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      Mike Johnson would have ‘great pause’ about a Ghislaine Maxwell pardon

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      The US House speaker, Mike Johnson, said on Sunday he would have “great pause” about granting a pardon or commutation to Ghislaine Maxwell while another House Republican said it should be considered as part of an effort to obtain more information about Jeffrey Epstein’s crimes.Donald Trump and his allies, including Johnson, have been under immense pressure to disclose more information about Epstein for weeks, especially amid scrutiny over the extent of Trump’s relationship with Epstein. The splits over what to do with Maxwell illustrate the complicated challenge posed by the scandal for Trump, his Maga base and the broader Republican party.Johnson weighed in on the possibility of a pardon after Todd Blanche, the deputy attorney general, met with Maxwell, who is serving a 20 year prison sentence for sex trafficking, over two days last week. The one-time British socialite was Epstein’s close confidante for years and his partner-in-crime. Epstein killed himself in jail in 2019.The House speaker was asked about the possibility of a pardon by Kristen Welker during an appearance on NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday.“If you’re asking my opinion, I think 20 years was a pittance. I think she should have a life sentence at least. I mean, think of all these unspeakable crimes,” he said. “It’s hard to put into words how evil this was, and that she orchestrated it and was a big part of it, at least under the criminal sanction, I think is an unforgivable thing. So again, not my decision, but I have great pause about that, as any reasonable person would.”Pressed directly on whether he favored a pardon, Johnson deferred to Trump.“Obviously that’s a decision of the president. He said he had not adequately considered that. I won’t get it in front of him. That’s not my lane,” he said.Representative Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican who has been pushing for disclosure of more Epstein information, said a pardon should be on the table for Maxwell.“That would be up to the president. But if she has information that could help us, then I think she should testify. Let’s get that out there. And whatever they need to do to compel that testimony, as long as it’s truthful, I would be in favor of,” he told Welker on Meet the Press.Representative Ro Khanna, a California Democrat who has joined Massie’s effort to release more information, said he did not support a pardon for Maxwell, who was charged with perjury in connection to a civil deposition in 2016 (prosecutors did not move forward with those charges once they obtained her sex-trafficking conviction.)“I’m concerned that the deputy attorney general Todd Blanche is meeting with her supposedly one-on-one. Look, I agree with Congressman Massie that she should testify. But she’s been indicted twice on perjury. This is why we need the files. This is why we need independent evidence,” he said on Meet the Press.After Trump pledged to disclose more information about Epstein on the campaign trail, the justice department said earlier this month it had determined Epstein did not have a “client list” and did not blackmail anyone.Johnson adjourned the US House of Representatives early last week to avoid a vote on releasing Epstein files. He said on Sunday he favored “maximum disclosure”. During his appearance on Meet the Press, he defended that decision, saying the legislation being pushed by Massie and Khanna would require the release of uncorroborated information and could harm the victims of Epstein and Maxwell’s crimes.“You have to protect innocent people’s names and reputations whose names might be, as you noted at the outset of the program, intertwined into all these files,” he said. “These are minors in many cases who were subjected to unspeakable crimes, abject evil. They’ve already suffered great harm. We do not need their names being unmasked.”That kind of argument is a “straw man” Massie said on Sunday.“Ro and I carefully crafted this legislation so that the victims’ names will be redacted and that no child pornography will be released. So they’re hiding behind that,” he said.Khanna also pushed back on the idea that releasing the information could damage reputations.“Different people feel that the rich and the powerful have been not held accountable, that they have a different set of rules, and that there may be government officials involved,” he said. “They’re going to be able to distinguish between someone who got a grant for Jeffrey Epstein to do cancer research versus rich and powerful men who were abusing underage girls.” More

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      Has the Epstein affair strained Trump’s cozy relationship with the Murdoch media empire?

