Trump gives update on Ghislaine Maxwell pardon as he issues furious denial about visiting Epstein's island

Daily Mail​

6 days ago

President Donald Trump told Daily Mail on Monday that no one has asked him about a pardon for Ghislaine Maxwell as he went on a rant about Jeffrey Epstein.
'I'm allowed to give her a pardon. Nobody's approached me with it. Nobody's asked me about it. It's in the news about that, that aspect of it. But right now, it would be inappropriate to talk about it,' he said.
Maxwell, who met with Justice Department officials last week, is serving 20 years in prison for her involvement in Jeffrey Epstein's sordid crimes of sex trafficking. She was convicted in 2021 on five counts related to sex trafficking and conspiracy.
A growing fringe effort to get Trump to pardon Maxwell has unfolded after the Justice Department rejected her effort to have her conviction on child sex trafficking charges thrown out.
Questions about Epstein and queries about his relationship with the notorious financer followed Trump from the United States to his meeting with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer in Scotland through the weekend.
He again denied ever making a controversial doodle for Epstein's 50th birthday and claimed he'd never been to the financier's private island in the Caribbean.
'I don't do drawings,' Trump said when asked about a Wall Street Journal report that had reviewed a typewritten birthday letter bearing Trump´s signature, framed by the seemingly hand-drawn outline of a naked woman.
'Sometimes people say, would you draw a building? And I'll draw four lines and a little roof, you know, for a charity stuff, but, but I'm not a drawing person,' Trump said.
The president is suing the Journal and owner Rupert Murdoch for $10 billion in a defamation suit tied to the publication of that article.
Trump also offered a new explanation of why he and Epstein – who were pictured together at many social events in the 1990s and 2000s – had a falling out.
Trump banned Epstein from his Mar-a-Lago Club in 2004 but, before that time, both Epstein and Maxwell were photographed partying at the Palm Beach social club, often with Trump and his girlfriend turned wife Melania Knauss.
The president said the fallout stemmed from Epstein poaching his staff.
'He stole people that work for me. I said, Don't ever do that again. He did it again, and I threw him out of the place persona non grata, I threw him out, and that was it. I'm glad I did, if you want to know the truth,' Trump told Daily Mail during a Q&A with reporters on Monday.
One of those employees was the late Virginia Giuffre, who Maxwell met when the young Giuffre was working as a spa attendant at Mar-a-Lago.
Maxwell saw her reading a book about massage therapy and offered her a position as Epstein's masseuse, Giuffre claimed.
Before her death earlier this year, Giuffre was one of the most prominent and vocal accusers of Epstein and Maxwell.
It was reported previously Trump and Epstein fell out over an oceanfront Palm Beach property that was being sold out of bankruptcy that each man wanted.
Trump also sought to try to turn spotlight on other prominent men who have been spotted with Epstein, including former President Bill Clinton.
On Monday he declared he 'never went to the island' – referring to Epstein's private Caribbean island where many young girls claimed they experienced abuse.
'I never had the privilege of going to his island, and I did turn it down,' he said. 'But a lot of people in Palm Beach were invited to his island. In one of my very good moments, I turned it down.'
He did allege: 'Bill Clinton went there, supposedly, 28 times ... And many other people that are very big people. Nobody ever talks about them.'
The allegations about Clinton are not new.
The former president wrote in his memoir 'Citizen' that he'd never gone to the island and that he wished he'd never even met Epstein in the first place.
Clinton made some trips on Epstein's private jet, but that in service to the Clinton Foundation and involved a trip to Africa.
Trump's MAGA loyalists have long believed there is a list of rich and powerful people for whom Epstein is alleged to have trafficked young girls and it's fueled their feverish calls for the Department of Justice to release files around the case.
Trump also suggested - but offered no proof - that Democrats could have planted his name in files associated with the Epstein investigation.
'They ran the files. I was running against somebody that ran the files,' Trump said. 'If they had something, they would have released it. Now they can easily put something in the files that's a phony.'
Attorney General Pam Bondi briefed Trump during a May 2025 meeting that his name was found in the Epstein documents 'multiple times,' according to reports, which have been denied by the president.
Even if the president is named in the files, it does not mean he's implicated in any wrongdoing related to Epstein's child sex trafficking.
Trump finished his rant on Monday by claiming his poll ratings have increased by 4.5 points since this 'ridiculous Epstein stuff' has been in the news.
But a cache of surveys from major outlets show the president's approval rating has largely remained stable or declined slightly in July, with most measuring his approval in the mid-40s.
No credible poll has shown him jumping 4.5 percentage points.