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ghislaine maxwell
A Timeline of Trump’s Futile Epstein Diversions
For months, US President Trump has tried to divert public attention from the Jeffrey Epstein-Ghislaine Maxwell files. But he can’t shake the story, and it keeps getting worse.
Aug 27, 2025
Drip, drip, drip…
For months, US President Trump has tried to divert public attention from the Jeffrey Epstein-Ghislaine Maxwell files. But he can’t shake the story, and it keeps getting worse.
The Reversal
Trump campaigned for the presidency on the promise to release all of the files relating to Epstein’s sex trafficking in minors. To supercharge his MAGA base, he fueled conspiracy theories that the files contained something sinister involving prominent Democrats.
February 2025: Trump’s Attorney General, Pam Bondi, told a Fox News interviewer that Epstein’s client list was sitting on her desk, awaiting her review before its release.
May: Bondi and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche informed Trump that his name appeared in the Epstein files, the New York Times later reported.
July 7: Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director Kash Patel—who had also pushed conspiracy theories about the files during Trump’s campaign—issued a two-page memo stating that there was no Epstein client list and that the Justice Department (DOJ) would not release any additional materials relating to the matter.
July 16: Assistant US Attorney for the Southern District of New York Maurene Comey was fired. Comey was a lead prosecutor in the investigation and prosecution of Epstein and his coconspirator, Ghislaine Maxwell. She was also the daughter of former FBI Director James Comey and chief of the Violent and Organized Crime Unit. The memo gave no reason for Comey’s abrupt termination.
July 17: The Wall Street Journal published Trump’s alleged birthday note to Epstein that included his sketch of a naked woman.
The Blowback
Trump’s MAGA base erupted in anger over his refusal to release the DOJ’s Epstein files. Trying to appease his followers, Trump directed Bondi to ask that the courts release the Epstein and Maxwell grand jury transcripts. It was disingenuous because: 1) the courts were not likely to release the material; and 2) even if they did, the transcripts would constitute a small fraction of the Justice Department’s Epstein-Maxwell files.
July 23: A Florida judge denied Bondi’s motion to release the files relating to the Justice Department’s Epstein investigations in 2005 and 2007 that had resulted in a non-prosecution agreement. Trump’s then-Secretary of Labor Alex Acosta had negotiated the agreement with Epstein’s high-powered lawyers while serving as US attorney for the Southern District of Florida during George W. Bush’s presidency.
The Blunder
July 24: Deputy Attorney General (and Trump’s former personal attorney) Todd Blanche flew to Tallahassee and met with Maxwell for two days—an unprecedented visit for a No. 2 official in the Justice Department. Maxwell is serving a 20-year sentence for sex trafficking.
July 31: Contrary to prison assignment policies for sex offenders, the Justice Department’s Bureau of Prisons transferred Maxwell from a Tallahassee prison to a “Club Fed” camp in Texas.
The Boomerang
August 11: A federal judge in New York denied Bondi’s motion to unseal Maxwell’s grand jury files. The court observed that anyone “who reviewed these materials expecting, based on the Government’s representations, to learn new information about Epstein’s and Maxwell’s crimes and the investigation into them, would come away feeling disappointed and misled. There is no ‘there’ there.”
The entire exercise was a farce—another Trump con job:
The one colorable argument under that doctrine for unsealing in this case, in fact, is that doing so would expose as disingenuous the Government’s public explanations for moving to unseal. A member of the public, appreciating that the Maxwell grand jury materials do not contribute anything to public knowledge, might conclude that the Government’s motion for their unsealing was aimed not at “transparency” but at diversion—aimed not at full disclosure but at the illusion of such.
August 20: A different federal judge in New York blasted Bondi’s motion to unseal the Epstein grand jury transcripts. Describing the “trove” of materials that the Justice Department had assembled but withheld from the public, the court observed:
The Government’s 100,000 pages of Epstein files and materials dwarf the 70 odd pages of Epstein grand jury materials.
Trump’s directive that Bondi seek the release of the grand jury materials was always a ruse. As the court continued:
The Government is the logical party to make comprehensive disclosure to the public of the Epstein files. By comparison, the instant grand jury motion appears to be a “diversion” from the breadth and scope of the Epstein files in the Government’s possession.
The court specifically called out Trump’s about-face on releasing the files:
In February 2025, the Government, as noted, was prepared to release the “Epstein Files” to the public. See DOJ Press Release. But then, on July 6, 2025, the Government announced that it would not make the files available to the public.
And the judge concluded: “The information contained in the Epstein grand jury transcripts pales in comparison to the Epstein investigation and materials in the hands of the Department of Justice.”