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      In the wake of new revelations regarding the friendship of Donald Trump and disgraced and deceased billionaire financier Jeffrey Epstein, Rupert Murdoch’s media empire has both poured gasoline on to the story and come to Trump’s loyal defense. Experts say that, much like the broader Maga movement, the Epstein affair is testing Trump and Murdoch’s mostly chummy relationship.To think, only months ago, at Jimmy Carter’s funeral, Barack Obama and Donald Trump were laughing together in the pews.But in Trump’s latest attempt to deny and deflect when faced with controversy, he’s calling for his first predecessor’s prosecution over trying “to rig the election” against him in 2016. Of course, Fox News, the crown jewel in Murdoch’s wallet of media properties, has followed suit: in one of the days following the fallout from Epstein, mentions of Obama’s name reportedly drowned out that of the convicted pedophile and suspected spy, by a score of 117 to two.But there is trouble in paradise. Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal (WSJ) broke the story that Trump allegedly penned a seedy birthday message to Epstein in 2003. The president then did what he does best: filed a libel suit for billions in damages.“The Trump-Murdoch media dynasty has traditionally been a cozy one,” said Margot Susca, an assistant professor of journalism at American University and the author of Hedged: How Private Investment Funds Helped Destroy American Newspapers and Undermine Democracy. “Murdoch-owned Fox News serves up what amounts to state-owned television for Trump.”At the outset of his second presidency, Trump named several Fox News personalities to his stable of figures in the administration, namely Pete Hegseth, the secretary of defense who was a weekend host of Fox & Friends and has taken on his role at the Pentagon with the vigor expected of a veteran talking head.“I’d like to believe the $10bn defamation lawsuit Trump filed against the Wall Street Journal and Rupert Murdoch for its Epstein coverage will serve as a wakeup call that Murdoch is not immune to Trump’s press bullying,” she said, referring to the legion of ways Trump has imposed his will against the fifth estate. “They should have favored press freedom and picked the press’s role in democracy over access and cronyism.”The White House, thus far, has had a direct line to the most influential broadcaster in the country.Susca admitted that though the WSJ is a “bright spot” among the “lapdog coverage” for the president in the list of other Murdoch properties, Fox, the highest-rated news network in America, could easily be holding the government accountable day to day. But on the one hand, as Susca pointed out, Fox has “barely mentioned” the defamation suit, while on the other, the WSJ “still has its Epstein story posted”.Trump, eager to escape the myriad and legitimate questions surrounding his well-documented former friendship with Epstein, has rallied all of his media and congressional troops to distract his associations with a conspiracy theory that he himself has stoked among his Maga disciples for years.“Clearly, Trump wants to distract from the fact that he had a close and intimate friendship with Epstein, a billionaire pedophile that seemed to have set up a global trafficking ring,” said Edward Ongweso Jr, a senior researcher at Security in Context, an international project of scholars housed at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. “And he wants to distract from the obvious implication of his about-face here (going from insisting the Epstein files will be released to insisting they never did and were invented by Democrats to take him down): that he’s in them.”Ongweso did note that Trump’s continued ability to dodge becoming a casualty of the news cycle is unmatched: “It is hard to imagine how any of his tactics will work, but then again he has gotten out of almost every single situation that would’ve doomed anyone else, hasn’t he?”But there’s help already on the way for the president.Mike Johnson, the speaker of the House, issued a convenient end to the congressional session to avoid a vote on the floor for the release of all the Department of Justice files relating to Epstein, while Mike Flynn, former Trump national security adviser (turned QAnon peddler) and former general, has told followers Obama needs to go to jail over the years-old Mueller report of 2019.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“The entire corrupt investigation was based on a fabricated lie that was part of a COUP by [Obama] to overthrow the United States,” he posted on X, before calling on the FBI and justice department to investigate and arrest the former president. “EVIL PERSONIFIED!” he said in another post with hundreds of thousands of views. Flynn’s endorsement of the Obama conspiracy was a sharp turn away from days of breathlessly begging for the release of the Epstein files.But while the WSJ, a more independent and centrist publication in comparison with the rest of Murdoch’s media empire, cast a stone against the president, Fox News is more than making up for it. Perhaps, that is, to avoid the fates of Paramount and ABC, which paid off Trump in large sums to settle suits that ultimately involved freedom of the press issues. Both networks stood to beat Trump on the facts of the cases, but avoided more litigation in what many have seen as a veritable bribe to a suit-happy and powerful president.“I think this is more about caution than falling in line, but I can’t see how it will last,” Ongweso said, referring to Fox and its coverage of Obama over the more salacious and Maga topic of Epstein. “He’s been able to get Paramount and ABC to settle even though their cases were winnable.”Last year, Murdoch’s Fox decimated CNN on election night, scoring millions more viewers and having their hosts fawning over Trump, a far cry from when the network enraged him by declaring Arizona for Joe Biden in 2020 – ultimately ruling on who won the presidency.Murdoch himself is rumored not to be a personal fan of Trump, reportedly backing Ron DeSantis, Florida’s governor, for the presidency in the lead-up to the 2024 election, before switching sides again. Even his own immediate family has enjoyed cozy relationships with media companies that were firmly in the Democratic orbit.Still, Ongweso believes WSJ reporters might smell blood in the water for the president and report on him accordingly.“There has been a trickle of additional Epstein-Trump material, most recently the resurfacing of photos showing Epstein at Trump’s 1993 wedding to Martha Maples,” he said. “There is certainly more that WSJ reporters will uncover and unless there’s editorial interference, I can’t see how Murdoch’s empire can stop itself from uttering his name again.” More

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      Trump bids to release Epstein grand jury files – what secrets might they hold?

