Seven Revelations and Wild Claims from Ghislaine Maxwell’s Interview Transcripts
On Friday, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche posted audio recording clips and transcripts of his prison conversations with convicted child sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell, which included a number of revelations, wild claims, and other notable moments.
Maxwell, the former girlfriend and accomplice of dead sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein, is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence after she was convicted of one count of sex trafficking a minor, one count of transporting a minor with the intent to engage in criminal sexual activity, and three counts of conspiracy. Multiple victims testified at Maxwell’s trial about how she not only recruited young women and underage girls to have sex with Epstein and other older men, but that Maxwell also sometimes assaulted them herself.
Meanwhile, the furor over the “Epstein files” continues, specifically over a rumored “client list,” and the years-long friendship between President Donald Trump and Epstein and Maxwell.
Maxwell spoke with Blanche for two days in Tallahassee, Florida, at the maximum-security federal women’s prison where she was previously held. Shortly after she met with Blanche, she was transferred to Federal Prison Camp (FPC) Bryan in Bryan, Texas, a minimum-security facility that is not commonly used to house inmates convicted of crimes as serious as Maxwell’s. The move to this “cushy prison camp” was sharply criticized by some of Epstein and Maxwell’s victims.
Below, a selection of notable sections from the transcripts shared by Blanche. It should be noted that, as Blanche acknowledged, there are redactions and the audio files were posted in a series of short clips, although he maintains that “every word is included” except for victim names.
1. Maxwell knew Trump before she met Epstein, described him as being “very kind” to her
Maxwell’s father, Robert Maxwell, headed a publishing empire that collapsed after his death and it was revealed that he had embezzled hundreds of millions of dollars from his companies’ pensions to bankroll his extravagant lifestyle. Maxwell told Blanche that her father was “friendly with [Trump] and liked him very much,” and “also very much liked Ivana [Trump, the president’s first wife], because she was also from Czechoslovakia where my dad was from.” According to Maxwell, she met Trump in the early 1990s, before her father died in November 1991 and before she met Epstein.
“ 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,” she said.
Maxwell later said that she visited Mar-a-Lago on multiple occasions after Trump purchased it, “mostly alone” and without Epstein, and Epstein often went there without her. She added that she “loved going there.”
2. She did not know how Trump and Epstein met, and described their relationship as “friendly” and “social” but didn’t think they were “close friends”
TODD BLANCHE: What about Mr. Epstein’s relationship with [President Trump]?
GHISLAINE MAXWELL: I don’t know how they met, and I don’t know how they became friends. I certainly saw them together and I remember the few times I observed them together, but they were friendly. I mean, they seemed friendly.
TODD BLANCHE: Was that in social settings or was that in private settings?
GHISLAINE MAXWELL: I believe I only ever saw them in social settings. I don’t recall any private settings.
…
TODD BLANCHE: Did you ever observe — you said that you — you were — I mean, have you seen the — there’s photographs, public photographs of Mr. Epstein and President Trump together.
GHISLAINE MAXWELL: Yes.
TODD BLANCHE: And there’s photographs of — I think you’re — you’re in some of the photographs —
GHISLAINE MAXWELL: Yes.
TODD BLANCHE: — as well. Those all appear to be social settings.
GHISLAINE MAXWELL: Yes.
TODD BLANCHE: Do you —
GHISLAINE MAXWELL: That’s — that’s my memory. They were social settings. 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.
3. Maxwell claimed she never saw Epstein or any other man “doing something inappropriate with a woman of any age,” and claimed she never participated in such activities.
These claims are “contradicting both what Justice Department officials have concluded and mountains of evidence presented at her criminal trial and in numerous civil case,” as Politico’s Cheney pointed out.
“I never, ever saw any man doing something inappropriate with a woman of any age. I never saw inappropriate habits,” said Maxwell, admitting some things may have happened when she wasn’t around. “I’m not saying that Mr. Epstein did not do those things. I don’t feel comfortable saying that today, given what I now know to be true. So I am not here to defend him. But what I can say is that I did not participate in that activity.”
4. Maxwell says she “never” saw Trump getting massages or in any “inappropriate setting.”
Getting a “massage” was “the term prosecutors have said Epstein and Maxwell used as code language to describe sexual encounters with the girls and young women they recruited, noted Politico senior legal affairs reporter Kyle Cheney.
GHISLAINE MAXWELL: I 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.
…
TODD BLANCHE: And did you ever hear Mr. Epstein or anybody say that President Trump had done anything inappropriate with masseuses or with anybody in your world?
GHISLAINE MAXWELL: Absolutely never, in any context.
5. Maxwell claimed she did not remember Trump submitting a note for Epstein’s 50th birthday book
Trump has insisted that The Wall Street Journal’s report about him submitting a lewd drawing of a nude woman for this birthday book was false and filed a lawsuit over it.
She described how she got the idea from a similar book created for her mother’s 60th birthday, and that Epstein loved the idea and asked her to coordinate it. According to Maxwell, the request was simply asking people to put a birthday message on a piece of paper, and she was not responsible for all the requests; Epstein did some outreach himself.
When Blanche asked Maxwell about whom she asked to contribute to the book, she repeatedly said it had been “so long” and she didn’t remember, and specifically said she didn’t remember any specific names of contributors, including Trump.
