President Donald Trump spectacularly admitted that he has the power to pardon Jeffrey Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell.
And he didn’t rule out whether he’d use his sweeping pardon powers to let Maxwell off the hook.
She’s currently serving out 20 years in prison for her involvement in Epstein’s sordid crimes.
When asked about the matter, Trump responded: ‘I haven’t thought about.’
‘I’m allowed to do it, but it’s something I haven’t thought about,’ he added.
There have been questions about whether Trump would use his presidential power to pardon her or commute her sentence.
A growing fringe effort to get Trump to pardon Maxwell has unfolded after the Justice Department rejected her effort to have her conviction on child sex trafficking charges thrown out.
Maxwell is serving a 20-year prison sentence for her role in conspiring with Epstein to sexually abuse minors. She was convicted in 2021 on five counts related to sex trafficking and conspiracy.
Last week, the White House quickly slapped down suggestions that Trump is seriously considering letting Maxwell off the hook.
President Donald Trump noted he has the power to pardon Ghislaine Maxwell
‘There have been no discussions or consideration of a pardon for Ghislaine Maxwell, and there never will be,’ a senior White House official told the Daily Mail.
Trump’s comment comes as Maxwell, the only person currently behind bars for Jeffrey Epstein‘s child sex trafficking ring, is having a second day of meetings with the Justice Department.
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche flew down to Florida for an in-person sit-down as Trump’s MAGA base demands answers on her knowledge of Epstein’s crimes amid claims of a ‘cover-up.’
Maxwell’s attorney David Markus said she answered every question asked of her during the marathon interview that lasted all day on Thursday. She is meeting Blanche again on Friday.
Maxwell took the ‘full day and asked a lot of questions,’ he said.
‘Miss Maxwell answered every single question. She never stopped. She never invoked a privilege. She never declined to answer. She answered all the questions truthfully, honestly and to the best of her ability.’
It’s unclear what Maxwell can reveal that isn’t already public and the closed-door meeting is fueling skepticism over the handling of the Epstein files review.
Maxwell is also on the books to testify before Congress from prison on August 11.
Even as his administration questions here, Trump is trying to move on from the matter.
Trump, taking questions on the South Lawn of the White House before leaving on a trip to Scotland, showed a flash of annoyance with the questions about Epstein.
‘People should really focus on how well the country is doing,’ he said.
He said he had never visited Epstein’s private island in the Caribbean.
Despite the president’s attempts to move on, Epstein keeps haunting his administration.
His ties to the financer have come back into the spotlight after the Wall Street Journal reported Trump contributed a lewd birthday card to Epstein for his 50th birthday.
Trump sued the Journal and denied writing the card.
‘Somebody could have written a letter and used my name,’ he told reporters on Friday.
He then pointed to the ‘Steele dossier’ – a controversial political opposition research report in the 2016 presidential campaign the examined Trump’s ties to Russia.
‘Take a look at the dossier, the fake dossier,’ he added. ‘Everything is fake. They are a bunch of sick people.
From left, Donald Trump and then-girlfriend Melania Knauss, financier (and future convicted sex offender) Jeffrey Epstein, and British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell pose together at the Mar-a-Lago in February 2000
Ghislaine Maxwell, 63, will meet with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche ‘in the coming days,’ the Justice Department announced Tuesday, July 22. Maxwell is serving a 20-year prison sentence for her role in the child sex trafficking crimes
The Journal said it had reviewed a typewritten letter bearing Trump´s signature, framed by the seemingly hand-drawn outline of a naked woman, that Ghislaine Maxwell included in a 2003 birthday album.
Trump has denied writing the letter or drawing the picture, calling it ‘false, malicious, and defamatory.’
The Journal and its parent company Dow Jones stand by the story.
The president has tried to downplay his ties to Epstein, pointing to others who knew the financier.
He suggested people focus on Larry Summers from Harvard, Bill Clinton, who you know very well and lots of other friends, close friends of Jeffrey,’ he said.
‘They should speak about them because they don’t talk about them. They talk about me. I have nothing to do with the guy,’ Trump noted.
But the two men knew each other and were pictured together at social events in the early 2000s.
Trump, however, said they had a falling out in 2004 and he banned Epstein from his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Fla.
Epstein, however, continues to haunt the Trump administration.
The president has tried to move on from the disgraced financier who died in prison in 2019 while awaiting trial on charges related to sex trafficking minors.
He called for a federal judge to release grand jury testimony related to the Epstein case as he tries to calm the fury from his MAGA supporters over a lack of new information released about the case.
The MAGA faithful were counting on Trump to release a cache of new information on Epstein, who is subject to a rash of conspiracy theories, including unproven ones that he did not commit suicide while awaiting trial.
But Attorney General Pam Bondi crushed MAGA hopes when her department released the two-page memo saying it found no evidence that the convicted sex offender blackmailed powerful people or kept a ‘client list’ and reiterated that he died by suicide in his prison cell in 2019.
The memo also said that no more people would be arrested, charged or convicted in the Epstein child sex trafficking case.