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      As Donald Trump reels from political fallout related to his justice department’s handling of Jeffrey Epstein investigation files, the US president has directed his loyal attorney general, Pam Bondi, to “release all Grand Jury testimony with respect to Jeffrey Epstein, subject only to court approval”.It is an effort at damage control for a White House now engulfed in endless speculation – especially among Trump’s previously devoted Maga base – about the extent of Trump’s relationship with the late, disgraced sex trafficker and wealthy financier who killed himself in jail in 2019.Justice department attorneys quickly filed paperwork in Manhattan and south Florida federal courts requesting unsealing of grand jury testimony for Epstein. Justice department officials have also asked a New York judge to release grand jury transcripts for Ghislaine Maxwell – Epstein’s sometimes girlfriend and longtime confidante who in 2021 was convicted of sex trafficking for luring teenage girls into his orbit.A grand jury is a panel that decides whether evidence presented by prosecutors shows “probable cause” that someone committed a crime, and whether they should be tried. Should the grand jury, which is not the trial jury, find that there is sufficient evidence, an indictment will be issued.But veteran US attorneys, including those who have represented Epstein victims, told the Guardian that any release of grand jury transcripts around Epstein and Maxwell might not provide much insight into Epstein’s crimes and whether others were involved in abusing minors – or in covering up his years of predation of young girls and women.The lawyers, however, insist that meaningful information does exist in yet-to-be released Epstein files held by federal law enforcement authorities from multiple investigations into Epstein. Whether the political will – and legal ability – exists to release any or all of those files remains to be seen.“Grand juries serve two functions: to indict and to investigate. The transcripts may contain testimony of victims or cooperating witnesses if the grand jury was investigating Epstein,” Neama Rahmani, founder of West Coast Trial Lawyers, and a former federal prosecutor, said of grand jury processes.The grand jury transcripts could include graphic and explicit evidence, but they could also include more pro forma information about the actions of Epstein and Maxwell, who is serving jail time in Florida.“If they were indicting Epstein, we can expect to see law enforcement witnesses summarizing the evidence of probable cause to support the charges. That would probably be less interesting, and similar to the factual allegations in the Epstein indictment,” Rahmani said.He added: “There is likely much more salacious evidence out there than the grand jury transcripts.“The FBI interview summaries and internal Department of Justice memoranda probably contain the juiciest details. The grand jury transcripts are just a small part of the picture. If Bondi was serious about transparency, she would make public the complete Epstein files, subject to redactions to protect the privacy rights of the victims.”Top lawyer Gloria Allred, who has represented multiple Epstein victims, said government files should be made public with several exceptions, such as redaction of victims’ names and identifying information, attorney-client communications and material depicting abuse.“I think there is information that the government could release, such as texts, emails and other electronic communications of Jeffrey Epstein and anyone with whom he communicated. In addition, any communications on behalf of Mr Epstein made by his employees who may have played a part in recruiting or dealing with victims at the request of Mr Epstein and/or Ms Maxwell could be released,” Allred said.“All evidence in the file of the United States attorney for the southern district of New York which was gathered for the prosecution of Mr Epstein, with the exceptions which I have listed previously, could be released.”Allred believes “all files, both federal and state that reflect the investigation and potential prosecution of Jeffrey Epstein in Florida should also be made public”.Thorough investigations of Epstein were conducted in New York and Florida, Allred pointed out, and those investigations would be in those files.Spencer T Kuvin, chief legal officer of GoldLaw and an attorney for Epstein victims, voiced similar sentiments.“The real documents that the public needs to see are the documents maintained by the FBI and Department of Justice. They have thousands of hours of videotapes and investigative memos and documents regarding the data that was seized at his homes,” he said.Kuvin said that unsealing grand jury testimony was a “good first step” but limits information to four victims over whom Epstein was charged in New York. “I am aware that the FBI had interviewed over 40 girls during their investigations. Where are those interviews, where are those reports?“The abusers should be disclosed to the public so that we may all know who they are,” Kuvin also said, insisting that victims’ privacy must be protected in such a process. He called on Trump to act.“This administration could end the dispute tomorrow by the president signing an executive order demanding the release of all the material in the custody of the FBI and DoJ,” Kuvin said. “Either Trump has the power to do this, or he must admit that he is not as powerful as he has professed to be to the public and his Maga followers.”Trump’s current political woes stem from his backtracking on previous vows to release the Epstein files. On the campaign trail, he vowed to declassify the files, but then attracted scathing criticism when his justice department released a memo claiming that there was no “incriminating” client list within the tranche of documents related to Epstein.The justice department’s claim that they did not find evidence implicating third parties has further fanned the flames of suspicion, especially as last week the Wall Street Journal reported that Bondi had warned Trump that his name appears in the files.A smattering of reports highlighting Trump’s friendship with Epstein several decades ago – which reportedly ended following a real estate dispute, several years before the late financier admitted to a state-level charge of soliciting prostitution from a minor in Florida – has proved yet another political minefield.Even if federal authorities and Trump drag their feet in releasing these documents, it is possible that new civil litigation could eventually force them to do so raising the prospect of yet more political scandals heading Trump’s way.Maria Farmer, an Epstein survivor who in 1996 told authorities he and Maxwell were abusing minors including her sister, is suing the federal government over their handling of these claims. Farmer’s suit alleges that the FBI “chose to do absolutely nothing”.Farmer also claims that the FBI agent taking her call “hung up on her, and no one at the FBI attempted to follow up with her or pursue her valid and serious allegations, most of which continued for many years, if not decades, with wide-ranging tragic consequences.”If this litigation progresses, both sides would exchange evidence related to the claims in a process called discovery. While discovery is typically subject to a confidentiality agreement, and solidified by a court order, information from this exchange could come up in subsequent court papers that are public.“What this lawsuit could reveal is what the FBI and the department did and did not do, what they failed to do – they failed to do their job,” Farmer’s attorney, Jennifer Freeman, special counsel at Marsh Law Firm, told the Guardian.Freeman noted, for example, that she has a redacted set of pages from what appears to be a 2006 field interview with Farmer, during which an FBI agent went to her home and spoke with her. Freeman said she had some 20 pages of handwritten notes, “many of which are redacted”.She said: “That’s the kind of information we need. It’s redacted. I’ve been trying to get this information for years now, through Foia [Freedom of Information Act] requests, but we’ve been stymied every time.”Neither the White House nor Department of Justice commented. More

