The Justice Department on Friday released the transcript and audio of a two-day interview with Ghislaine Maxwell, the longtime Jeffrey Epstein associate serving a 20-year sentence for sex trafficking.
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, who previously represented President Donald Trump against a flurry of criminal charges levied against him in the lead-up to the 2024 election, conducted the nine hours of questioning on July 24 and 25 in Florida. Blanche said he was “not promising to do anything” for Maxwell in exchange for the interview and stressed that falsehoods could expose her to prosecution for false statements.
Blanche also announced the release in a post on X Friday, saying the nearly 330 pages of materials, which only contained redactions to conceal victim information, were being posted “in the interest of transparency.”
In the interest of transparency, @TheJusticeDept is releasing the complete transcript and audio of my proffer of Ms. Maxwell. The transcript and audio are linked below.https://t.co/TQW5migemm
— Todd Blanche (@DAGToddBlanche) August 22, 2025
Maxwell, whose attorney has pressed for a presidential pardon, used the interview to defend Trump, downplay her role in Epstein’s sex crimes, and describe her long-standing ties to prominent political families. Days after giving the interview, she was transferred from a medium-security facility to a minimum-security prison in Texas, a move that was never given an official explanation by the federal government.
Here are nine takeaways from her testimony.
1. Maxwell’s past statements and perjury charges create credibility problems
Maxwell insisted she had “wanted to speak for years” and claimed that during Epstein’s early 2000s Florida prosecution, “no one ever asked me a single question.”
The public record shows otherwise. Victim affidavits in Palm Beach County as early as 2005 identified “Ghislaine” as a recruiter; FBI interview notes from 2006 described her as Epstein’s “second in command”; and civil suits sought her testimony, which she resisted. Prosecutors later charged her with perjury over sworn statements in those civil suits (counts later dropped after her 2021 conviction), underscoring her “willingness to lie brazenly under oath about her conduct.”
Even in this interview, she often claimed not to remember details while drawing sweeping conclusions, including inconsistencies about her financial compensation from Epstein.
Asked about a letter attributed to her in Epstein’s 50th birthday book, Maxwell conceded the handwriting “look[ed] like my name” but insisted she had “no memory” of writing it. She said she found allegations of sexual rape that Epstein partook in “challenging,” saying that was “not his modus operandi,” despite financial compensation that has been given from his estate to over 200 victims and several prominent women who have come forward publicly with allegations that he sexually abused them.
2. Trump was never seen acting ‘inappropriate’
Maxwell described Trump favorably, saying she may have met him around 1990 through her father, Robert Maxwell, who then owned the New York Daily News. “Trump was always very cordial and very kind to me,” she said. “I admire his extraordinary achievement in becoming the President now. And I like him, and I’ve always liked him.”
She said she “never witnessed the President in any inappropriate setting in any way” and that he was “never inappropriate with anybody.” Maxwell added she “absolutely never” heard Epstein or anyone else allege misconduct by Trump. She estimated her last in-person interaction with him was in the mid-2000s.
3. Clinton only appeared on Epstein’s plane, Maxwell said
Maxwell was also asked about former President Bill Clinton. Blanche pressed if she knew “whether, for example, President Clinton ever received a massage?”
“I don’t believe he did,” Maxwell replied. She added that her only recollection of Clinton with Epstein was during travel.
“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,” Maxwell said. “And he didn’t, because I was there.”
Maxwell clarified later that she never described Clinton as Epstein’s “client.” She stressed that the only setting in which she remembered Clinton and Epstein together was on the plane.
However, she said she knew Clinton and some of his close aides independently of Epstein and traveled to South America with him, but not with Epstein, in the early 2000s.
4. Trump’s lawsuit over Epstein’s birthday book
Much of the questioning focused on Epstein’s 50th birthday book, a professionally bound album of letters collected by Maxwell in 2003 that has become the object of scrutiny in recent weeks.
On July 17, Trump announced he would sue the Wall Street Journal and Rupert Murdoch after the paper published a description of what it said was a birthday letter from him to Epstein, inside a sketch of a nude woman. The purported note from Trump ended with the line, “We have certain things in common, Jeffrey.”
Trump called it a “FAKE” and vowed to sue. Vice President J.D. Vance called the report “complete and utter bulls***.”
Maxwell told Blanche multiple times that she could not recall Trump’s name in the book.
“There was none of Mr. Trump,” she said. “In my discovery, sorry. President Trump — there was nothing from President Trump.” When asked whether she remembered Trump’s name in the book outside of her discovery file, she said, “I do not remember.”
But she did acknowledge the book’s existence, saying she remembered it being large, leather-bound, and filled with heavy stock paper, and she said it was placed behind Epstein’s desk at his East 71st Street townhouse in New York City.
5. Denial that any ‘client list’ ever existed
Maxwell said she had never seen evidence that Epstein kept a client list. “There was never a list,” she said. “None that I ever saw, none that I ever heard of, none that I ever witnessed.”
Her attorney, David Markus, echoed: “There’s no client list. Nothing like that.” Blanche pressed again: “That you know of?” Maxwell replied: “That I—obviously.”