TODD BLANCHE: And do you remember some — do you remember specific names of individuals who did send letters or who did contribute?
GHISLAINE MAXWELL: It’s been so long. I want to tell you, but I don’t remember.
TODD BLANCHE: Do you —
GHISLAINE MAXWELL: I honestly don’t remember.
TODD BLANCHE: The article talks about several names, but including the folks — the article, which is on Donald Trump. Do you remember President Trump submitting a letter or a card or a note?
GHISLAINE MAXWELL: I don’t.
TODD BLANCHE: Do you think the articles — well, do you remember seeing that book or any portion of the letters in your discovery in New York?
GHISLAINE MAXWELL: Yes.
ODD BLANCHE: Okay. What do you remember seeing? GHISLAINE MAXWELL: I remember there was — there were some portions of that book. But what surprised me — yeah. What surprised me was how few there were, because I thought if you had those, where are the rest? There was none of Mr. Trump.
TODD BLANCHE: In your discovery?
GHISLAINE MAXWELL: Oh, in my discovery, sorry. President Trump, there was nothing from President Trump.
TODD BLANCHE: And do you remember — but separate and apart from your discovery, do you remember one way or the other whether President Trump submitted a letter for his 50th birthday?
GHISLAINE MAXWELL: I do not remember.
TODD BLANCHE: And the article that references the letter talks about like a — sounds like either a naked — a picture of a naked woman or something like that. Do you have any recollection of that?
GHISLAINE MAXWELL: I do not. But just — no, I don’t.
6. She does not believe Epstein committed suicide, thinks he was killed over an “internal situation” in the prison, not to silence him
Maxwell does not think Epstein killed himself, but rejected theories that he was killed to stop him from revealing the names of his clients. She also denied that any “client list” existed, and denied Epstein took any blackmail videos.
TODD BLANCHE: Do you — so you think he was — he did not die by suicide, given all the things we just talked about.
GHISLAINE MAXWELL: I do not believe he died by suicide, no.
TODD BLANCHE: And do you believe that — do you have any speculation or view of who killed him?
GHISLAINE MAXWELL: I — no, I don’t.
TODD BLANCHE: And I ask that because, if you don’t believe that there’s any truth to the allegations of blackmail or that he had kind of a list, or that he had reasons to have people hate him, why would somebody kill him in prison?
GHISLAINE MAXWELL: In prison, where I am, they will kill you or they will pay — somebody can pay a prisoner to kill you for $25 worth of commissary. That’s about the going rate for a hit with a lock today.
…TODD BLANCHE: do you think there was somebody on the outside of prison, so putting aside, what could happen on the inside on the outside of prison, who would — who wanted him dead so badly that he would’ve, or she would’ve, you know, caused him to be killed on the inside?
GHISLAINE MAXWELL: I think that’s — I don’t see that. I think, is it possible? Of course it’s possible. 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. If it is indeed murder, I believe it was an internal situation.
TODD BLANCHE: Yeah. So you’re not — you don’t have any reason firsthand knowledge or even speculation, it sounds like, to think that he was — if — that he was killed to kind of silence him or to keep him from going public about people he knew about?
GHISLAINE MAXWELL: I don’t, no, because I think that is just part of the story that’s been created that started back in 2008, ’09.
TODD BLANCHE: Okay. Yeah, I mean, that’s the point. Like, I don’t want — I don’t think there’s value in talking — you know, there’s been a lot of — there’s a lot of information about what happened, you know, at the MCC and — but what is important to me is whether, you know, if — is the idea that he didn’t die by suicide, that’s one thing. But if to the extent that folks believe that he was murdered to keep him quiet or because he had information on rich and powerful people, that’s what I — do you have any reason to believe that that’s true?
GHISLAINE MAXWELL: I do not have any reason to believe that. And I also think it’s ludicrous, because if that — I also happen to think if that is what they wanted, they would’ve had plenty of opportunity when he wasn’t in jail. And if they were worried about blackmail or anything from him, he would’ve been a very easy target.
7. Maxwell claimed Virginia Giuffre never met Prince Andrew, called the photograph of the three of them a “fake.”
Giuffre’s name is redacted from the transcripts, but it’s clear to whom the redacted name is referring because of the mentions of Prince Andrew and other context.
Maxwell called the Giuffre’s accusations “absolute rubbish” and said it would have been impossible and “mind-blowingly not conceivable” for Giuffre to have had sex with the prince in the bathroom at her home as she said because the bathroom was too small:
Where she says that they had relations in a bathroom, I — first of all, the bath is an old Victorian bath. I could — I’m quite — quite small, it’s tight for me. I put my brother in there to see what would happen. And it looks like a blivet, which is a sausage in like a very tight skin.
So her description of whatever the two people were doing in the tub, that wouldn’t work. The bathroom itself is so small, you can’t lie flat on the floor. So it couldn’t happen on the floor, because you physically, physically can’t. This bathroom is too small to even be on the floor.
Regarding the infamous photo, Maxwell described it as “bullshit” and “manufactured,” and a “fake,” claimed it was created by reporters and prosecutors. “I believe it’s literally a fake photo,” she said.
