President Donald Trump on Monday once again didn’t rule out a pardon for convicted sex trafficker Ghislane Maxwell when asked about it during a meeting with U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer in Scotland.
Maxwell is serving a 20-year sentence for crimes committed with Jeffrey Epstein. She met last week with Todd Blanche, the No. 2 at the Justice Department and a former personal lawyer for Trump, at a U.S. attorney’s office in Tallahassee, Florida, to discuss the Epstein case. Maxwell has appealed her case to the Supreme Court, saying her conviction was invalid because of an earlier deal Epstein made with federal prosecutors.
“Well, I’m allowed to give her a pardon, but nobody’s approached me with it,” Trump said on Monday during an hour-long exchange with reporters at the beginning of a bilateral meeting with Starmer at Trump’s resort in Turnberry. “But right now, it would be inappropriate to talk about it.” Trump gave a similar answer to reporters at the White House on Friday, saying: “I’m allowed to do it, but it’s something I have not thought about.”
Voices within Trump’s MAGA base have demanded he release more files from the Department of Justice’s investigation of Epstein. Trump and Epstein spent time together for years, mostly during the 1990s. The calls for more disclosures have sparked a rare firestorm aimed at Trump from his own supporters.
House Speaker Mike Johnson was asked about a pardon for Maxwell on Sunday and also didn’t rule it out. He expressed some misgivings, saying, “we have to protect the innocent. And that’s the only safeguard here that we’ve got to be diligent about.” Pardoning Maxwell is “a decision for the President,” Johnson said on NBC’s Meet the Press. “We are for maximum disclosure.”
Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, who is leading a bipartisan effort with Democrat Ro Khanna of California to press for the full release of the Epstein-related government files, said Sunday that Maxwell should testify before Congress. “If she has information that could help us, then I think she should testify. Let’s get that out there,” Massie said, also speaking on Meet the Press. “And whatever they need to do to compel that testimony, as long as it’s truthful, I would be in favor of.” Last week, the House Oversight Committee voted to hold a congressional deposition for Maxwell.
During the press conference at Turnberry on Monday, Trump said he never visited the private island where Epstein allegedly threw parties. “I never had the privilege of going to his island,” Trump said. “I did turn it down.”
