The woman thought to have the most direct knowledge of Jeffrey Epstein’s decades-long sex-trafficking operation claims there was no client list, no blackmail scheme and — to her knowledge — no high-profile Epstein associates who committed illicit acts in connection with the notorious sex-offender’s crimes.
That’s according to an account provided by Epstein’s convicted co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell to a top official of the U.S. Department of Justice during a highly unusual two-day interview session last month, according to a transcript and audio of the conversation released Friday by the DOJ.
“There is no list,” Maxwell told Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche. “I’m not aware of any blackmail. I never heard that. I never saw it, and I never imagined it.”
Maxwell told Blanche that during her time with Epstein — which ranged from the early 1990s to the mid-2000s — she never witnessed nor heard of any inappropriate or criminal activity by President Donald Trump, former President Bill Clinton, nor any of the well-known men who associated with Epstein, according to the transcript.
Trump, Maxwell said, was cordial and a “gentleman in all respects” in all of her interactions with him. She described Clinton as a “truly extraordinary” man and a “fantastic ex-president,” according to the transcript of the meetings, which took place at the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Tallahassee, Florida.
The 63-year old Maxwell, who has been incarcerated since her arrest in 2020, also claimed she had been misidentified by a key witness at her criminal trial and insisted she was not involved in the sexual exploitation of minors.
“I did introduce him to women. I did, but not underage women,” she said. “And I did look for masseuses, I did. I went to spas and if I met somebody who said she was a masseuse, I did not check their credentials.”
Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell attend de Grisogono Sponsors The 2005 Wall Street Concert Series Benefitting Wall Street Rising, with a Performance by Rod Stewart at Cipriani Wall Street on March 15, 2005 in New York City. (Photo by Joe Schildhorn/Patrick McMullan via Getty Images)
Patrick Mcmullan/Patrick McMullan via Getty Image
Blanche — who previously served as a personal defense attorney to President Donald Trump — announced his intention to speak with Maxwell in a social media post last month, as the Trump administration sought to quell the self-inflicted controversy surrounding its decision not to release the government’s investigative files on Epstein, after repeatedly promising to do so.
The Department of Justice — in an unsigned memo released last month explaining its decision — said that a “systematic review” revealed no incriminating client list and no evidence “that could predicate an investigation into uncharged third parties.”
Maxwell was granted limited immunity for the interview with Blanche — meaning nothing she said could be used against her, unless she lied. She and her attorneys signed the agreement at the outset of each day of the interview session, the transcript shows.
Maxwell is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence for aiding and participating in Epstein’s trafficking of underage girls, which involved a scheme to recruit young women and girls for massages of Epstein that turned sexual. Federal prosecutors in New York said Maxwell helped Epstein recruit, groom and ultimately abuse girls as young as 14.
Despite her conviction at trial in 2021 — where she declined to take the witness stand — Maxwell claimed in her interview with Blanche that she had been wrongly accused and did not receive a fair trial. She maintained, as she had done previously in a 2016 deposition in a civil case, that she never recruited anyone underage to massage Epstein and never witnessed or participated in any criminal acts, according to the transcript.
“I have no memory … of having seen anybody that resembles a young child, let’s call it what it is, at that house giving him a massage at all,” Maxwell said, in reference to Epstein’s Palm Beach home.
“I saw him with a lot of masseuses. I never saw a single masseuse ever look unhappy or not come back or whatever,” Maxwell said. “So any time I saw anybody with him, they were happy to be with him.”
Maxwell was indicted in July 2020, during the first Trump administration. Her trial occurred in late 2021, while President Joe Biden was in the White House.
Federal prosecutors charged Maxwell with perjury for alleged lies she told during the 2016 deposition. And the government repeatedly assailed her credibility during her criminal case, citing her “willingness to lie brazenly under oath about her conduct,” according to court records.
The perjury counts against her were eventually dropped after her conviction on the more serious charges.
Blanche’s meeting with Maxwell came just days after the Justice Department fired Maurene Comey, a federal prosecutor in New York with the most detailed knowledge of the case. Comey, the daughter of former FBI Director James Comey, led the criminal prosecution of Maxwell.
The tone of the conversation appeared cordial and non-confrontational, a review of the transcript shows, with Blanche frequently allowing space for Maxwell’s lengthy critiques of the accounts of her accusers.
