Democratic lawmakers and the families of Jeffrey Epstein’s victims are outraged over the Trump administration’s latest “distraction” after the Department of Justice released transcripts and audio recordings from its interview with Ghislaine Maxwell.
During a wide-ranging two-day interview with a top DOJ official last month, Maxwell was asked about Virginia Giuffre, an outspoken victim of Epstein’s sexual abuse and grooming by Maxwell, who died by suicide in April.
Those meetings, Giuffre’s family says, gave the 63-year-old convicted sex trafficker a “platform to rewrite history.”
“The content of these transcripts is in direct contradiction with felon Ghislaine Maxwell’s conviction for child sex trafficking,” the family said in a statement. “This travesty of justice entirely invalidates the experiences of the many brave survivors who put their safety, security, and lives on the line to ensure her conviction, including our sister.”
Congressional Democrats also criticized Maxwell’s interview with deputy attorney general Todd Blanche, a former defense attorney for Donald Trump, with one lawmaker branding the release of the transcript an attempt to “distract” from a “White House cover-up.”
California Rep. Robert Garcia, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, accused Maxwell of “desperately seeking a pardon” and said she “cannot be trusted.”
California Democratic Senator Adam Schiff told NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday that “she wants a pardon.”
“She says exactly what her lawyers tell her is going to be necessary to get a pardon. No one should be surprised here,” he said.
The president has not ruled out pardoning Maxwell.
Maxwell, who is serving a 20-year sentence in federal prison after she was convicted in 2021 for her role in a scheme to sexually exploit and abuse minors with Jeffrey Epstein, spoke with Blanche and other top DOJ officials last month.
The DOJ released hundreds of pages of transcripts and hours of audio recordings from the interview on Friday.
Those documents were made public the same day the DOJ released an initial batch of the so-called Epstein files to the House Oversight Committee.
The Republican-led committee issued a subpoena on August 5 demanding all communications and documents related to the criminal cases of Epstein and Maxwell.
The DOJ handed over just a fraction of them.
The department shared 33,000 pages, 97 percent of which are already public, Garcia said.
“DOJ’s limited disclosure raises more questions than answers and makes clear that the White House is not interested in justice for the victims or the truth,” he said.
California Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna told MSNBC Saturday that the tens of thousands of documents that the Justice Department released account for “less than 1 percent” of all of the Epstein files.
“They’re stonewalling and not releasing things,” he said.
Pennsylvania Democratic Rep. Summer Lee similarly said the DOJ is “pretending to respond to the subpoena.”
“This partial release is insulting to the survivors who have waited far too long for accountability,” she said.
Trump has insisted that the public and press should move on from questions about the case, fueling ongoing conspiracy theories of a government-wide cover up to protect powerful public figures who exploited and abused young girls.
That scrutiny escalated after federal law enforcement officials refused to release additional case information in the case last month, citing “no basis to revisit the disclosure of those materials” despite demands for a full accounting of Epstein’s death and alleged ties to a wider child trafficking conspiracy implicating powerful figures.
This week, a third federal judge rebuffed Trump administration efforts to unseal grand jury documents in the Epstein case, noting that the content of grand jury transcripts “pales in comparison to the Epstein investigative information and materials” already in the hands of the DOJ.
District Judge Richard Berman, who presided over Epstein’s case before his death, agreed with another judge who last week called the government’s request a “diversion” tactic to distract from public pressure against the Trump’s administration to release the files.
In her interview, Maxwell claimed she “absolutely never” saw Trump behaving inappropriately with anyone in Epstein’s circle.
Maxwell told officials she met Trump in the 1990s and took the opportunity to praise him. Trump was “always very cordial and very kind to me,” she said, hailing his “extraordinary achievement in becoming the president now.”
She also addressed Giuffre’s allegations that she was trafficked by Epstein to have sex with Andrew when she was 17. Prince Andrew has denied the claims and paid Giuffre an out-of-court settlement in 2022.
“Her story doesn’t hold water,” Maxwell said of the claims. “I believe that this whole thing was manufactured.”
In court filings, several Epstein survivors have voiced support for releasing more information around the high-profile cases and criticized the Trump administration’s handling of the matter.
The Justice Department appeared to defend the document release, stating it was “more than was ever requested by the committee” when Democrats held a majority.
“This DOJ will continue to work closely with Congress in pursuit of transparency while adhering to protections afforded to victims of heinous crimes,” the agency said in a statement to The Washington Post.
The Independent has request additional comment from the agency.
