The Epstein Files, Sex Criminal Ghislaine Maxwell, and the Coverup
On the campaign trail and in confirmation hearings, Trump and his team had some strong rhetoric challenging Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell.
Donald Trump in 2024, referring to the release of Epstein’s client list: “I’d have no problem with it.”
Pam Bondi in 2024: “Ghislaine Maxwell is in prison for 20 years where she belongs,” and there is “no legal basis” to keep the Epstein clients hidden.
Kash Patel in January 2025: “Child sex trafficking has no place in the United States of America. And I will do everything, if confirmed as FBI Director, to make sure the American public knows the full weight of what happened in the past.”
That’s all it was, however, rhetoric. Because since they acquired power ─ as President, Attorney General, and FBI Director ─ they have done everything they can to prevent the Epstein files from being made public, in one of the biggest attempted coverups in modern times.
House Speaker Mike Johnson has also been involved. Johnson refused to seat the newly elected Representative from Arizona, Adelita Grijalva for nearly seven weeks after her election. Johnson knew that once Grijalva was sworn in, she would provide the crucial 218th signature on the discharge petition.
Rep. Grijalva was sworn in yesterday and, indeed, immediately signed the petition. When two Republican signers, Reps. Lauren Boebert and Nancy Mace, refused to take their names off the petition, despite intense pressure to do so from Trump and top law enforcement officials, the discharge petition became effective yesterday
Speaker Johnson then announced there would be a House vote on the bill next week, which requires the Epstein files to be made public.
Despite all the efforts to hide it, Trump’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein’s activities appears clearer today. It made new headlines yesterday when an email, released by the House, from Epstein to a journalist said that “of course [Trump] knew about the girls” that Epstein was trafficking. Trump has consistently denied knowing about Epstein’s sex trafficking.
Trump reportedly was mentioned multiple times in Epstein’s private emails. In May, Bondi reportedly told Trump his name appeared in the Epstein files.
In one email to Maxwell also released yesterday, Epstein claimed that Trump “spent hours at my house” with one of Epstein’s girls.
Trump’s reaction when Maxwell was arrested and jailed was to publicly express sympathy – not to the girls who were “incalculably” damaged by Maxwell, but to the pedophile Maxwell, saying “I just wish her well, frankly.”
Meanwhile, a whistleblower has complained about the “concierge-style” treatment Maxwell is getting at the minimum-security prison camp. Maxwell was quickly transferred to a “Club Fed” prison camp after a bizarre prison interview in which she apparently gave Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche all he wanted to protect Trump.
Let’s take a moment to put Ghislaine Maxwell in context to understand how perverse her special treatment is. Maxwell was Epstein’s procurer, his sex trafficker and herself a sexual abuser of young girls.
In sentencing Maxwell to 20 years in jail, Judge Alison Nathan, said that Maxwell “over the course of many years, participated in a horrific scheme to entice, transport, and traffic underage girls, some as young as 14, for sexual abuse by and with Jeffrey Epstein.” Judge Nathan also found that Maxwell’s actions were “heinous and predatory” and that “the damage done to these young girls was incalculable.”
Following his Maxwell interview, however, Deputy Attorney General Blanche, a former criminal defense attorney for Trump, said it is “an “impossible question” whether Maxwell is a “credible” witness in denying any involvement in the crimes of Epstein.
Who in the world does Blanche think he is fooling?
He conveniently ignored the fact that 12 jurors had found Maxwell guilty of sex trafficking and sexual abuse. He conveniently ignored the fact that a judge sentenced Maxwell to 20 years in prison, finding that she had done “incalculable damage” to young girls. He conveniently ignored the fact that four victims testified under oath in Maxwell’s criminal trial about her role in sex trafficking and sexual abuses.
This is scandalous and there must be accountability for all involved. The Epstein files in full must be released to the public. Maxwell must stay in jail for her full sentence and be sent back to her original federal prison.
And above all this question must be answered: What precisely is President Trump so afraid of in the Epstein files that he is blocking the American people from seeing the files?
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Fred’s Weekly Note appears on Thursdays in Wertheimer’s Political Report, a Democracy 21 newsletter. Read this week’s newsletter, and other recent editions, here. And subscribe for free here and receive your copy each week via email.
