Trump says ‘I’ll give you a list’ of Epstein associates and ‘I’m allowed’ to pardon Maxwell
President Donald Trump said he would provide a list of Jeffrey Epstein’s associates – and did not rule out pardoning the late sex offender’s accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell.
Trump made the shocking remark as the Justice Department interviews Maxwell for a second day in Tallahassee, Florida, where she is serving a 20-year sentence for sex trafficking.
‘You should focus on (Bill) Clinton. You should focus on the president of Harvard, the former president of Harvard, you should focus on some of the hedge fund guys. I’ll give you a list,’ Trump told reporters as he left the White House for Scotland on Friday morning.
The president also acknowledged that he has the power to pardon Maxwell, who is seeking a way out of prison.
‘I’m allowed to do it, but it’s something I haven’t thought about,’ he said.
Trump added that he was not concerned that Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, who is interviewing Maxwell, could be misled by her.
Blanche is a ‘professional lawyer who’s been through things like this before,’ he said.
Trump again denied writing a letter to Epstein with the outline of a naked woman for his 50th birthday, which was part of a book Maxwell put together, and offered an explanation for the report.
‘Somebody could have written a letter and used my name,’ the president said.
He spoke as Maxwell was spotted returning to the Federal Correctional Institution in Tallahassee carrying a box of materials after being grilled by Blanche. CCTV footage obtained by WCTV showed Maxwell wearing khaki pants and a brown shirt. She was allowed by security to take the box back to prison. What was inside the box was not immediately known.
Maxwell on Thursday ‘answered every single question’ that Blanche asked her, according to her attorney, David Oscar Markus.
Blanche ‘took a full day and asked a lot of questions’ and Maxwell ‘never invoked a privilege, never declined to answer’, said Markus.
‘She answered all of the questions truthfully, honestly and to the best of her ability,’ he said.
Blanche wrote on social media that ‘the Department of Justice will share additional information about what we learned at the appropriate time’.
The Justice Department, which prosecuted Maxwell, asked the US Supreme Court to reject her appeal of her conviction but is in the awkward position of interviewing her, in an effort to dispel blowback the Trump administration has received on its handling of the Epstein case.
Even Trump’s supporters are clamoring for answers after the Justice Department and FBI earlier this month announced that there was no incriminating Epstein client list, despite prior promises to release the documents.
Later on Friday, Markus said that Maxwell answered questions from Justice Department officials on roughly ‘100 different people’ linked to Epstein.
Maxwell was ‘asked about every possible thing you could imagine – everything’, her attorney said.
‘This was the first opportunity she’s ever been given to answer questions about what happened,’ he said.
‘The truth will come out about what happened with Mr Epstein and she’s the person who’s answering those questions.’
Markus added that Maxwell has been treated as a ‘scapegoat’ in the Epstein case and that they have formally requested a pardon for her from the White House.
‘The president said earlier he has the power to do so, we hope he exercises that power in the right way,’ he said of a possible commutation for Maxwell.
Trump, after landing in Scotland on Friday, denied a report that Attorney General Pam Bondi told him in May that his name appears multiple times in the Epstein files.
‘No, I was never briefed,’ he said. ‘No.’
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