(CNN) — The Trump Administration made interviewing Jeffrey Epstein’s accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell, a key part of its efforts to climb out from beneath its Epstein files problems.
Over a week later, we still don’t know what transpired during that meeting. But the Maxwell situation has only grown to epitomize a series of very curious maneuvers that call into question precisely what everyone in the administration is thinking and suggest the controversy is going nowhere fast.
Indeed, it’s almost as if those involved are trying to make this look bad.
We learned Friday that Maxwell had been moved from a low-security federal prison in Florida to a minimum-security prison camp in Texas called Camp Bryan – a significant upgrade for an inmate serving a 20-year sentence.
Neither the Justice Department, the Bureau of Prisons nor Maxwell’s lawyer has addressed precisely why the transfer was made. We don’t know who was involved. But it’s conspicuous for a host of reasons.
To wit:
- News of the transfer broke after Maxwell met with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, a political appointee and Trump’s former defense lawyer, in a meeting that remains shrouded in secrecy.
- Maxwell doesn’t appear to have been eligible for such a transfer, unless someone granted her a waiver. Bureau of Prisons policy states that anyone who had “sexual contact with a minor,” as Maxwell did when she participated in the sexual abuse, “will be housed in at least a Low security level institution,” without such a waiver. (Maxwell was sentenced in 2022 for carrying out a years-long scheme with Epstein to groom and sexually abuse underage girls.)
- Experts have said such a transfer is highly unusual. Prison consultant Holli Coulman on Friday told CNN’s Phil Mattingly that she had “never seen this in my life. Never seen it by women that I’ve either served time with, clients, never have seen this. This is unprecedented.”
- Maxwell’s upgrade comes as Trump has repeatedly seemed to dangle a favor – specifically, a potential pardon – as she spoke with the Justice Department and entered into talks to testify to Congress. The White House told CNN last week that “no leniency is being given or discussed” for Maxwell, but then Trump again conspicuously noted that he had the power to pardon her.
- A lower-security prison could certainly be construed as a form of “leniency.”
- Trump has a history of suggesting favors for those whose actions could impact him. He dangled pardons over witnesses in the Russia investigation in ways that special counsel Robert Mueller said could have impacted their decisions on cooperating with the government. And more recently, Trump’s Justice Department seemed to tie the dismissal of New York Mayor Eric Adams’s criminal charges to him helping with Trump’s immigration crackdown.
- The favorable prison transfer comes even as Maxwell’s lawyer has openly sought concessions for her.
There is plenty we don’t know about all of this, in large part because the key players aren’t talking. It’s theoretically possible this is all just a major coincidence.
But it certainly raises questions that the key officials involved would seem to have motivation to put to rest – and quickly. Maxwell’s testimony could bear on Trump personally, given continuing revelations about his ties to Epstein and his desire to put the entire Epstein files fiasco to rest. Now we learn she got a highly unusual perk.
And it’s merely the latest in a series of very questionable developments.
The other concession the Trump administration made after failing to produce the Epstein documents that it had promised was moving to unseal grand jury testimony. But its own filing last week reinforced that information is likely to be quite limited, if it even sees the light of day.
Trump has been very slow to acknowledge his own proximity to Epstein. Last week, after days of confusion, the president ultimately said he had been aware in real time that Epstein “stole” one of his Mar-a-Lago employees, a then-minor named Virginia Giuffre who became one of Epstein’s highest-profile accusers.
Given Giuffre’s age at the time and a paper trail that suggests Trump’s awareness of Epstein’s affinity for young women and girls, that raises valid questions about what Trump knew or might have suspected at the time. Family members of Giuffre’s have raised the possibility that Trump knows more than he has let on, but the president has balked at expanding on his statements about why this episode made him decide Epstein was a “creep.”
Trump, who has not been accused of wrongdoing in connection with Epstein, claimed Thursday that “I don’t know really why” Epstein was taking his employees.
But he’s repeatedly made false and misleading claims about his past ties to Epstein. Most recently, he denied that Attorney General Pam Bondi had told him his name was in the Epstein files, which CNN later reported she had – back in May.
What’s more, the timeline suggests the administration’s reversal on promising full disclosure coincided with Trump being told he was in the files.
And then there is the Maxwell situation. Even before the news of her prison transfer, the administration took very little care to make its handling of her appear proper.
It sent Blanche, Trump’s former personal lawyer, to meet with her. Blanche has called Maxwell’s lawyer his “friend.” Maxwell’s lawyer has been solicitous of Trump. And, of course, Trump has repeatedly left open a pardon.
Trump late last week said he didn’t know what would be produced from the Blanche meeting, saying, “I don’t know because I haven’t spoken about it.”
But he again suggested it might be limited by a desire not to create suspicion of people who haven’t been charged with crimes.
The confusion around all of this only seems to be growing, in large part because of Trump’s and the administration’s own actions and lack of transparency.
And perhaps nothing looms larger right now than the unanswered questions about the prison transfer.
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