Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie slammed comments from Jeffrey Epstein accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell in which she said President Donald Trump was not guilty of any wrongdoing and praised him as “cordial” and “kind.”
“She might as well have taken out Donald Trump, or President Trump, and said, ‘The man who can pardon me has never done anything wrong. The man who can pardon me has always been wonderful,” Christie, a rare vocal critic of Trump in the Republican party, told ABC’s “This Week” on Aug. 24.
“I don’t think Donald Trump had anything to do with Jeffrey Epstein that was untoward or illegal, but we’re going to believe Ghislaine Maxwell?” Christie asked. “Give me a break.”
Maxwell praises Trump as a ‘gentleman’
Maxwell told Attorney General Todd Blanche during hours of interviews last month that Trump “was never inappropriate with anybody,” and was “a gentleman in all respects.”
“Trump was always very cordial and very kind to me. And I just want to say that I find, I admire his extraordinary achievement in becoming the president now,” Maxwell said, according to transcripts of the conversations released publicly by the Justice Department on Aug. 22.
Maxwell is serving out a 20-year sentence after she was convicted of procuring young girls to be sexually abused by Epstein, the disgraced financier whose past tight relationship with Trump has stirred a firestorm in recent months.
Maxwell has appealed her conviction and signaled in the interviews that she hopes for a pardon from Trump, who has not ruled it out, saying he is “allowed” to pardon her.
A pardon for Maxwell would further fan the flames of raging speculation over the nature of Trump’s connection to Epstein and whether his administration withheld the Epstein files because they contain Trump’s name or implicate him. Maxwell was also quietly moved to a lower-security prison soon after her interviews with Blanche.
The Wall Street Journal reported that Attorney General Pam Bondi told Trump his name was in the files and that Trump sent Epstein a bizarre birthday card with a doodle of a nude woman, further fueling suspicion.
Trump has slammed them as a “hoax” and said they were “run” by his commonly invoked enemies, like former President Joe Biden and FBI Director James Comey.
The House Oversight Committee subpoenaed the Epstein files and received the first trove on Aug. 22, but Democrats on the committee have said that the vast majority of documents they received were already public.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Chris Christie criticizes Ghislaine Maxwell over her Trump praise