“I don’t want you to be burdened,” Blanche told Maxwell a few hours into the interview. “I want you to just tell the truth the best you can. So I don’t want you to be burdened by what people said at trial or what, you know, the press says about you.”
Blanche — the top deputy to U.S. Attorney General Pamela Bondi –indicated that the goal of the Maxwell meeting was to determine if she had “information about anyone who has committed crimes against victims,” according to a July 22 statement posted to social media by the DOJ.
According to sources familiar with internal deliberations that preceded the meeting with Maxwell, Blanche was encouraged by some top administration officials to seek information that could lead to criminal investigations that might quiet the outrage from some of Trump’s most vocal supporters.
“The FBI and the DOJ will hear what she has to say,” Blanche wrote in the post. “Until now, no administration on behalf of the Department had inquired about her willingness to meet with the government. That changes now.”
The transcript confirms previous ABC News reporting that it was Maxwell’s legal team that initiated the request for the meeting.
“That’s true and I did speak to [my lawyer] … and did tell him that I would be very keen to talk to anyone because no one from the government at any time ever … since the inception of the case, so dating back to the early 2000s, has ever spoken to me, and I, indeed, I believe ever reached out to me at any time to even speak to me,” Maxwell said.
Maxwell appealed her conviction but her attempts have thus far been unsuccessful. She now has a pending application before the U.S. Supreme Court to review her conviction. Her lawyers have stated that they have not yet asked President Trump to commute her sentence or to pardon her, but that Maxwell “would welcome any relief.”
Blanche was accompanied by an FBI agent and another DOJ official and Maxwell was with three of her attorneys, according to the transcript.
The unusual meeting involving the nation’s second-ranking law enforcement official and a convicted sex-trafficker evoked a strong response from some victims of Epstein and Maxwell.
Annie Farmer, one of the witnesses who testified for the prosecution at Maxwell’s trial, told a federal court last week that she and other victims “unequivocally object to any potential leniency that the government may be considering for Maxwell.”
During nine hours of questioning over two days, Maxwell was quizzed by Blanche about dozens of famous people — politicians, business titans and Hollywood stars — who had previously been named as having associated with Epstein. The inquiries started broadly — with Blanche asking if Maxwell or Epstein knew the people — before asking if any of the high profile figures had done anything improper. And in each instance, Maxwell indicated that she had never witnessed nor heard about any alleged wrongdoing, the transcript shows
Maxwell’s attorney, David Markus, told reporters after the meetings concluded that his client had been asked by Blanche about “one hundred different people.”
“She didn’t hold anything back,” Markus said.
Among those Blanche inquired about, according to the transcript, were tech billionaires Bill Gates, Reid Hoffman and Elon Musk; political figures Ehud Barak, Robert Kennedy Jr. and the late U.S. Senator George Mitchell; and celebrities Kevin Spacey, Chris Tucker and Naomi Campbell.
The rumored existence of an apocryphal “Epstein client list” has long fueled speculation of a “deep state” cover-up to protect an elite cabal of alleged participants in Epstein’s crimes. Some of the most vocal purveyors of the theory — including FBI Director Kash Patel and his top deputy Dan Bongino — have since taken up prominent posts in the Trump administration.
But Maxwell said there was no such list and that she saw no indication that Epstein had obtained compromising information that he used to extort others.
“A man wants sexual favors, he will find that. They didn’t have to come to Epstein for that,” Maxwell said.
“[T]here’s no list. There never was a list,” she said. “None that I ever heard of, none that I ever witnessed.”
At one point in the interview, Maxwell likened the quest to find others complicit in Epstein’s crimes to a dark period in early American history.
“So that narrative that was created and then built upon, and it just mushroomed into what — basically this is like a Salem witch trial. People go and lost [sic] their minds for this thing,” she said. “I mean, it’s bananas.”
Significant portions of the interview were dedicated to inquiries about President Trump and ex-President Bill Clinton.
Before any allegations of sexual misconduct against Epstein surfaced in 2005, Trump and Clinton each spoke glowingly of Epstein, and court records have included documents and testimony indicating that — at separate times — both men flew with Epstein on his private jets.
Clinton’s association with Epstein was first noted publicly in 2002, after reporters learned of the former president’s journey that year on Epstein’s jet for a humanitarian mission to multiple African nations. Clinton told New York magazine through a spokesman at the time that “Jeffrey is both a highly successful financier and a committed philanthropist with a keen sense of global markets and an in-depth knowledge of twenty-first-century science.”
