually never saw the President in any type of massage setting,” Maxwell said, according to the transcript.
“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.”
Trump was never “inappropriate” with masseuses
Maxwell recalled knowing about Trump and possibly meeting him for the first time in 1990, when her newspaper magnate father, Robert Maxwell, was the owner of the New York Daily News.
She said she had been to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, sometimes alone, but hadn’t seen Trump since the mid-2000s.
Asked if she ever heard Epstein or anyone else say Trump “had done anything inappropriate with masseuses” or anyone else in their orbit, Maxwell replied, “Absolutely never, in any context.”
She has “always liked” Trump and “admires” him
Maxwell said of Trump: “So my father liked him very much, and he was loved – really liked his wife as well, because we were both Czechoslovakian.
“And as far as I’m concerned, President Trump was always very cordial and very kind to me.
“And I just want to say that I find – I – I admire his extraordinary achievement in becoming the President now.
“And I like him, and I’ve always liked him.
“So that is the sum and substance of my entire relationship with him.”
Trump and Epstein were ‘friendly’ but not close friends
“I don’t know how they met, and I don’t know how they became friends,” Maxwell claimed.
“I certainly saw them together and I remember the few times I observed them together, but they were friendly. I mean, they seemed friendly.”
Asked if this was in social or private settings, Maxwell replied: “I believe I only ever saw them in social settings. I don’t recall any private settings.”
She went on: “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.
“I think they were friendly like people are in social settings. I don’t – 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.”
Epstein, in an interview with the journalist Michael Wolff, said he had been Trump’s “closest friend for 10 years.”
And Trump told New York Magazine in 2002: “I’ve known Jeff for 15 years. Terrific guy.”
“He’s a lot of fun to be with,” he added.
“It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.”
A framed photo of Epstein and Trump together was found in the dead paedophile’s Manhattan “lair”, according to the New York Times.