The Newest Scam
Meanwhile, on August 5, several Republicans voted with Democrats on the House Oversight Committee to force chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) to subpoena the Justice Department for the Epstein-Maxwell materials. Comer also issued deposition subpoenas to former Attorneys General William Barr, Merrick Garland, Jeff Sessions, Loretta Lynch, Eric Holder, and Alberto Gonzales; former FBI Director James Comey; former special counsel and FBI Director Robert Mueller III; former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton; and former President Bill Clinton.
That’s superficially impressive, but purely performative. Notably missing from the committee’s witness list are the frontline prosecutors and investigators who actually know something meaningful about the Epstein-Maxwell cases.
One is Maurene Comey.
August 22: The FBI’s surprise search of former National Security Advisor John Bolton’s home and office dominated the media. Coincidentally, the Justice Department also released a transcript of Blanche’s July interview with Maxwell during which she asserted that no one connected with Epstein’s alleged crimes had done anything wrong—including her and, of course, Trump, upon whom she lavished praise.
Sharing the news cycle was the Justice Department’s production of documents to the House Oversight Committee. It provided a fraction of the DOJ’s Epstein file, and only 3% was new.
August 25: The House Oversight Committee subpoenaed materials from Epstein’s estate and announced that it will depose Alex Acosta on September 19.
Drip, drip, drip…
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The Latest Chapter in the Ghislaine Maxwell Saga
Trump has tried desperately to walk away from the Epstein conspiracy theories that he had pushed to energize his MAGA base. But nothing has worked.
Aug 14, 2025
When we left convicted sex offender Ghislaine Maxwell, she had just received several remarkable gifts from the Trump administration.
First, while serving a 20-year sentence for sex trafficking minors as Jeffrey Epstein’s procurer, she got an unprecedented meeting with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, the second highest official in the Justice Department. Blanche was also U.S. President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer in the hush-money trial resulting in his 34 felony convictions. That such a meeting even occurred astonished legal observers across the political spectrum.
Second, only a week later, the Justice Department’s Bureau of Prisons transferred Maxwell out of the Florida Correctional Institution in Tallahassee, a minimum security prison with horrendous conditions. Her new home is the Federal Prison Camp in Bryan, Texas—a “Club Fed” that houses white-collar criminals and celebrities who have far better living quarters and relative freedom of movement.
The Plot Thickens
Now independent journalist and podcast host Allison Gill (“Mueller, She Wrote” on Bluesky) reports, “I have Ghislaine Maxwell’s security score, custody level, transfer code, public safety factor, and sex offender waiver.”
If accurate, Gill’s information confirms my earlier observation that sex offenders are not eligible for placement in a federal prison camp. Someone has to waive such a prisoner’s mandatory “public safety factor” that would otherwise bar a transfer to one.
Gill also notes, “What stands out here is the custody level ‘OUT,’ which allows her to leave the minimum security campus for work assignments.” [Italics in original]
Déjà Vu?
In some respects, Maxwell is following in the footsteps of her mentor. In June 2008, federal prosecutors in Florida had identified 31 victims whom it was prepared to name in an indictment of Jeffrey Epstein. President George W. Bush’s deputy attorney general had determined that federal prosecution of Epstein was appropriate.
But then-U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida Alex Acosta negotiated a non-prosecution agreement with Epstein’s high-powered lawyers. The federal charges were dropped. In return, Epstein pleaded guilty to two state charges: one count of solicitation of prostitution and one count of solicitation of prostitution with a minor under the age of 18.
I predict that Trump will now blame the courts for his own lack of transparency.
Epstein served a 13-month sentence in a private wing of a Palm Beach jail. He was allowed to leave 12 hours a day, six days a week, to work out of a nearby office. After his release, he resumed sex trafficking in minors with Maxwell as his coconspirator. In 2019, Epstein was indicted on new federal charges.
Acosta had agreed to keep the non-prosecution agreement confidential. In 2019, a federal judge ruled that prosecutors had violated the victims’ rights by failing to notify them of the plea deal. By then, Acosta was secretary of labor in Trump’s first administration. After revelation of his role in the earlier Epstein plea deal, he fresigned.
Meanwhile, A Courageous Judge Exposed Trump’s Latest Ploy
Trump has tried desperately to walk away from the Epstein conspiracy theories that he had pushed to energize his MAGA base. But nothing has worked. As the MAGA core cracked, pressure mounted and he made a hollow pledge: Trump ordered Attorney General Pam Bondi to seek the courts’ permission to release grand jury materials relating to Epstein and Maxwell.
As I observed previously, that was a head fake toward transparency because: 1) grand jury materials are a tiny slice of the Justice Department’s files on Epstein; and 2) the courts could refuse to release anything at all.