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      Democrats request copy of Epstein ‘birthday book’ that reportedly contains Trump poem

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      House Democrats on Friday sent a letter to the attorneys representing the estate of Jeffrey Epstein requesting a copy of the so-called “birthday book” that reportedly contains a crude poem and doodle from Donald Trump in celebration of the late sex offender’s 50th birthday.In the letter, California congressmen Ro Khanna and Robert Garcia say the contents of the book may be “essential” to congressional oversight of the Trump administration’s handling of the Epstein controversy. In the letter, they ask for a “complete and unredacted” copy of the book by 10 August.“The public deserves to know the truth and the survivors and their families deserve justice,” said Khanna, who criticized Congress for leaving Washington early without voting on his bipartisan bill to release the Epstein files.The birthday book is a leather-bound album compiled by Epstein’s longtime associate Ghislaine Maxwell, who is serving a 20-year prison sentence for conspiring with Epstein to sexually traffic minors. It is reportedly filled with birthday greetings from dozens of Epstein’s friends and associates, including, according to the Wall Street Journal, messages from Trump, Bill Clinton and Alan Dershowitz, among other wealthy and powerful men.On Thursday, the New York Times published an image of Maxwell’s dedication in the book.Trump is suing the Journal over its initial report that he contributed a page with an imagined dialogue between “Donald” and “Jeffrey” and a sketch of a naked woman. In his federal lawsuit, Trump called the letter attributed to him “fake and nonexistent”.Khanna and Garcia sent the letter after a lawyer representing hundreds of Epstein’s victims said the estate was in possession of the birthday book. The lawyer, Brad Edwards, said in an interview with the MSNBC host Lawrence O’Donnell that he believed the estate would turn over the book upon request.“I know the executors are in possession of this book,” Edwards said in the interview.Lawyers for the estate did not immediately respond to a request for comment.“The American people deserve to know who was involved in Epstein’s trafficking network and if they are in positions of power in our government,” Garcia, the top Democrat on the House oversight committee, said.The Epstein files are at the center of an extraordinary rift between Trump and his Maga base, who have long-demanded the release of documents related to the child sex offender. The White House has failed to quell growing demands from his base for more transparency, while Democrats, out of power in Congress, press the issue to their advantage.Trump and Epstein’s friendship in the 1990s and early 2000s was well-known and well documented. The president has said that he cut ties with Epstein in 2004, and he has not been accused of wrongdoing in connection with the Epstein matter.Earlier this week, the Journal first reported that Pam Bondi, the US attorney general, briefed Trump in May that his name appeared multiple times in the files related to the investigation.In an attempt to confront the matter, Trump had instructed Bondi to seek the release of grand jury transcripts from an investigation into Epstein. In a setback, a judge in Florida rejected the Trump administration’s request, though a similar case is still pending in New York.In the letter to the Epstein’s estate, the Democrats write that the book is “relevant for ongoing congressional oversight of the Department of Justice’s handling of the Epstein investigation and prosecution, as well as the Trump administration’s decision to declassify and release only a handful of documents from the Epstein files while withholding others from the public”.Trump’s former criminal defense lawyer, Todd Blanche, who is now the deputy attorney general, met with Maxwell in federal prison on Friday and plans to meet her again on Saturday. Maxwell is attempting to have her conviction overturned. More

