The Senate unanimously passed a resolution opposing a presidential pardon for Ghislaine Maxwell on Wednesday, putting itself on record against Jeffrey Epstein’s ex-girlfriend.
Maxwell was associated with Epstein for decades before he died in a jail cell in New York in 2019. She underwent criminal trials for sex trafficking charges related to facilitating Epstein’s crimes that resulted in a 20-year prison sentence in 2022. More recently, President Donald Trump’s Justice Department has interviewed her in an attempt to get a better grasp on Epstein’s identity, and she has argued that newly released government files tied to the deceased New York financier provide evidence that should clear her conviction.
Amid budding interest in Maxwell, the Senate this week voted in favor of Sen. Jacky Rosen’s (D-NV) resolution, which stated that Trump “should not grant a pardon, commutation, or any other form of executive clemency to Ghislaine Maxwell.”
“The Senate stands with the victims of sexual exploitation and trafficking and affirms its commitment to justice, accountability, and the protection of children,” it reads, referring to concerns that Epstein and Maxwell recruited girls as young as 14 for sexual or suggestive activities.
Trump has never said he would pardon Maxwell, but he has also declined to confirm that he would not do so.
“I’m allowed to do it, but it’s something I have not thought about,” he told reporters in July 2025.
Days later, the president reiterated the thought.
“I’m allowed to give her a pardon, but nobody’s approached me with it,” Trump said. “Nobody’s asked me about it. It’s in the news about that — that aspect of it, but right now it would be inappropriate to talk about it.”
Maxwell’s case came to the public eye, particularly in October 2025, when the Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal on her conviction. Maxwell has argued that her conviction violated a 2007 plea deal Epstein made with federal prosecutors in which the government agreed not to prosecute any of his co-conspirators. In July 2024, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche sat down with Maxwell in what her lawyer described as the first time any DOJ official had opened direct lines of communication with her throughout the government’s investigation into Epstein. Blanche has said he will not recommend a pardon for Maxwell, though her lawyer has said she will continue seeking clemency.
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Substack journalist Jessica Reed Kraus, who is closely connected with Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s “Make America Healthy Again” agenda and covered Maxwell’s trials in 2021 and 2022, previously reported that Epstein’s ex-girlfriend is “willing and eager” to cooperate with the Trump administration, “but only if guaranteed a pardon or commutation.”
“Yes, she’s working on a pardon — seems to believe that because she ‘supports Trump,’ she’ll get clemency,” one of Maxwell’s fellow prison inmates told Kraus.