Trump says ‘I'll give you a list' of Jeffrey Epstein associates amid furor — ‘haven't thought about' Ghislaine Maxwell pardon
Trump commented on the case as Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche interviewed Maxwell for a second day — as the administration seeks to put to bed three straight weeks of renewed controversy over the late criminal.
3 President Trump speaks to reporters on the South Lawn of the White House on July 25.
AFP via Getty Images
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'Focus on the former president of Harvard, some of the hedge fund guys, I'll give you a list. These guys lived with Jeffrey,' the president said as he departed for a trip to Scotland.
Asked about whether he would pardon Maxwell, Trump said first that he 'can't talk about pardons' and then that 'it's something I haven't thought about.'
3 Trial evidence photo of Ghislaine Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein on a private jet.
US District Court for the Southern District of New York/AFP via Getty Images
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3 Protestors hold signs demanding the release of Jeffrey Epstein files.
AFP via Getty Images
Public interest in the case was revived this year by Attorney General Pam Bondi publicly teasing bombshells and even at one point appearing to indicate she had possession of a client list.
Prince Andrew, former President Bill Clinton, and Microsoft founder Bill Gates are among Epstein's former friends, as is Trump, who reportedly had a falling out with the sex pervert in late 2004 due to competitive bidding on a Palm Beach mansion.
Trump has struggled to strongarm fellow Republicans, including members of Congress and grassroots allies, to move on from the matter after Bondi issued a memo saying there is no Epstein client list and that he died by suicide in jail on Aug. 10, 2019.
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I couldn't believe he actually said that because it's so provable that he was there." The White House has denied that Trump visited Jeffrey Epstein in his office, CNN reported. Donald Trump's Jeffrey Epstein Denials Quoted by PBS, White House communications director Steven Cheung said in a statement last week: "The fact is that the president kicked him [Jeffrey Epstein] out of his club for being a creep." And in Scotland on Monday, Trump told journalists he did not visit Epstein's private island, Little St. James: "I never had the privilege of going to his island, and I did turn it down, but a lot of people in Palm Beach were invited to his island. "In one of my very good moments, I turned it down. I didn't want to go to his island." In 2019, after Jeffrey Epstein was arrested by the FBI, Trump said he "knew him like everybody in Palm Beach knew him." Quoted by Sky News, he added: "I had a falling out with him. I haven't spoken to him in 15 years. I was not a fan of his, that I can tell you." "The reason doesn't make any difference, frankly," he said. In a 2002 interview with New York magazine, Trump said: "I've known Jeff for 15 years. Terrific guy. He's a lot of fun to be with. "It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side. No doubt about it—Jeffrey enjoys his social life." The DOJ and FBI Memo The DOJ and FBI memo released in July referenced "300 gigabytes of data and physical evidence" gathered during the Trump administration's review of the Epstein case. "Only a fraction of this material would have been aired publicly had Epstein gone to trial," the memo read, "as the seal served only to protect victims and did not expose any additional third-parties to allegations of illegal wrongdoing. "Through this review, we found no basis to revisit the disclosure of those materials and will not permit the release of child pornography. This systematic review revealed no incriminating 'client list.' "There was also no credible evidence found that Epstein blackmailed prominent individuals as part of his actions. "We did not uncover evidence that could predicate an investigation against uncharged third parties." Jeffrey Epstein's Death in Jail Jeffrey Epstein's death was officially ruled a suicide, but there have long been questions over whether there could have been foul play. In July, the DOJ released a tape recording of the camera in his prison cell leading to allegations there were some missing minutes, three according to an examination of the metadata by Wired. Mark Epstein said that on first learning his brother was dead, he assumed it was a suicide, but began to have doubts after two pathologists told him it could have been murder. "The thing I don't want to see," he told Newsnight, "I don't want to see people just writing this off as a suicide, which it wasn't." He said the pathologists "both came out of the autopsy saying they couldn't call it a suicide because it looked too much like a homicide. And that doesn't appear in any of the records or nobody talks about that—that the two pathologists, two highly qualified pathologists, say this looks more like a murder." "It was never investigated as a potential homicide because if it was there was a lot of things they should have done that were not done," he added.
