The Trump administration on Friday released transcripts and audio recordings of convicted Jeffrey Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell’s unusual interview last month with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche. Blanche, who was previously President Donald Trump’s personal defense lawyer, met with Maxwell amid political backlash over the administration’s refusal to release all the information it has related to Epstein.
The release of these transcripts and audio (you can read and listen to them here) doesn’t address the fact that the administration still has not released all the information it has related to Epstein, who died in 2019 while being held on sex trafficking charges in what the medical examiner called a suicide.
According to the transcript, Maxwell said she “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.”
Maybe that’s true. Maybe it’s not. In any event, she offered her statements while seeking a pardon from the president, and she has an obvious incentive to say favorable things about the president.
After she met with Blanche, the government moved her to a minimum security facility. She currently has a petition pending before the Supreme Court to try and overturn her conviction and 20-year sentence.
Maxwell’s lawyer issued a statement in response to the release, saying in part, “We are thankful to the Department of Justice and to Todd Blanche for making these tapes and transcripts public so that people can judge for themselves.”
This article was originally published on MSNBC.com
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