❓WHAT HAPPENED: President Donald J. Trump again noted that he has the power to pardon Jeffrey Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell, stating he is “allowed” to do so—but has not been approached about it.
👤WHO WAS INVOLVED: Donald Trump, Ghislaine Maxwell, and the Department of Justice (DOJ).
📍WHEN & WHERE: Trump’s remarks were made on Monday during interactions with reporters, and echoed comments from the prior Friday.
💬KEY QUOTE: “Well, I’m allowed to give her a pardon, but nobody’s approached me with it, nobody’s asked me about it.” — President Trump.
🎯IMPACT: The comments have reignited debate over the possibility of a pardon for Maxwell, who was convicted of child sex trafficking in 2021 and sentenced to 20 years in prison.
President Donald J. Trump was again questioned on July 28 about the possibility of pardoning Ghislaine Maxwell, who was convicted in 2021 of child sex trafficking and sentenced to 20 years in prison for her connection to convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. Maxwell already received limited immunity in exchange for talking to Attorney General Pam Bondi’s deputy, Todd Blanche, about around a hundred people connected to Epstein.
In response to a pardon question, Trump stated, “Well, I’m allowed to give her a pardon, but nobody’s approached me with it, nobody’s asked me about it.” He added, “It’s in the news about that—that aspect of it, but right now it would be inappropriate to talk about it.”
These comments echo remarks he made last Friday, where he said of a pardon, “It’s something I haven’t thought about… I’m allowed to do it, but it’s something I have not thought about.”
Notably, the responses do not shut down the possibility of a pardon for Maxwell, leaving the option open.
Maxwell or her attorneys may have played a role in fueling discontent with President Trump’s handling of the Epstein case, which intensified after a birthday message Trump supposedly wrote to the pedophile was leaked to The Wall Street Journal. Raheem Kassam, Editor-in-Chief of The National Pulse, believes the message “was likely leaked by Ghislaine Maxwell’s lawyers to try and blackmail her way into a pardon.”
Epstein, who died in 2019, has become an issue for the Trump administration since AG Bondi released a memo claiming no “client list” for the sex trafficker exists, despite the fact that she previously said that a list was “on [her] desk” and would eventually be disclosed.
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