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      Trump deflects Epstein questions as he arrives in Scotland for trade talks

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      The furore over Donald Trump’s ties with the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein continued on Friday as new revelations about the pair’s relationship threatened to mire the president’s golfing trip to Scotland, where he arrived late on Friday.After landing at Glasgow Prestwick airport at about 8.30pm local time on Friday, the US president denied reports that he had been briefed about his name appearing in files pertaining to the case against the late Epstein. He also claimed he had not “really been following” the justice department’s interview with Epstein’s convicted associate, Ghislaine Maxwell.“A lot of people have been asking me about pardons” for Maxwell, Trump said. “Obviously, this is no time to be talking about pardons.“You’re making a very big thing over something that’s not a big thing.”Trump’s name appeared on a contributor list for a book celebrating Epstein’s 50th birthday in 2003, according to reporting from the New York Times, lending further weight to reports that the president participated in the leather-bound collection of messages, drawings and accolades – even though he denied that he contributed a signed and sexually suggestive note and drawing, as reported by the Wall Street Journal earlier this month.Trump’s name is listed among Epstein’s friends and acquaintances who contributed birthday messages for the professionally bound book which reportedly had multiple volumes, the New York Times reported. The tome opens with a handwritten letter, also reviewed by the outlet, from the disgraced financier’s longtime associate Ghislaine Maxwell, who is serving a 20-year federal prison sentence for conspiring to sexually traffic children.Maxwell had a second meeting on Friday with the US deputy attorney general and Trump’s former personal criminal defense attorney, Todd Blanche, in Florida, where she is serving her prison term – following an initial face-to-face on Thursday.Trump was asked about Maxwell on Friday morning as he departed for Scotland with the shadow of the rumbling Epstein scandal hanging over the visit.Maxwell is appealing her conviction and the US president did not get into detail when asked about possible clemency for the disgraced British socialite and daughter of the late newspaper proprietor Robert Maxwell. Trump cited the ongoing investigation, while confirming he had the power of the presidential pardon, which can be used for federal or national level crimes but not state level.“I’m allowed to do it, but it’s something I have not thought about,” Trump told reporters outside the White House as he prepared to depart Washington DC.When he arrived in Scotland, a large crowd was on hand, and some looking on reportedly applauded him.He was greeted by Scottish secretary of state, Ian Murray, as he walked off Air Force One. The pair were seen shaking hands at the bottom of the aircraft stairs before Trump walked across the tarmac to a group of journalists to answer questions.Trump planned to spend the weekend at one of his golf properties near Turnberry. Early next week, he will be visiting Aberdeen, where his family has one golf course and is getting ready to open a second course soon.Trump plans to meet with the British prime minister, Keir Starmer, and the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, to talk trade, amid his continual threats of imposing steep tariffs on US trading partners.But none of that could overshadow Epstein, whose birthday gift collection includes about five dozen contributions from public figures and unknown acquaintances, according to documents reviewed by the Times and the Wall Street Journal, and was assembled before Epstein’s first arrest in 2006.The birthday book controversy has deepened anger over the decision by Trump’s attorney general, Pam Bondi, and FBI director, Kash Patel, to backtrack on promises to release the Epstein investigative files.Trump has responded to the growing backlash from his usually loyal supporters – and Democrats – over the U-turn with mounting fury, claiming that news reports over the birthday book were fake news.Last week, Trump sued Journal’s billionaire owner, Rupert Murdoch, publisher Dow Jones and two Journal reporters for libel and slander over claims that he sent Epstein a signed lewd letter and sketch of a naked woman as part of the birthday book.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“A pair of small arcs denotes the woman’s breasts, and the future president’s signature is a squiggly ‘Donald’ below her waist, mimicking pubic hair,” the Journal reported of the alleged drawing. The letter allegedly concluded: “Happy Birthday – and may every day be another wonderful secret.”Trump followed the lawsuit, which seeks $10bn in damages, by barring Journal reporters from this weekend’s trip to Scotland.He also called for relevant grand jury testimony in the prosecution of Epstein to be publicly released, insisting that he had nothing to hide. On Wednesday, a district judge in Florida denied a request by Trump’s Department of Justice to unseal the transcripts.Congress was sent home early for summer recess by the House speaker and Trump loyalist, Mike Johnson, in an effort to quell Democratic party demands for a vote on the Epstein files.But Trump’s desire to play down his relationship with Epstein has been repeatedly thwarted by a steady drip of evidence – photos, videos, books and witnesses – that strongly suggest his name could appear in the files.Earlier this week, CNN published newly uncovered photos and videos that show Epstein at Trump’s 1993 wedding to Marla Maples, and the pair at a Victoria’s Secret event in 1993, seemingly joking with Trump’s future wife, Melania Trump.The New York Times then reported that even before the birthday anthology, Trump had written another gushing note to Epstein in 1997. “To Jeff – You are the greatest!” reads an inscription in a copy of Trump’s book Trump: The Art of the Comeback that belonged to Epstein, which the Times said it had reviewed.And the Journal reported more details on the birthday book, which Epstein’s brother Mark Epstein recalls Maxwell putting together.The contents page was organized into categories, with Trump and Bill Clinton listed under the “Friends” group, according to the Journal. A message in Clinton’s distinctive handwriting reportedly read: “It’s reassuring isn’t it, to have lasted as long, across all the years of learning and knowing, adventures and [illegible word], and also to have your childlike curiosity, the drive to make a difference and the solace of friend.”Also listed as a friend is the Labour politician and current UK ambassador to the US, Peter Mandelson, whose tribute, the Journal reported, included photos of whiskey and a tropical island, and referred to Epstein as “my best pal”.Clinton has previously said that he cut ties with Epstein more than a decade before his 2019 arrest and didn’t know about Epstein’s alleged crimes. In 2023, Mandelson told the Journal that he “very much regrets ever having been introduced to Epstein”.A House committee on Wednesday voted to subpoena the justice department for the Epstein investigation files, with three Republicans voting alongside Democratic members. Democratic representative Ro Khanna of California has said he will subpoena Epstein’s estate to hand over the book. More

