Ghislane Maxwell, the convicted associate of Jeffrey Epstein, told a top Justice Department official last month that she never observed President Donald Trump in an “inappropriate setting,” according to a recently released transcript.
“I never witnessed the President in any inappropriate setting in any way,” Maxwell said. “The President was never inappropriate with anybody.”
The interview comes amid renewed public scrutiny over Trump’s connections to Epstein and the Justice Department’s decision not to release all files from the Epstein investigation, which has drawn criticism from both congressional Democrats and parts of Trump’s conservative base.
Maxwell, serving a 20-year sentence for her 2021 sex trafficking conviction, recounted possibly meeting Trump in 1990 through her father, newspaper magnate Robert Maxwell.
“I may have met Donald Trump at that time, because my father was friendly with him and liked him very much,” she said. She added that her father was fond of Trump’s then-wife, Ivana, “because she was also from Czechoslovakia, where my dad was from.”
The two-day interview with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche took place last month in a Florida courthouse. Following the interview, Maxwell was transferred from a low-security federal prison in Florida to a minimum-security camp in Texas, a move neither her lawyer nor the Bureau of Prisons has explained.
Epstein’s case has long drawn attention for his ties to high-profile figures, including Prince Andrew, former President Bill Clinton, and Trump. Epstein died by suicide in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges. Trump has previously said his relationship with Epstein ended years before the financier’s arrest.
The Justice Department’s release of Maxwell’s statements adds a new layer to public understanding of the high-profile case, while leaving questions about the scope of Trump’s interactions with Epstein’s social circle.
The saga has dominated the Trump administration this past month after the FBI and Justice Department issued a brief two-page statement confirming Epstein’s suicide, dismissing conspiracy theories, clarifying that a “client list” Attorney General Pam Bondi referenced didn’t exist, and stating no other documents from the investigation were ready for release.
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