Because some of Epstein’s victims have claimed that the financier trafficked young women to his powerful associates, conspiracy theories have long swirled over whether Epstein kept a list of participants in his sex trafficking ring. None has ever surfaced, however, and Maxwell denied any such operation existed.
6. She still disputes Epstein’s official cause of death
Maxwell told Blanche she does not believe Epstein died by suicide in 2019. “I don’t believe it,” she said. “He was maniacally self-preserving. Not the type.”
But she distanced herself from theories that the government silenced Epstein. “I do not have any reason to believe that,” she said. “And I also think it’s ludicrous, because… if they were worried about blackmail or anything from him, he would’ve been a very easy target” before he was jailed.
She suggested that if Epstein was killed, she believed it would be by another inmate over “internal” prison matters.
7. Maxwell recalls a bizarre fossil trip with RFK Jr.
Maxwell said her friendship with Kerry Kennedy brought her into contact with former Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D-NY) and his news anchor brother, Chris Cuomo, though she did not recall them visiting Epstein properties. She said she knew Ted Kennedy personally “through my life, not [through] Epstein” and said she did not believe Epstein knew him or John Kerry, the former Democratic presidential nominee and secretary of state. “Oh God, no,” she said when asked if either man ever flew on Epstein’s plane.
By contrast, she said Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the Health and Human Services Secretary under Trump, did know Epstein, and she recalled a trip “dinosaur bone hunting in the Dakotas” that the three took together. She added that she knew Kennedy’s wife, Mary Richardson Kennedy, before the couple married.
She also recalled seeing John F. Kennedy Jr. at Kerry Kennedy’s wedding to Andrew Cuomo.
8. Doubts that Robert Maxwell continued intelligence work after retirement
Asked about her father, Maxwell said Robert Maxwell “had a background in intelligence” during World War II as “a British intelligence officer.”
Her father’s ties to intelligence became a hotbed for conspiracy theorists who believed without evidence that Epstein’s trafficking served a larger purpose, such as a blackmail scheme against rich and high-profile people.
She added: “Once you’ve been an intelligence officer, you’re kind of—always; it doesn’t mean that you’re formally employed.” She said he vetted Epstein through Bear Stearns executives Jimmy Cayne and Ace Greenberg.
9. Wexner distanced himself from Epstein
Maxwell said retail magnate Les Wexner, the billionaire founder of L Brands and longtime head of Victoria’s Secret, eventually pulled back from Epstein and “did not want to spend time with him.”
Wexner was widely seen as Epstein’s most important financial backer during the 1990s, granting him sweeping authority over his personal fortune and properties. Epstein managed Wexner’s money, gained power of attorney, and lived in a Manhattan townhouse that Wexner once owned. Their relationship was so close that former associates considered it the cornerstone of Epstein’s wealth and influence.
But Maxwell testified that by the mid-2000s, after Epstein’s arrest in Florida in 2005 on sex-crime charges, Wexner had broken ties. “He did not want to spend time with him,” she said, describing Epstein’s fall from Wexner’s inner circle after years of collaboration.
The distancing became clearer in later years: Wexner formally severed financial ties in 2007, and by 2020, he stepped down as CEO of L Brands following scrutiny of his Epstein association.
House Oversight receives first Epstein records
The Maxwell transcript went public the same day the DOJ delivered the first batch of Epstein records to the House Oversight Committee under Chairman James Comer (R-KY). The production involved “thousands of pages,” including the Maxwell interviews. Comer’s panel said it plans to release the records after making redactions.
Trump voiced support for disclosure while describing more conspiratorial accusations, such as claims that he was deeply involved with Epstein, as a “Democrat hoax.”
Comer lauded the DOJ’s efforts on X, saying the “Trump DOJ is moving at a pace far faster than anything ever produced by the Biden DOJ.”
Release comes amid waning public interest in Epstein
The public’s attention to the Epstein case hit a fever pitch in early July, when the DOJ, which had long promised to release troves of records about Epstein, announced within a two-page memo that it had no more documents to publish. The memo also mentioned Epstein harmed over 1,000 victims, said he died by suicide, and came alongside the release of 10 hours of video footage from a section of his prison cell.
One week later, Deputy FBI Director Dan Bongino was distraught about how Attorney General Pam Bondi handled the release of information and even appeared ready to quit the bureau before tensions simmered down. Then, Blanche began an effort to get more information from Maxwell, in addition to the DOJ’s now-failed efforts to convince courts to unseal grand jury testimony from both Epstein’s criminal cases and Maxwell’s 2021 indictment.
DOJ SENDS FIRST ROUND OF EPSTEIN RECORDS TO HOUSE OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE
Despite the initial bipartisan backlash against the DOJ, statistical analysts have shown that public attention to the subject is waning. CNN analyst Harry Enten said last week that Google searches for Epstein are down nearly 90% compared to just weeks ago, saying the saga is “quickly becoming something of a nothingburger.”
Going forward, the next tranche of information related to the disgraced financier and convicted sex offender will likely come from the Oversight Committee, as the DOJ’s efforts to offer transparency on Epstein focus on satisfying the demands of lawmakers on Capitol Hill.