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      Ghislaine Maxwell interviewed again by deputy US attorney general

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      The deputy US attorney general, Todd Blanche, held a second in-person meeting on Friday with Ghislaine Maxwell, the convicted sex trafficker and longtime associate of the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.Blanche had confirmed the two met behind closed doors in Tallahassee, Florida, on Thursday, at the federal prosecutor’s office within the federal courthouse in the state capital, and they met again on Friday.Maxwell’s lawyer, David Oscar Markus, on Friday afternoon said Blanche had finished his questioning for the day, NBC News first reported.Markus told reporters as he left the courthouse in downtown Tallahassee: “We started this morning right around 9 o’clock, and went to now lunchtime, and we’re finished after all day, yesterday and today. Ghislaine answered every single question asked of her over the last day and a half. She answered those questions honestly, truthfully, to the best of her ability. She never invoked a privilege. She never refused to answer a question.”He added: “They asked about every single, every possible thing you could imagine. Everything.”The justice department has not said whether Blanche intends to question Maxwell further. Markus said he did not know whether the discussions would have any impact on her case. He had previously said Thursday’s meeting was “very productive”.Blanche had announced earlier in the week that he had contacted Maxwell’s lawyers to see if she might have “information about anyone who has committed crimes against victims”.Maxwell is serving a 20-year sentence at a federal prison in Tallahassee, after a jury convicted her of sex trafficking in 2021.An uproar continues to engulf Donald Trump and calls have intensified for his administration to release all details of the federal investigation into Epstein, while questions remain about whether Maxwell has any fresh light to shed on her former boyfriend’s crimes.Meanwhile, the US supreme court is due to wade into the controversy and decide whether to hear a bid by Maxwell to overturn her criminal conviction.Epstein killed himself in 2019 in a jail cell in New York while awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges. Trump, dogged by questions about his ties to Epstein, headed to Scotland on Friday for a trip that will mix golf with politics mostly out of public view. Protests await the president in the UK over his extreme agenda while scandal nips at his heels in the US.Further talking to reporters after Friday’s meeting, Markus said: “We don’t know how it’s going to play out. We just know that this was the first opportunity she’s ever been given to answer questions about what happened, and so the truth will come out about what happened with Mr Epstein. And she’s the person who’s answering those questions.”Prosecutors and the judge who oversaw Maxwell’s 2021 trial have said that she made multiple false statements under oath and failed to take responsibility for her actions. She was convicted for sex trafficking and other crimes, and sentenced to 20 years in federal prison.“People have questioned her honesty, which I think is just wrong,” Markus said.Asked if Maxwell had received an offer of clemency from the government, Markus said no offer had been made.Although the US attorney general, Pam Bondi, earlier this year had promised to release additional materials related to possible Epstein clients, the justice department reversed course this month and issued a memo concluding there was no basis to continue investigating and there was no evidence of a client list or blackmail.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionSince then, the department has sought permission to unseal grand jury transcripts from its prior investigations into Epstein and Maxwell.On Wednesday, US district judge Robin Rosenberg denied one of those requests.Trump’s name, along with many other high-profile individuals, appeared multiple times on flight logs for Epstein’s private plane in the 1990s, while several media outlets have this month reported previously unpublicized and friendly communications from the US president to the high-profile financier.Meanwhile, the supreme court justices, now on their summer recess, are expected in late September to consider whether to take up the appeal by Maxwell against her conviction in 2021 by a jury in New York for helping Epstein sexually abuse teenage girls.Maxwell’s lawyers have told the supreme court that her conviction was invalid because a non-prosecution and plea agreement that federal prosecutors had made with Epstein in Florida in 2007 also shielded his associates and should have barred her criminal prosecution in New York. Her lawyers have a Monday deadline for filing their final written brief in their appeal to the court.Some legal experts see merit in Maxwell’s claim, noting that it touches on an unsettled matter of US law that has divided some of the nation’s regional federal appeals courts.Mitchell Epner, a former federal prosecutor now in private practice, said there was a chance that the supreme court would take up the case, and noted the disagreement among appeals courts. Such a split among circuit courts can be a factor when the nation’s top judicial body considers whether or not to hear a case.“The question of whether a plea agreement from one US attorney’s office binds other federal prosecution as a whole is a serious issue that has split the circuits,” Epner said.While uncommon, “there have been several cases presenting the issue over the years”, Epner added.The Associated Press and Reuters contributed reporting More

