The Justice Dept. is expected to interview Ghislaine Maxwell in Florida on Thursday.

 

The Justice Dept. is expected to interview Ghislaine Maxwell in Florida on Thursday.

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2025/07/24/us/trump-epstein-news#ghislaine-maxwell-epstein-interview

 

Justice Department officials are expected to interview Ghislaine Maxwell, the longtime associate of Jeffrey Epstein who is serving a 20-year sentence for sex trafficking, in Tallahassee, Fla., on Thursday, according to two people with knowledge of the situation.

 

Todd Blanche, the No. 2 official at the department who brokered the meeting, flew to Florida on Wednesday night, though it was not clear whether he would attend or conduct the interview, one of those people said.

 

It is also unclear what information Ms. Maxwell, who has made it plain she wants out of prison, could provide beyond what is already in the public record.

 

The interview is part of the department’s effort to quell criticism that federal officials are concealing details about Mr. Epstein’s crimes and interactions with high-profile figures, including President Trump.

 

The involvement of Mr. Blanche, a former criminal lawyer for Mr. Trump, is an extraordinary effort by an administration official to address a presidential political crisis. It has little, if any, law enforcement implications, and is one of several harried and hurried actions in recent days intended to distract from the furor over the administration’s decision to not release more files in the Epstein case. The case is an obsession of many far-right influencers at the core of Mr. Trump’s base, and officials now in the administration had suggested during the campaign they would release the files.

 

On Wednesday, a House Oversight subcommittee voted to subpoena the department for all of the remaining documents that have not been released, a rebuke of the decision this month by Attorney General Pam Bondi and the F.B.I. director, Kash Patel, to reverse course and not release documents and video, citing concerns for victims and witnesses.

 

All of these efforts by the White House and Justice Department appear to be stoking even more interest in the Epstein case. Increasingly, critics are focusing on Mr. Trump’s friendship with Mr. Epstein, which ended in rancor two decades ago.

 

Ms. Bondi informed Mr. Trump in the spring that his name appeared in the Epstein files, according to three people with knowledge of the exchange.

 

The disclosure came as part of a broader briefing on the re-examination of the case against Mr. Epstein, who died in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges, by F.B.I. agents and prosecutors. It was made by Ms. Bondi during a meeting that also included the deputy attorney general, Todd Blanche, and covered a variety of topics. Ms. Bondi frequently meets with Mr. Trump to brief him on various matters, officials said.

 

Ms. Bondi and Mr. Blanche, both of whom previously served as lawyers for Mr. Trump, informed the president that his name, as well as those of other high-profile figures, had come up in their re-examination of documents connected to the case that were not public.

 

It is not clear how significant the references to Mr. Trump are.