July 25, 2025: After Ghislaine Maxwell Interview, Concerns Mount Over Possibility of Pardon

 

After Ghislaine Maxwell Interview, Concerns Mount Over Possibility of Pardon

 

President Trump, asked whether he would consider pardoning her, said, “I’m allowed to do it, but it’s something I haven’t thought about.”

 

By Glenn Thrush and Valerie Crowder

Glenn Thrush reported from Washington, and Valerie Crowder from Tallahassee, Fla.

July 25, 2025

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/25/us/politics/ghislaine-maxwell-trump-pardon.html

 

The yellowjacket buzz of a plane circling above the federal courthouse in Tallahassee, Fla., on Friday roused the perspiring platoon of reporters staking out a meeting between a top Justice Department official and Ghislaine Maxwell.

 

The plane’s banner read, “Trump and Bondi are protecting predators.”

 

The accusation summed up concerns on the ground as Todd Blanche, Attorney General Pam Bondi’s top deputy, concluded a second extraordinary day of interviews with Ms. Maxwell, once a fixer for the financier Jeffrey Epstein who is now imprisoned on charges of sex trafficking.

 

Her lawyer estimated that over the course of her interview, Ms. Maxwell answered questions about 100 people, though it was unclear whether they included victims, associates or others implicated in her sex-trafficking case.

 

Ms. Maxwell has made it clear she wants her 20-year sentence thrown out or reduced or a pardon. President Trump, asked whether he would consider pardoning her, said, “I’m allowed to do it, but it’s something I haven’t thought about.” He made the remarks before he headed off to Scotland, wishing her well.

 

Pressed for details of the interview with Ms. Maxwell after he landed in Scotland, he added, ”I don’t know anything about the conversation.” He continued, “Obviously, this is no time to be talking about pardons.”

 

Mr. Blanche has described his trip as a neutral fact-finding mission, saying he would share details of the discussion “at the appropriate time” — yet he has also declared that the federal criminal investigation into targets beyond Ms. Maxwell and Mr. Epstein remains closed. By that standard, new interviews would appear to serve a function beyond the purposes of traditional law enforcement, unless new evidence of criminality has been discovered, current and former officials said.

 

The department offered Ms. Maxwell conditional immunity to discuss the case, but the protection did not apply if she lied in her interviews, according to an official with knowledge of the situation who requested anonymity to discuss details of the case publicly. In total, the interview lasted about eight to 10 hours.

 

The Blanche-Maxwell discussion has stoked concerns from critics of Mr. Trump, a onetime friend of Mr. Epstein’s, that he may grant Ms. Maxwell a reprieve.

 

Senator Charles Schumer, the Democratic leader, questioned whether Mr. Blanche had offered Ms. Maxwell “some kind of a corrupt deal so that she can exonerate Donald Trump.”

 

Teresa Helm, who was abused by Mr. Epstein and testified against Ms. Maxwell, was blunt about the consequences of such a deal in an interview with MSNBC on Friday. “It would mean the complete crumbling of this justice system that should first and foremost stand for, fight for and protect survivors,” she said, adding that the government had accused Ms. Maxwell of perjury on top of other charges.

 

“She should stay in prison,” said Lisa Lloyd, 65, the lone protester at the courthouse. “This is wrong. Anyone who is concerned with justice should be appalled by this.”

 

A Justice Department spokesman declined to comment.

 

Some conservative news outlets friendly to Mr. Trump have begun to soften their tone about Ms. Maxwell — whom they previously described as a child sex predator — suggesting she might now be trusted to tell the truth about the case. This week, a host on Newsmax who has praised Mr. Trump went so far as to suggest that Ms. Maxwell “just might be a victim” who was not given a fair legal hearing.

 

The Friday session with Ms. Maxwell began around 9 a.m. and ended in the early afternoon when one of her lawyers, David Markus, approached reporters to declare that she had honestly “answered every single question asked of her over the last day and a half.”

 

Mr. Markus, who has a friendly relationship with Mr. Blanche, said Justice Department officials “asked about every possible thing imaginable.”

 

Ms. Maxwell was pressed about “maybe a hundred different people,” he added, without saying who. “She didn’t hold anything back.”

 

No offers of clemency have been made, and Mr. Markus said that he was not asking for a quid pro quo for his client’s answering the questions.

 

“We haven’t spoken to the president or anybody about a pardon just yet,” Mr. Markus said. “The president this morning said he had the power to do so. We hope he exercises that power.”

 

Ms. Maxwell has appealed her conviction to the Supreme Court, arguing that she should not have been charged in the sex trafficking case because of a nonprosecution agreement that federal attorneys in Florida reached in 2007. The agreement promised that potential co-conspirators would not be prosecuted, but Ms. Maxwell argues it should have also protected her from prosecution in New York.

 

Congress has subpoenaed her to testify in August. Ms. Maxwell has not decided whether she will participate, Mr. Markus said.

 

In a post on social media late Thursday, Mr. Blanche said that the department would “share additional information about what we learned at the appropriate time.”

 

In May, Ms. Bondi and Mr. Blanche, both of whom previously served as lawyers for Mr. Trump, informed Mr. Trump that his name was among those of high-profile figures that appeared in the Epstein files, according to people with knowledge of the meeting. It was part of a broader briefing on the re-examination of the Epstein case by F.B.I. agents and prosecutors.

 

In Scotland, Mr. Trump denied those reports, saying, “No, I was never, never briefed.”

 

It is not clear how significant the references to Mr. Trump were. But the briefing sheds light on private West Wing discussions at a moment when the president’s team is desperately trying to quell the rebellion of Trump supporters who feel that he and some of his senior appointees led them astray with campaign claims that they would make the files available.

 

Mr. Trump’s top two F.B.I. appointees were among those who were adamant before taking on their government roles that there was more to uncover in the files. And earlier this year, Ms. Bondi described the files as significant material to wade through.

 

Mr. Trump already appeared in documents related to the investigation that have been made public. He was a friend of Mr. Epstein’s until they had what Mr. Trump has described as a falling-out in the early 2000s. At the White House in February, Ms. Bondi distributed a series of binders about the Epstein files that included the phone numbers of some of the president’s family members, including his daughter.

 

“As part of our routine briefing, we made the president aware of the findings,” Ms. Bondi and Mr. Blanche wrote in a statement in response to questions about the briefing, which took place in May. “Nothing in the files warranted further investigation or prosecution.”

 

Glenn Thrush covers the Department of Justice for The Times and has also written about gun violence, civil rights and conditions in the country’s jails and prisons.