DOJ Interviews Ghislaine Maxwell As Epstein File Backlash Grows

Justice Department officials met with Ghislaine Maxwell in Tallahassee on Thursday.

She’s currently serving a 20-year sentence for sex trafficking, The New York Times reported. Her lawyer, David Oscar Markus, spoke briefly outside the federal courthouse after the interview. He didn’t say what was discussed but confirmed Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche led the meeting.

“Ms. Maxwell answered every single question,” Markus said. “She never stopped, she never invoked a privilege… she answered all the questions truthfully, honestly and to the best of her ability.”

Blanche posted later that he plans to meet with Maxwell again on Friday.

He added that the DOJ will “share additional information about what we learned at the appropriate time.”

It’s still unclear if Maxwell has anything new to offer beyond what’s already public. The interview appears to be part of the department’s push to fight back against criticism that it’s covering up details about Jeffrey Epstein’s crimes and his connections to high-profile individuals, including President Trump.

A recent Wall Street Journal report highlighted a racy birthday poem reportedly signed by Trump and included in a book Maxwell made for Epstein’s 50th birthday.

That report added more fuel to the firestorm.

Blanche, who once represented Trump as a criminal defense attorney, now finds himself at the center of what appears to be a political crisis—not a law enforcement operation. Sources say the DOJ has scrambled in recent days to get ahead of the backlash after deciding not to release more Epstein-related files.

That decision, made by Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel, sparked major backlash from the public and Trump supporters who were promised transparency.

On Wednesday, a House Oversight subcommittee voted to subpoena the DOJ for all remaining unreleased documents. That vote amounts to a direct challenge to Bondi and Patel’s decision, which they say was meant to protect victims and witnesses.

A federal judge in Florida has rejected a Trump administration request to release grand jury transcripts from the Jeffrey Epstein case.

U.S. District Judge Robin Rosenberg said she could not authorize the release.

“Eleventh Circuit [federal appeals court] law does not permit this Court to grant the Government’s request; the Court’s hands are tied—a point the Government concedes,” she wrote in a 12-page opinion, Fox News reported.

The Trump administration had pushed for the transcripts to be unsealed from Florida grand jury proceedings tied to the original federal investigation into Epstein. The effort was part of a broader call for transparency around Epstein’s sex trafficking network. The grand juries in question were held in 2005 and 2007.

That investigation ultimately ended with Epstein pleading guilty to state charges and serving 13 months in jail, after federal prosecutors agreed not to pursue federal sex trafficking charges.

In a separate courtroom Wednesday, a second judge denied a similar request from Epstein’s convicted associate Ghislaine Maxwell. Maxwell’s lawyers asked for access to the Florida grand jury records to respond to an ongoing judicial review concerning possible public release.

Judge Paul Engelmayer denied the request, saying there was “no compelling reason for that.”

“There is no justification for Maxwell to obtain the extraordinary relief of plenary access to the grand jury transcripts in her case,” the judge said.

However, Engelmayer said the government must produce the transcripts to the court by July 28.

He said the court would review them “expeditiously” and that if any part of the transcripts would benefit from input by Maxwell’s legal team, the court would share that portion with them. Wednesday’s ruling was the first official roadblock in President Donald Trump’s push to declassify Epstein case files.

Last week, Trump said Attorney General Pam Bondi had been instructed to seek the release of grand jury transcripts “because of the ridiculous amount of publicity given to Jeffrey Epstein.”

The administration has also filed a request in Manhattan federal court seeking to unseal grand jury records from Epstein’s 2019 indictment and the prosecution of Ghislaine Maxwell.