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      US justice department officials interview Ghislaine Maxwell

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      The Jeffrey Epstein files scandal swirling around Donald Trump and his administration continued to escalate on Thursday as officials from the Department of Justice met with the late sex offender’s longtime associate Ghislaine Maxwell, whose lawyer said she “answered every question … honestly and to the best of her ability”.Todd Blanche, the US deputy attorney general, arrived on Thursday morning at the office of the US attorney in Tallahassee, Florida, ABC News reported. The state prosecutor’s office is based in the federal courthouse in the Florida capital and Maxwell’s lawyers were also seen entering the building.Maxwell is serving a 20-year sentence for sex trafficking and other crimes at a federal prison in Florida, after being convicted in New York in late 2021.On Thursday afternoon, Maxwell’s attorney David Markus said his team had a “very productive day”with Blanche, who will meet with Maxwell again Friday, Reuters reported.“[Blanche] took a full day and asked a lot of questions,” Markus said. “Miss Maxwell answered every single question. She never stopped. She never invoked a privilege. She never declined to answer. She answered all the questions truthfully, honestly and to the best of her ability.”The meeting comes amid growing political and public pressure on the Trump administration to release more details about the Epstein investigation – something that Trump and members of his administration had promised.Mark Epstein, the brother of the disgraced financier, told the Guardian in an interview that if he had the opportunity he would ask Maxwell “what she and Jeffrey might have known what the dirt was on Donald Trump”.View image in fullscreen“Because Jeffrey said, he said he had dirt on Trump,” Mark Epstein said. “I don’t know what it was, but years ago he said he had dirt on Trump.”He added that he wasn’t “particularly worried” for Maxwell, adding: “There’s a lot of people on this planet.”Maxwell’s brother Ian Maxwell, meanwhile, told the New York Post that his sister had been preparing “new evidence” before her meeting with justice department officials.“She will be putting before [a] court material new evidence that was not available to the defense at her 2021 trial, which would have had a significant impact on its outcome,” her brother told the outlet in an email.Jeffrey Epstein was found dead in his prison cell in New York in 2019 while awaiting trial on federal sex-trafficking charges, which he denied, relating to accusations that he “sexually exploited and abused dozens of minor girls”. He had previously been officially declared a sex offender in Florida but re-emerged as a significant figure in US business and political circles in the years that followed, having struck a deal over the earlier criminal charges.The renewed focus on Trump’s past association with Epstein comes after the justice department announced earlier this month that it would not be releasing any more documents from the most recent Epstein investigation – despite earlier pledges by the US president and the US attorney general, Pam Bondi.The justice department’s announcement drew criticism and backlash from both sides of the party political aisle, including from some Trump supporters and conservative commentators, who accused the administration of engaging in a cover-up.For years, the Epstein case has been the subject of countless conspiracy theories, partly due to Epstein’s ties to high-profile figures. Epstein’s death, which was officially ruled a suicide, has also fueled many conspiracy theories.On Wednesday, the Wall Street Journal reported that Trump was informed by Bondi in May that his name appears multiple times in the justice department files related to Epstein.The report also said that Trump was told that many other high-profile individuals were named in the files, and that the department did not plan to release any additional documents related to the investigation.Trump’s spokesperson, Steven Cheung, denied the claims in the Journal report and dismissed the story.In an emailed statement this week, Cheung said that “the fact is that the President kicked him [Epstein] out of his club for being a creep”.Meanwhile, the House oversight committee voted 8-2 on Wednesday to subpoena the justice department for the Epstein files, with three Republicans joining all Democrats in the vote.The committee also subpoenaed Maxwell to testify before committee officials on 11 August.Mike Johnson, the Republican House speaker, questioned whether Maxwell could be trusted.And Dan Goldman, a Democratic New York representative, said in a post on X on Tuesday: “Ghislaine is looking for a pardon, and who would be better to give it to her than a co-conspirator now in the Oval Office.”Edward Helmore contributed reporting More

