On the same day that portions of the infamous Epstein Files were finally delivered under duress to Congress and the White House pulled every trick in the book to distract, the incarcerated and pardon seeking Ghislaine Maxwell may have just provided Donald Trump with the vindication he has sought about his relationship with the deceased financier and sex offender.
“I actually never saw the president in any type of massage setting,” Maxwell told deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche in a two-day interview on July 24-25 at a federal prison in Tallahassee, Florida. The clip was widely replayed on CNN, MSNBC, the BBC and others. “I never witnessed the president in any inappropriate setting in any way,” Maxwell went on to say on the recording.
“The president was never inappropriate with anybody.”
Mudding the waters more, Maxwell countered the official story and said “I do not believe” that Epstein “died by suicide” in 2019 while in custody – though she says she has no idea who killed him. Maxwell also praised Trump for “his extraordinary achievement” becoming President twice, and saying how much she “liked him.”
Oddly, undermining her credibility, Maxwell then offered an opinion on Trump and Epstein that runs in opposition to the video, photos, public remarks and more the two men made about each other for years up until the mid-2000s. “I think they were friendly like people are in social settings,” she told Blanche. “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.”
There was a lot about her own interactions with the well-connected Epstein that Maxwell didn’t seem recall in the exchange with Blanche and her own lawyer. For instance, despite photos to the contrary and her own trial a few years ago, Maxwell insisted she had no up-close evidence of her constant companion and the man she was successful prosecuted for procuring girls for with underage girls. “I never saw that with them at all,” she said last month, qualifying, “I’m not saying that Mr. Epstein did not do those things.”
In her factually challenged remarks about Trump, her on-again, off-again boyfriend’s death six years ago, denial there ever was an Epstein client list and mentions of former president Bill Clinton, Maxwell used circumspect language that was very similar to what was heard during 2021 sex-trafficking trial. In 2022, the scion of long dead UK press baron Robert Maxwell was sentenced to 20 years behind bars – – a sentence her lawyers have made no secret of wanting reexamined at the very least
After months of the administration trying to talk about anything but Jeffery Epstein and refusing to release the files and more on the convicted pedophile, today’s pouring out of audio and transcripts of Maxwell’s conversations with ex-Trump personal lawyer Blanche caught many unawares.
Blanche went online first with the news.
Up on the Department of Justice website, the material was qualified with a statement that “Redactions of victim names and other identifying information have been applied.” The official word is it is only victims’ names that have been hidden from view. Though the president himself urged “transparency” today just before the Maxwell material was made public, it had previously been reported that Trump’s name in the Epstein documents itself had long been redacted.
Still, with pages and pages of documents and tapes to download from the Department of Justice site, and comb over and to listen to for details, Maxwell’s see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil declarations quickly dominated an already busy news cycle.
Trump friendly Fox News gave the release the least time, except to hammer home Maxwell’s nothing inappropriate comment about the man who was Epstein’s buddy for years. But truth be told, the Murdoch owned outlet hit the major points in a very tailored and overwhelming release by any name. Along with the BBC, the New York Times, Wall Street Journal (who saw many of its recent scoops on Trump and Epstein pushed back on by Maxwell) and others, the Warner Bros Discovery-owned CNN and the soon-to-be MS Now, MSNBC went for the shiny stuff first in the release.
Only later, were concerns about the Trump team’s frenzy to “control the Epstein narrative,” as MSNBC Weeknight put it, raised to the fore.
In that context, not long after the Maxwell material was unveiled, C-Span announced they were taking the big picture approach. The nonprofit public service network said it would “present the entire interview – over 9 hours in length –unedited and without interruption, as released by the DOJ” tonight starting at 8 pm ET. “The interview will repeat in its entirety on Saturday, August 23, 2025, at 1pmET,” C-Span added, noting too that “the full presentation also will be available anytime” on their website.
This hot August Friday wasn’t already a chock full of news with the DC home of former Trump National Security Advisor John Bolton raided by the FBI early Friday.
In Trump’s typical flood the media zone tactic, that obvious retaliation against the aide who turned on Trump years ago was followed by the ex-Celebrity Apprentice host wandering around government gift shops and the perhaps soon to be renamed Kennedy Center and later promising a big Oval Office announcement. With the latest escalation of Russian attacks on Ukraine, troops in major American cities and interference with the Federal Reserve’s independence just a few topics of importance today, that self-styled “big announcement” turned out to be about the FIFA World Cup 2026 draw with a rambling improv Putin friendly press conference afterwards. Somewhere in there, in a move that seems more socialist that MAGA, the U.S. government took a 10% stake in tech giant Intel.
Don’t expect much damning to Trump to come out of those 33,000 pages of first Epstein documents the House oversight committee received today. “The committee intends to make these records public after thorough review to ensure any victims’ identification and child sexual abuse material are redacted,” a spokesperson for the committee chair, Rep James Comer, the Republican committee chair said today in a statement. The statement went on to add that the committee will also “consult” with the DOJ with the “to ensure any documents released do not negatively impact ongoing criminal cases and investigations.”
As for Maxwell, very quickly after her immunity granted interviews with Blache, she was transferred without explanation from the low-security facility in the Sunshine Stat, to a minimum-security prison camp in Texas.