In that same article, Trump boasted of his friendship with Epstein, saying, “I’ve known Jeff for fifteen years. Terrific guy.”
“He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side. No doubt about it — Jeffrey enjoys his social life,” Trump told the magazine.
Maxwell told Blanche she had a friendship with former President Clinton after being introduced by a mutual acquaintance, she said.
“President Clinton was my friend, not Epstein’s friend,” she said. “President Clinton liked me, and we got along terribly well. But I never saw that warmth with Mr. Epstein.”
Maxwell said she had suggested to Epstein that he allow Clinton to use his private jumbo-jet to fly to multiple international destinations in Africa, Asia and Europe in the early 2000’s, after the end of his presidency. Clinton, Maxwell said, had no particular interest in Epstein other than having the use of his plane.
“They met because of me and the plane was because of me,” she said. “I didn’t see President Clinton being interested in Epstein. He was just a rich guy with the plane.”
Despite President Trump’s oft-repeated claims that Clinton had traveled more than 20 times to Little St. James — Epstein’s private U.S. Virgin Islands estate where much of Epstein’s abuse is alleged to have occurred — Maxwell said the former president had never been there and wouldn’t have wanted to go, because he had no relationship with Epstein.
“He never, absolutely never went. And I can be sure of that because there’s no way he would have gone. I don’t believe there’s any way that he would’ve gone to the island had I not been there. Because I don’t believe he had an independent friendship, if you will, with Epstein,” Maxwell told Blanche.
Bill Clinton has previously said through a spokesperson that he “knew nothing” about Epstein’s crimes, had never visited the island, and that all the flights on Epstein’s aircraft in 2002 and 2003 were associated with work for the Clinton Foundation.
As for the current president, Maxwell said that she first knew of Trump through her late father, who purchased the New York Daily News in 1991. She said she only saw Trump and Epstein, both native New Yorkers, together in social settings and never saw or heard anything inappropriate about Trump while he was with Epstein.
“I may have met Donald Trump at that time because my father was very friendly with him and liked him very much,” Maxwell said. “And I think, [it] should be said that he also very much liked [Trump’s first wife] Ivana because she was also from Czechoslovakia where my dad was from.”
Maxwell said she only saw the two native New Yorkers, Trump and Epstein, together in social settings and never saw or heard anything inappropriate about Trump while he was with Epstein.
“I don’t know how they met, and I don’t know how they became friends. I certainly saw them together and I remember the few times I observed them together. But they were friendly. I mean, they seemed friendly,” Maxwell said.
And at a time when her legal team has publicly signaled her hopes for a reprieve from the president, Maxwell expressed admiration for Trump.
“And as far as I am concerned, President Trump was always very cordial and very kind to me. And I just want to say that I find — I admire his extraordinary achievement in becoming president now. And I like him. And I’ve always liked him,” she said.
“And did you ever hear Mr. Epstein or anybody say that President Trump had done anything inappropriate with masseuses or with anybody in your world? Blanche asked.
“Absolutely never, in any context,” Maxwell replied.
Published reports in the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal last month indicated that the decision not to release the Epstein files came after President Trump was informed in May that his name was among those that appeared multiple times in the documents. The president has denied that he was told his name appeared in the files.
The appearance of a name in the Epstein files is not evidence of illicit activity.
President Trump has said he ended his association with Epstein before any allegations of sexual abuse were raised in Florida in the mid 2000s.
Trump said in 2019, after Epstein’s arrest for child sex trafficking, that he hadn’t spoken to him in 15 years. More recently, the president has claimed he split with Epstein after discovering Epstein was allegedly poaching employees from the spa at Mar-a-Lago, the president’s private club in Palm Beach.
Maxwell was escorted from her prison cell in Tallahassee to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the two days of meetings with Blanche. A week later, she was transferred to a minimum-security federal prison camp for women in Texas, with no official explanation for the move.
Maxwell is the Oxford-educated daughter of Robert Maxwell, the larger-than-life publishing baron whose rags-to-riches story captivated England. She lived an extravagant life among the British elite until her father’s business empire collapsed in the wake of his death in 1991. She relocated to New York looking for a fresh start and was soon seen in the company of the mysterious multimillionaire Epstein.
Epstein was arrested in July 2019 and charged in a federal indictment with conspiracy and child sex trafficking. He died in custody a month later, while awaiting trial. His death was ruled a suicide by hanging.
