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Maxwell responded “no” when Blance asked whether she knew Epstein to communicate with FBI agents as a source or otherwise.
Asked whether he would have been likely to tell her if he was an FBI source, Maxwell said that he would have bragged about it.
“I think if he was for real, I think he would’ve bragged about it to me as a show off, because he could be a showoff. And if he wasn’t, he might have dropped it like he was cool. And I don’t think — I don’t remember him doing either,” Maxwell said.
“Now, with, again, the caveat that in his — before I met him, finding money, I think he may have suggested that there was some people who helped him, but that’s the only context that I recall that in,” Maxwell added.
Asked what she meant by “finding money,” Maxwell recalled that Epstein had shown her “a photograph that he had with some African warlords or something,” and that was her sole memory “of something nefarious — not nefarious. I don’t even know if it was nefarious, but covert, I suppose, would be the word.”
Asked about other intelligence agencies, like the CIA or Defense Intelligence or any other law enforcement agency, Maxwell said, “Okay. I don’t think so. I think that — I don’t remember anything like that. I just don’t think he had the wherewithal,” and that it was “bull—-.”
The prosecutors and judge involved in Maxwell’s 2021 criminal trial blasted her for being dishonest and failing to accept responsibility for her actions.
“The defendant’s willingness to brazenly lie under oath about her conduct, including some of the conduct charged in the Indictment, strongly suggests her true motive has been and remains to avoid being held accountable for her crimes,” prosecutors wrote in one pretrial motion.
The judge who sentenced Maxwell to 20 years behind bars after she was found guilty of recruiting, grooming and trafficking multiple teenage girls for Epstein noted she refused take responsibility for her actions.
“Ms. Maxwell today acknowledged the courage of the victims, talked about the pain and anguish they expressed, to some extent acknowledged the pain and suffering,” Judge Alison Nathan said at her sentencing, but “what wasn’t expressed was acceptance of responsibility.”
Maxwell had at one point in the case been charged with perjury, alleging she made false statements in a deposition under oath in the 2016 civil case. The government declined to move forward with those charges after her sex trafficking conviction. Maxwell is appealing the conviction.
According to newly released transcripts of his interview with Maxwell, Blanche asked whether she remembered the names of people who had sent letters to contribute to a 50th birthday album for Epstein in 2003.
“It’s been so long. I want to tell you, but I don’t remember,” Maxwell said.
Blanche was referring to a Wall Street Journal article that reported Trump was among those who submitted a letter to the book more than two decades ago. NBC News has not independently verified the documents, and the president has denied submitting a letter.
Asked if she remembered Trump submitting a letter, card or note, Maxwell responded: “I don’t.”
Maxwell was also asked whether she remembered seeing the book or any portion of the letters, and she said she did, but that “there was nothing from President Trump.”
Pressed again on whether President Trump had submitted a letter for Epstein’s 50th birthday, Maxwell said, “I do not remember.”
Maxwell also said she did not have a recollection of a letter containing a drawing of a naked woman.
Trump sued the Journal last month for $10 billion in damages and a jury trial over the report.
Maxwell, who’s serving a 20-year prison sentence on sex trafficking charges, was transferred to a minimum security federal prison camp about a week after she sat for her interview with Blanche.
Maxwell, 63, had been held at a low-security facility in Tallahassee, Florida, that housed men and women, but was transferred to a camp in Bryan, Texas, which houses only women. A majority of its inmates are serving time for nonviolent offenses and white-collar crimes.
The move outraged some former Bureau of Prisons officials who said she appeared to be getting special treatment. Bureau of Prisons rules require sex offenders to be held in at least a low-level security prison like FCI Tallahassee, unless they receive a waiver.
Maxwell said she believes she first met Trump in 1990 — before she met Epstein.
“I may have met Donald Trump at that time, because my father was friendly with him and liked him very much,” she said, referring to Robert Maxwell, who owned the New York Daily News at the time.
“President Trump was always very cordial and very kind to me. And I just want to say that I find — I — I admire his extraordinary achievement in becoming the president now. And I like him, and I’ve always liked him. So that is the sum and substance of my entire relationship with him,” she said.
Maxwell said Epstein and Trump were “friendly” but “I don’t think they were close friends.”
In the interview with Blanche, Maxwell claimed she never saw Epstein taking photos or videos of other people to later blackmail them.
“Did you ever hear, when you were present for conversations that Mr. Epstein was having, or others were having, anybody accuse him of blackmailing them or of trying to extort them, because of something Mr. Epstein knew?” Blanche asked.
“No,” Maxwell replied.
David Markus, Maxwell’s lawyer, said his client is “innocent and never should have been tried, much less convicted, in this case.”
“She never committed or participated in sexual abuse against minors, or anyone else for that matter. In fact, the government has admitted that it did not even consider her a conspirator during the extensive investigation into Epstein in the Southern District of Florida. The only reason she was ever charged is that she served as a scapegoat after Jeffrey Epstein died in prison,” Markus said in a lengthy statement.
Markus went on to express gratitude to the Trump administration for publicizing the recordings of Maxwell’s interview with Blanche.
“We are thankful to the Department of Justice and to Todd Blanche for making these tapes and transcripts public so that people can judge for themselves. We are also grateful to the President for his continued commitment to the truth in this matter and for refusing to cave to the mob,” Markus said.
In the interview with Blanche, Maxwell expressed skepticism about the medical examiner’s ruling that Epstein killed himself in August 2019.
“I do not believe he died by suicide,” Maxwell said, according to the transcript.
Maxwell told Blanche she never witnessed President Donald Trump doing anything inappropriate, according to the transcript released by the DOJ.
“I never witnessed the president in any inappropriate setting in any way,” Maxwell said, referring to Trump. “The president was never inappropriate with anybody.”
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