There were no bombshells in newly-released transcripts and audio files from the Justice Department’s interviews last month with convicted sex offender and Jeffrey Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell, after the department touted the interviews as part of its effort to increase transparency when it comes to Epstein.
The hundreds of pages of redacted transcripts and handful of audio clips released Aug. 22 showed that Maxwell questions a medical examiner’s finding that the financier killed himself in jail in 2019, while he was awaiting a criminal trial on federal sex-trafficking charges. However, Maxwell waived away conspiracy theories suggesting someone outside the jail had him killed, and said she never saw any man in Epstein’s orbit acting inappropriately with a woman.
“I never, ever saw any man doing something inappropriate with a woman of any age,” Maxwell told Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, a former defense lawyer to Trump who handled the interviews personally.
The non-revelatory transcripts probably won’t satisfy people who insist Epstein maintained a list of powerful clients who participated in a sex-trafficking ring, as he rubbed shoulders with some of the world’s most rich and powerful men. The Trump administration has faced outrage from members of Trump’s own base for refusing to release its files on Jeffrey Epstein, after several people in Trump’s inner circle fanned the flames of Epstein-related conspiracy theories for years.
Maxwell is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence for sex trafficking a minor to Epstein and other sex crimes. Soon after giving the interviews in late July, she was transferred to a cushier, minimum-security prison camp in Texas.
Here are five takeaways from the newly-released transcripts:
Maxwell praises Donald Trump, who holds the power to pardon her
Maxwell appeared to go out of her way to praise President Donald Trump, who was friends with Epstein in the 1990s and early 2000s, and who now holds the power to pardon her. Maxwell’s defense lawyer, David Oscar Markus, has said he hopes Trump will exercise that power “in the right and just way,” and that Maxwell would be happy to testify before Congress if Trump gives her clemency first.
Trump noted that power during questioning by reporters about Maxwell on July 28 in Scotland, but added it would be “inappropriate” to discuss it.
Asked about Trump’s relationship with her and with Epstein, Maxwell said Trump was always kind and cordial with her.
“And I just want to say that I find, I, I admire his extraordinary achievement in becoming the President now,” she said. “And I like him, and I’ve always liked him.”
Maxwell said specifically that she never saw Trump receiving a massage. Epstein has been accused of luring underage girls into sex acts by arranging for them to give massages that would turn sexual. In 2008, he was convicted of a Florida prostitution offense involving minors.
“I never witnessed the President in any inappropriate setting in any way. The President was never inappropriate with anybody,” she said. “In the times that I was with him, he was a gentleman in all respects.”
Maxwell says she never saw Bill Clinton behave inappropriately
Maxwell characterized President Bill Clinton, who traveled on Epstein’s plane, as someone she – rather than Epstein – was close with.
“President Clinton was my friend, not Epstein’s friend,” she said.
Clinton traveled on Epstein’s plane about 26 times, she said, but she characterized it as “one journey” and said she knows Clinton didn’t receive a massage during it.
“That would’ve been the only time that I think that President Clinton could have even received a massage,” she said. “And he didn’t, because I was there.”
Maxwell questions if Epstein died by suicide
In a two-page July memo declaring it wouldn’t be releasing its files on Epstein, the FBI said its investigators concluded Epstein died by suicide in his Manhattan jail cell in August of 2019. Maxwell questioned that finding in her interview with Blanche.
“I do not believe he died by suicide, no,” she said.
However, Maxwell also disputed conspiracy theories suggesting someone outside the jail had Epstein killed to keep him silent.
“Of course it’s possible,” Maxwell said. “But I don’t know of any reason why, and I don’t believe in the blackmail or in any of this, I don’t think Epstein had a hit on like that.”
She added that she thought the idea was “ludicrous” because Epstein would have been “a very easy target” before he was jailed in 2019, if a powerful person had actually decided to take him out. If Epstein was murdered, she believes it was “an internal situation” involving someone else at the jail.
Maxwell says she can’t explain massive money transfers from Epstein
Blanche asked Maxwell about banking records indicating that Epstein sent her or her entities about $30 million in money over several years. The transfers included about $18.3 million in 1999, $5 million in 2002, and $7.4 million in 2007.
By 2005, Epstein was under investigation for sex crimes involving minors.
Maxwell denied that Epstein was paying her for recruiting underage girls to be sexually abused, as prosecutors suggested at her trial. She said some of the transfers could have been to accounts controlled by Epstein’s accountants, or could have been loans from Epstein for her business ventures.
“He never paid me … for any nefarious reason,” Maxwell said. “I don’t think this money is mine.”
Maxwell maintains innocence, despite convictions
Maxwell maintained her innocence throughout the two days of interviews, despite being convicted in 2021 of conspiring to entice and transport minors for illegal sex acts and of sex trafficking a minor to Epstein. Maxwell currently has an appeal pending at the U.S. Supreme Court.
She said she never knowingly recruited someone underage to perform massages for Epstein and never witnessed sexual abuse.
“I never saw a single masseuse ever look unhappy or not come back or whatever,” she said.
The seeming dead end when it comes to new accountability is unlikely to satisfy victims, who were already upset by the Justice Department’s decision to shift Maxwell to a lower-security prison after she spoke with Blanche.
“President Trump has sent a clear message today: Pedophiles deserve preferential treatment and their victims do not matter,” the surviving siblings of Epstein victim Virginia Giuffre, who died by suicide in April, said in a statement along with victim Annie Farmer and her sister, Maria Farmer, following reports of the move.
After the transcripts’ release, Maxwell defense lawyer David Oscar Markus said in a statement on X that his client “is innocent” and never participated in sexual abuse against anyone.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: 5 takeaways from Ghislaine Maxwell transcripts and audio files
