‘It’s Quite a Line to Walk’: Maggie Haberman Says Minefield Awaits Trump if He Grants Clemency to Ghislaine Maxwell
CNN’s Maggie Haberman dissected President Donald Trump’s remarks about potentially granting clemency to convicted child sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell.
Maxwell is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence after being found guilty of federal crimes in 2021. This week, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, Trump’s former criminal attorney, interviewed Maxwell for a total of nine hours. She is a former associate of Jeffrey Epstein, who also trafficked minors and was a friend of Trump’s before that information became publicly known.
On Friday, Trump did not rule out granting clemency to Maxwell, stating, “I’m allowed to do it.” Hours later, Fox News reported that Maxwell is seeking a pardon from the president.
The developments come after the Department of Justice concluded that Epstein did not have the long-rumored client list that many believed he had. Moreover, the DOJ is declining to release documents it has relating to Epstein. That has rankled some Trump supporters.
Haberman appeared on Friday’s edition of The Source on CNN, where Kaitlan Collins asked about possible clemency for Maxwell.
“I mean, would that not infuriate the MAGA base, though, if he pardons the convicted child sex trafficker?” the host asked.
“It’s quite a line to walk,” Haberman responded. “If he pardons her, if he commutes her sentence, there’s a range. There are two options here. There’s a clemency grant that could happen. She’s facing, I think it’s 20 years in prison, right? Or 20 20-year’ prison sentence, a couple of years of which she served already. You know, he has made a huge claim that there that sex trafficking is bad, that Democrats are behind this. He has thrown out Bill Clinton’s name.”
Haberman went on to suggest that members of the Trump administration may start portraying Maxwell as a victim “who was caught up in” Epstein’s child trafficking ring.
“The reason I think that is that people close to the administration have started describing her as a victim,” she said, perhaps alluding to members of the pro-Trump media, including Charlie Kirk and Newsmax host Greg Kelly, the latter of whom suggested that Maxwell is innocent.
Watch above via CNN.
