MAGA Pulls Bonkers 180 on Ghislaine Maxwell to Help Trump
The Justice Department is reportedly meeting with Maxwell on Thursday and Friday, ahead of her scheduled deposition with the House Oversight Committee on August 11. The interviews follow weeks of mounting pressure on Trump from his base, who have clamored for more transparency regarding the Epstein files after the Justice Department contradicted prior statements from Attorney General Pam Bondi on the existence of Jeffrey Epstein's supposed client list.
Offering Maxwell as fodder to Trump's hungry followers is a fascinating carrot-and-stick option to alleviate some of that tension, but convincing her to talk would almost certainly require some kind of deal—an option that pro-Trump conservative media networks started to imagine this week.
On Monday, Newsmax host Greg Kelly had already started to dabble in the new media line, suggesting on air that Maxwell didn't deserve her 20-year prison sentence and openly embracing the idea that the Epstein associate could be wrongly convicted.
'And then he's got that girlfriend, Ghislaine—Ghislaine Maxwell,' Kelly said. 'Right? She's in jail right now for, like, 40 years or something crazy.' Maxwell is eligible for release in July 2037.
'And maybe she deserves it. Maybe she doesn't. Again, not a very popular thing, but we'll take a look,' Kelly told his viewers, even questioning if the child sex abuser had been legally tried in court. (She was.)
'She just might be a victim. She just might be,' Kelly said.
'How do you defend yourself?' he continued. 'This is in the height of #MeToo. Does that sound right? Does that sound—maybe it's legal.'
The 56-year-old former Fox & Friends co-host, who was investigated in 2012 on his own rape charges, also aired a clip of former Epstein attorney Alan Dershowitz, who claimed that Maxwell 'shouldn't be' behind bars.
'She is really serving Jeffrey Epstein's sentence after he committed suicide,' Dershowitz said. 'There was no one else to prosecute … so they went after her, and they sentenced her to a sentence that would have been appropriate for Epstein but not at all appropriate for her.'
Maxwell was sentenced in 2022 for playing an active role in Epstein's crimes, identifying and grooming vulnerable young women while normalizing their abuse as Epstein's longtime girlfriend and associate.
'She deserves to be out,' Dershowitz said, which Kelly repeated to his viewers.
But Kelly wasn't the only conservative personality who had bought into the unsavory angle. Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk—who capitulated to Trump last week when the MAGA leader ordered Kirk to stop discussing the matter as it riled his base—claimed that deposing Maxwell was 'definitely' something that is 'worthy of praise' and 'encouragement.'
'Maybe she wants immunity, maybe she wants some sort of protection, I don't know,' Charlie Kirk said on his show Tuesday. 'We just want the truth.… Some people say, 'Can we trust Ghislaine Maxwell?' Probably, but also probably not.'
But not everyone on the right has bought in. Laura Loomer claimed last week that it wouldn't be long 'before some lobbyists try to cook up a possible pardon campaign' for the imprisoned sex offender. And Whitney Webb similarly warned that the Trump administration's renewed interest in Maxwell was suspicious, claiming that scapegoating the Epstein associate would be the perfect way 'to both avoid releasing the bulk of Epstein documents still held by the government and still seem like they are pursuing 'justice' in the case.'
'This could also pave the way for the 'Pardon Ghislaine' movement,' Webb, a prominent conspiracy theorist, wrote on X Tuesday, theorizing that Maxwell would only unveil the names she's instructed to so that she doesn't end up like Epstein.
Meanwhile, Trump was almost undoubtedly in Epstein's universe. On Wednesday, The Wall Street Journal reported that the Justice Department had notified Trump in May that his name appeared several times in the Epstein files.
Prior to his death, Epstein described himself as one of Trump's 'closest friends.' The socialites were named and photographed together several times, Trump allegedly penned a salacious letter to Epstein for the pedophile's 50th birthday, the real estate mogul reportedly flew on Epstein's jets between Palm Beach and New York at least seven times, and the first time that Trump slept with his now-wife Melania was reportedly aboard Epstein's plane, nicknamed the 'Lolita Express.'
In a 2002 New York magazine profile of Epstein, Trump said he had known Epstein for 15 years and referred to him as a 'terrific guy.'
'It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side,' Trump said at the time.
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