President Donald Trump said Friday morning that he “hasn’t thought about” pardoning Ghislaine Maxwell, Jeffrey Epstein’s former girlfriend and accomplice, who is serving 20 years in prison for sex trafficking.
Trump spoke to a gaggle of reporters as he was departing the White House for Europe to meet with the Scottish Prime Minister.
“Would you consider a pardon or a commutation for Ghislaine Maxwell?” a reporter asked.
Reporter: Would you consider a pardon or commutation for Ghislaine Maxwell?
Trump: I’m allowed to do it, but it’s something I haven’t thought about pic.twitter.com/hxtckbf9b3
— Acyn (@Acyn) July 25, 2025
“It’s something I haven’t thought about,” Trump responded. “I’m allowed to do it, but it’s something I have not thought about.”
Trump’s comments come one day after Todd Blanche, the second highest-ranking Justice Department official, met with Maxwell on Thursday at the U.S. attorney’s office in Tallahassee, Florida.
“If Ghislane Maxwell has information about anyone who has committed crimes against victims, the FBI and the DOJ will hear what she has to say,” Blanche said in a statement earlier this week.
Blanche continued interviewing Maxwell on Friday.
“He’s over there now,” Trump said of Blanche Friday morning. “I don’t know exactly what’s happening, but I certainly can’t talk about pardons now.”
Another reporter asked, “Can you trust what she’s telling him? She’s a convicted trafficker who’s eager to get out of prison?”
“Well, you know, he’s a professional lawyer,” Trump responded. “I think he’s been through things like this before.”
Maxwell’s lawyer said she had answered “every one” of the government’s questions on Thursday.
Trump also again denied he had written a “bawdy” birthday letter to Epstein, which The Wall Street Journal reported last week.
“I don’t even know what they’re talking about. Now, somebody could have written a letter and used my name. That’s happened a lot,” Trump said.
Trump has filed $10 billion defamation lawsuit against the Journal over the story.
Trump and Epstein socialized in the early 2000s, but Trump reportedly banned Epstein from Mar-a-Lago in 2007 for harassing a club member’s teenage daughter. In 2020, Trump said he was “not a fan” of Epstein and “threw him out” of Mar-a-Lago, adding that they had not spoken in 15 years.
Bill Clinton allegedly wrote a birthday letter that complimented Epstein on his “childlike curiosity,” the Journal reported Thursday.
“You ought to be speaking about Bill Clinton, who went to the island 28 times. I never went to the island,” Trump told reporters Friday. “You should focus on the president of Harvard, the former president of Harvard. You should focus on some of the hedge fund guys. I’ll give you a list. These guys lived with Jeffrey Epstein. I sure as hell didn’t.”
Epstein was found dead at 66 in what was ruled a suicide in his Manhattan jail cell back in 2019. He was awaiting trial on federal sex trafficking charges after being accused of sexually abusing dozens of underage girls, as well as procuring underage girls for prominent men on his private island in the Virgin Islands, Little St. James.