With the Jeffrey Epstein story continuing to engulf the Trump White House, a top Justice Department official on Thursday met with Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s accomplice, who was convicted of sex trafficking in 2021, after Epstein’s death, and is in federal prison, with her convictions on appeal.
The meeting, with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, will continue on Friday, after Maxwell’s attorney described the meeting as “very productive.”
“Today, I met with Ghislaine Maxwell, and I will continue my interview of her tomorrow. The Department of Justice will share additional information about what we learned at the appropriate time,” Blanche said on X.
On Friday, after President Trump landed in Scotland, he was asked by a reporter if he would consider a pardon or commutation for Maxwell. He answered, “It’s something that I haven’t thought about. I’m allowed to do it, but it’s something I have not thought about.”
Trump on pardoning Ghislaine Maxwell: “I’m allowed to do it” pic.twitter.com/e9bjwFqfYr
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) July 25, 2025
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The meetings between Maxwell and Blanche — who was formerly Trump’s personal attorney — have raised a terrifying possibility: The Trump Administration could give Maxwell a pardon or commutation, in exchange for Maxwell publicly exonerating Trump of any illicit involvement with Epstein’s crimes, or possibly even agreeing to accuse various Trump enemies of involvement in those crimes. Doing so would possibly get Trump out of the political pickle that he’s currently in- at the expense of potentially letting a convicted sex trafficker walk free.
Maxwell, during her own trial, did not name names of any other potential accomplices of the late convicted financier.
Meanwhile, the New York Times reported Thursday that the Justice Department employed hundreds of employees, in a “frantic scouring of the Epstein Files,” with “a single goal in mind: find something — anything — that could be released to the public to satisfy President Trump’s supporters.”
NYT confirms what @muellershewrote.com already did about the frantic and unprofessional review of the Epstein files (which didn’t even have a good victim list).
As I suggested earlier this may be the most important detail: SharePoint. https://t.co/RCqKFo7zZ5 pic.twitter.com/x9V2V3yplv
— emptywheel (check) (@emptywheel) July 24, 2025
The announcement that the files would not be released, it appears, followed the end of that effort, and the realization that nothing incriminating was found.
“After devoting countless hours to the project, working at times around the clock searching databases, hard drives, network drives, cabinets, desks and closets, the bureau and the department finally acknowledged this month that they had little to show for their efforts,” the Times report said.”They came to realize, for instance, that there was no specific ‘client list,’ which previous investigators had known years ago.”
Photo courtesy of the Political Tribune media library.
