No unrepentant convicted child sex trafficker ever got better treatment than Ghislaine Maxwell did from the man who is now acting attorney general.
Todd Blanche was deputy attorney general last July, when he interviewed Maxwell for nine hours over two days in a federal prosecutor’s office in Florida.
He began the first session saying that her attorney had reached out to him “and said that you wanted to speak with somebody from the government about, not only your case, but about everything that’s been in the media.”
Maxwell replied that she had indeed told her lawyers “that I would be very keen to talk to anyone, because no one from the government at any time, since the inception of the case, dating back to the early 2000s, has ever spoken to me.”
In fact, Maxwell had sought to hide in the house when FBI agents tracked her to New Hampshire in July of 2020. She had declined numerous opportunities to offer her side. And she had chosen not to testify on her own behalf during her trial.
But three years after Maxwell had been convicted by a jury and sentenced to 20 years in July 2022, Blanche was offering her a chance to give her account without facing cross-examination. Blanche just let it pass unchallenged when she insisted she had never known any women of any age to have endured anything “inappropriate” at the hands of notorious sex offender Jeffrey Epstein or those close to him.
“I never saw a tear,” Maxwell told Blanche. “I never saw any of that.”
The first victim to take the stand during Maxwell’s trial had told a very different tale. Identified only as Jane, she testified that she was 13 and doubly vulnerable due to the death of her father and the loss of her family home in 1994, when she and some friends were approached by a woman with a dog.
“She was walking with a cute little Yorkie,” Jane recalled of that first encounter. “We asked if we could pet the dog. We started chit-chatting, petted the dog. And the rest of my classmates had to go to class. And probably about a minute later, a man came and joined her.”
The woman was Maxwell and her Yorkie was named Max. The man was Epstein. He and Maxwell were commencing a classic scheme to groom and sexually prey on an unsuspecting young girl. Her account was detailed and chilling.
At one point, Jane testified that Epstein had introduced her to Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago in December of 1994. A 2020 civil suit that Jane later filed against the Epstein estate and its executors alleged, “Introducing 14-year-old [Jane] to Donald J. Trump, Epstein elbowed Trump playfully, asking him, referring to [Jane], ‘This is a good one, right?’ Trump smiled and nodded in agreement. They both chuckled and [Jane] felt uncomfortable, but, at the time, was too young to understand why.”
Despite Jane having harrowingly testified under oath to the contrary, Maxwell told Blanche of Jane, “I only saw her in Palm Beach and I only saw her with her mother.” Blanche just moved on. He apparently had not come to hear about such things, especially if they did not involve prominent Democrats.
Blanche did ask Maxwell about the 50th birthday book she had helped assemble as a gift for Epstein. One of the 238 pages features a silhouette drawing of a naked woman and what appears to be Trump’s distinctive signature, placed so its loops appear to mimic pubic hair.
“Do you remember President Trump submitting a letter or a card or a note?” Blnache asked.
“I don’t,” Maxwell replied.
After a break, Blanche returned to the subject.
“We talked a few minutes ago about this birthday book that there’s press about,” Blanche said. “I understand you don’t remember anything with President Trump or a lot about the book anyway. Do you remember asking President Trump to submit a letter for that?”
“I do not,” Maxwell said.
“And do you remember, would you have been the one to do that or could somebody else—would somebody else have done that?” he asked.
“I did ask some people. I don’t remember Mr. Trump.”
At another point, Blanche asked about widely seen photos of Trump with Epstein, sometimes including Maxwell.
“Those all appear to be social settings,” Blanche said.
“That’s my memory,” Maxwell said. “They were social settings… I think they were friendly, like people are in social settings. I don’t think they were close friends.”
She added, “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.”
Later, Blanche told CNN that he could not say whether Maxwell was “credible” when she denied involvement in Epstein’s crimes.
“It’s an impossible question to answer,” Blanche said.
Blanche was discounting Jane and the other victims in the trial that had ended in Maxwell’s conviction.
But it was enough that Maxwell had only good things to say about Trump and denied knowing anything about that page in the infamous birthday book. Maxwell was transferred from a federal prison in Florida to a lower-security prison camp in Texas, where sex offenders have otherwise been barred.
Blanche’s reward for his many deeds on behalf of Trump came on Thursday with his appointment as acting attorney general.
Now Ghislaine awaits the rest of her reward for having friends in the highest places.
