DOJ releases interview with Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell: 5 takeaways

The Justice Department (DOJ) on Friday released transcripts and audio files from its interview with Ghislaine Maxwell and turned over to House lawmakers thousands of pages of documents related to convicted offender Jeffrey Epstein.

The disclosures came as Justice Department officials sought to satisfy lawmakers in both parties who had pushed for more transparency around the Epstein files.

Maxwell, a longtime associate of Epstein, was convicted in 2021 on sex trafficking charges and sentenced to 20 years in prison. She sat down with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche for two days in July to discuss the Epstein case, during which she told him she “never witnessed” President Trump in an “inappropriate setting.”

Here are five takeaways on the release of the Maxwell interview.

Maxwell doesn’t believe Epstein died by suicide

Maxwell told Blanche she does not believe Epstein died by suicide, fanning the flames of a common conspiracy theory that even Trump’s DOJ has tried to squash.

“So you think he was -- he did not die by suicide, given all the things we just talked about,” Blanche, who previously served as Trump’s personal attorney, asked Maxwell on the first day of their interview.

“I do not believe he died by suicide, no,” Maxwell added.

But Maxwell also said she had no reason to believe Epstein was killed in prison as part of an effort to keep him quiet or to prevent him from sharing information about powerful figures.

“I do not have any reason to believe that. And I also think it's ludicrous, because if that -- I also happen to think if that is what they wanted, they would've had plenty of opportunity when he wasn't in jail,” Maxwell said. “And if they were worried about blackmail or anything from him, he would've been a very easy target.”

Epstein died in August 2019 while he was being held at the Metropolitan Correction Center in New York City. Officials have repeatedly said he died by suicide, including earlier this year in a release from the Justice Department and FBI. Some conspiracy theorists have suggested Epstein’s death was nefarious and meant to hide something.

“After a thorough investigation, FBI investigators concluded that Jeffrey Epstein committed suicide in his cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York City on August 10, 2019. This conclusion is consistent with previous findings,” a July memo states. 

Maxwell says she never saw Bill Clinton getting a massage

Maxwell said she doesn’t believe former President Clinton, who Trump has said should be discussed as part of the Epstein scandal instead of him, ever received a massage and was only seen on the plane.

“Do you know whether, for example, President Clinton ever received a massage?” Blanche asked.

Maxwell replied, “I don't believe he did.”

Epstein’s trafficking of underage girls involved recruiting them to give massages that turned into sexual encounters. In Maxwell’s sentencing in 2022, she was accused of encouraging victims to massage Epstein and being present for “sexualized massages.”

When asked further about her answer on Clinton, Maxwell outlined that the only times Epstein and Clinton spent together “I believe– well, obviously they traveled.”

“There was that, you know, the plane, they went on the plane 26 times or whatever. That would be one journey. So they spent time on the plane together, and I don't believe there was ever a massage on the plane. So that would've been the only time that I think that President Clinton could have even received a massage. And he didn't, because I was there,” she said.

In another instance, Blanche said “we talked about people that were his clients and you’ve mentioned President Clinton.” Maxwell interrupted him and clarified, “Oh, I never said he was a client.”

Trump said last month he turned down an offer to go to Epstein’s private island and called on the press to focus on Clinton, who the president claimed went to the island “supposedly 28 times.”

Maxwell says there is no client list

Blanche asked about Epstein’s client list, after the DOJ drew sharp backlash last month for saying one did not exist.

The existence of a purported list of rich and powerful people to whom Epstein trafficked girls and young women has become fodder for conspiracy theories, particularly those on the right who claimed prominent Democrats would be exposed for having ties to Epstein.

“Did you know of the existence of any such list?” Blanche asked.

Maxwell replied, “There is no list. We'll start with that. The genesis of that story, I can actually trace for you from its absolute inception, if that is what you're interested in.”

“It is,” he added.

Maxwell’s attorney David Markus reiterated, “to be short, there’s no client list. Nothing like that.”

“No, there is nothing like that,” Maxwell added.

Blanche then pressed: “That you know of” and Maxwell replied, “that I -- obviously.”

The DOJ in July said there was no Epstein client list, despite Attorney General Pam Bondi saying earlier that a client list was on her desk and vowing to release it. The administration has defended Bondi’s previous claim, saying she was referring to all the paperwork on Epstein that was on her desk during a review of the case.

She doesn’t remember asking Trump for letter for birthday book

Blanche asked about the birthday book that Maxwell assembled for Epstein’s 50th birthday, a topic that has led to the president suing The Wall Street Journal for recently reporting that he was included in it. 

Maxwell described that people were invited “to say happy birthday with like, have a wonderful day or something else. There was no -- there was no ask, but I wasn't responsible for everybody in that book. And there were people that he would ask himself to contribute.”

Blanche asked her if she remembered Trump submitting a letter, card or note, and she replied, “I don’t.”

“There was none of Mr. Trump,” she added, referring to when she saw the book during her discovery in New York.

“Oh, in my discovery, sorry. President Trump, there was nothing from President Trump,” she added.

Blanche then asked if she remembers one way or another, separate from the discovery, if she remembers whether Trump submitted a letter for the book.

“I do not remember,” she replied.

The Wall Street Journal reported in July that Trump wrote a “bawdy” note for the leather-bound birthday album given to Epstein, which the president denied and sued the outlet over. The book would have been given to the financier three years before he was first charged with sexually abusing girls in Florida in 2006 and more than a decade before Epstein’s more high-profile sex trafficking arrest in 2019.

House receives first batch of Epstein Files

In addition to releasing the interview with Maxwell, the DOJ on Friday transmitted its first batch of files related to its Epstein investigation to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, in response to the panel’s subpoena for the full “Epstein Files.” 

The tranche of files is “thousands of pages,” according to an Oversight Committee GOP spokesperson, and included the more than 300 pages of interviews with Maxwell.

The Oversight panel also says it intends to publicly release the information it received from the DOJ after reviewing the material to ensure any identification of victims or child sexual abuse material are redacted, and so they do not “negatively impact ongoing criminal cases and investigations.”

Those documents were delivered several days later than the panel’s original Tuesday subpoena deadline, a delay that Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) was due to the sheer volume of files in the case. More disclosures are expected.

Ranking member Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) said earlier in the week that releasing the files in batches amounts to a “cover-up,” and that “the American People will not accept anything short of the full, unredacted Epstein files.”

Comer issued subpoena to the DOJ for the Epstein files pursuant to a motion led by Democrats in a subcommittee in July, which was approved due to support from three Republicans.