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      in US Politics

      Why Trump’s political playbook is failing in the Epstein case | Jan-Werner Müller

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      The problem with a successful playbook is that you eventually keep doing the same thing mechanically. Fresh from intimidating ABC and CBS with meritless lawsuits, Donald Trump is suing Rupert Murdoch and the Wall Street Journal reporters who broke the story of a lewd birthday message for Jeffrey Epstein. But, unlike with the frivolous allegations against the big broadcasters, there’s clearly a fact of the matter here: an authentic letter either exists or it does not; and there is plenty to be revealed in the process of finding out. Trump’s time-proven move – whatever happens, just counter-attack – is likely to keep the very story he wants to kill alive. Meanwhile, the other elements of his playbook – deny, deflect, distract – only work if journalists and Democrats play along. They, not the seemingly all-important Trump base, are the actors to watch.We still debate whether Trumpism is a substantial ideology or not; what we are missing is that Trumpism, for sure, is a set of tactics for exploiting weaknesses in the US political, legal and media systems. Some of these tactics were inherited from his mentor Roy Cohn and many are now being adopted by Trump’s followers – one must never admit guilt; one must always swing back; and one must reject, or ideally entirely bury, defeats (such as Trump’s case against Bob Woodward and Woodward’s publisher being dismissed recently).But there is also a less obvious element, and it has to do with managing political time (a challenge for all politicians, come to think of it). The point is not just seizing opportunities or exploiting opponents’ weaknesses in a timely manner; rather, it is about the art of speeding things up or slowing them down to one’s advantage. Think of how we appear to have become inured to Trump doing and saying things that would have ended previous presidencies (OK, previous presidents did not have AI-generated images of themselves as kings or popes available, but still).One reason is this: an administration that faces one or two big scandals in a four-year period may well be damaged beyond repair; one that produces three very big scandals a day seems to have nothing to worry about since no one can keep up. It is difficult to stick with one story, as the newest outrage already appears so much bigger (the Qatar plane scandal can feel like it happened years ago). To be sure, not all scandals are consciously produced, but there is little doubt that Trump’s posting an AI-generated clip of Barack Obama being arrested in the White House and identifying Obama as a “ringleader” of election fraud are meant to distract – which is not to deny that they would justify impeachment.While the frequency of scandals is maximized to game the news cycle, the legal system is used to slow things down. Releasing the grand jury testimonies in the Epstein case will take time, if the request is not rejected altogether by courts (as has already happened in Florida). Even if they are released, they are unlikely to contain anything relevant about Trump. The calculation is that, a few weeks from now, the files will be forgotten.None of this is to suggest Trump is a master Machiavellian who can manipulate Americans (or even just his base) at will. His approach partly works because institutional and cultural contexts have changed: news cycles are shorter, as are attention spans. His behavior has become progressively normalized – and generalized: shamelessness once unique to him is now in the manual of required GOP conduct (just think of blatant lies about Medicaid). Most important, a free press sticking relentlessly with scandals and ignoring intimidation can no longer be taken for granted; broadcasters in particular have become vulnerable to parent companies putting profits before everything else. Democrats, understandably not wanting to look like they mainly focus on the sordid details of the Epstein story, are tempted to move on and deal with the vaunted “kitchen-table issues”. But it should give them pause that the story is apparently so scary for the other side that Republicans would rather shut down the House than deal with it in any shape or form.Are they right to panic? For sure, Trump made a mistake with his social media post urging followers to move on, which was the equivalent of “don’t think of an elephant” (while also providing further evidence for the Streisand effect: censorship generates the very attention meant to be avoided). Trump lobbying Murdoch to kill the story will give pause to all still naive enough to think of Republicans as free speech defenders. By now, the fact that releasing only the grand jury testimony is relatively meaningless has sunk in and – never mind the base – what political scientists call “low-information voters” will be left with a lasting impression of a Trump-Epstein connection or at least a chaotic administration. In the lawsuit, Trump has to prove “actual malice” on the part of the newspaper – a difficult hurdle to jump. Unlike with the Russia investigation, Trump himself is the instigator of a lengthy process overshadowing his presidency; unlike with the many investigations between his presidential terms, when his lawyers outran the clock, time is not really on his side. In fact, he might be lucky if the case is dismissed on a technicality – he apparently failed to comply with a Florida law that requires giving defendants five days’ notice.

      Jan-Werner Müller is a Guardian US columnist and a professor of politics at Princeton University More