And the courts have done just that. So far, Bondi is now 0-for-2 in her effort to obtain judicial release of the Epstein-Maxwell grand jury materials.
Bondi’s latest rebuke came on August 11 in New York. In a blistering opinion, Judge Paul A. Engelmayer called out Trump’s subterfuge. The court observed that the “special circumstances” required for releasing Maxwell’s grand jury materials are not present:
The Government’s invocation of special circumstances, however, fails at the threshold. Its entire premise—that the Maxwell grand jury materials would bring to light meaningful new information about Epstein’s and Maxwell’s crimes, or the Government’s investigation into them—is demonstrably false.
The court continued:
A member of the public familiar with the Maxwell trial record who reviewed the grand jury materials that the Government proposes to unseal would thus learn next to nothing new.
Turning the government’s words back on it, the judge ruled:
A “public official,” “lawmaker,” “pundit,” or “ordinary citizen” “deeply interested and concerned about the Epstein matter,” Motion to Unseal at 3, and who reviewed these materials expecting, based on the Government’s representations, to learn new information about Epstein’s and Maxwell’s crimes and the investigation into them, would come away feeling disappointed and misled. There is no “there” there.
Judge Engelmayer’s most insightful and telling passage was also his most direct:
The one colorable argument under that doctrine for unsealing in this case, in fact, is that doing so would expose as disingenuous the Government’s public explanations for moving to unseal. A member of the public, appreciating that the Maxwell grand jury materials do not contribute anything to public knowledge, might conclude that the Government’s motion for their unsealing was aimed not at “transparency” but at diversion—aimed not at full disclosure but at the illusion of such.
Judge Engelmayer’s powerful condemnation is remarkable. He blasted Bondi’s attempt to use the court as a vehicle for Trump’s deflection, distraction, and diversion playbook.
Another federal judge in New York is considering the Justice Department’s request to release Epstein’s grand jury materials. I predict that Bondi goes 0-for-3.
I predict that Trump will now blame the courts for his own lack of transparency.
And I predict that the Ghislaine Maxwell scandal will live on….
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First-of-Its-Kind Lawsuit Seeks to Force Trump Administration to Release Epstein Files
"The only thing transparent about the Trump-Vance administration is how clearly they continue to disregard our nation's laws," said the head of the group behind the suit.
Aug 08, 2025
A pro-democracy legal advocacy group on Friday sued the U.S. Department of Justice and Federal Bureau of Investigation for not releasing documents concerning deceased child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein amid President Donald Trump's stonewalling and attempted deflection of all things related to his former close friend.
In a lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, Democracy Forward—which has lodged multiple Freedom of Information Act requests with the DOJ and FBI for Epstein-related material—accuses the Trump administration of violating FOIA by failing to produce the files. The suit seeks an order compelling the government "to produce the requested documents in an expedited manner, as required by public records laws."
Tanya Chutkan, the federal judge presiding over the suit, previously oversaw Trump's federal election interference case concerning his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential contest and his incitement of the January 6, 2021 Capitol insurrection.
BREAKING: We just filed a first-of-its-kind lawsuit demanding records related to the Trump-Vance admin’s handling of the Epstein Files.The only thing transparent about this administration is how clearly they continue to disregard our nation’s laws.
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— Democracy Forward (@democracyforward.org) August 8, 2025 at 6:52 AM
"In January 2024, unsealed court documents disclosed the names of dozens of powerful men with alleged connections to Epstein, including President Donald J. Trump, British Royal Prince Andrew, former President Bill Clinton, lawyer Alan Dershowitz, and others," the lawsuit states.
"This and other information raise persistent questions about what the government uncovered during the years of investigation into Epstein's criminal activity," the filing continues. "Accordingly, there is broad-based public pressure for the government to release that information by disclosing records that are often referred to as the 'Epstein files.'"
"There is widespread public speculation that the Epstein files contain a roster of powerful clients to whom Epstein trafficked underaged girls," the lawsuit adds. "This list has become known as the 'Epstein list' or the 'client list.'"
The suit notes that Trump said during his 2024 presidential campaign that he was inclined to release the Epstein files. The filing also references U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi's claim that the list was "sitting on my desk right now to review," and highlights reported "frantic scrubbing" of Trump's name from relevant documents by DOJ and FBI teams.
Furthermore, the lawsuit recounts Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche's recent meetings with Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein's erstwhile procurer who is serving a 20-year federal prison sentence for child sex trafficking, and the Trump administration's subsequent transfer of Maxwell to a lower-security correctional facility. The suit also notes that Trump has refused to rule out clemency for Maxwell.
"President Trump has repeatedly said he would release the Epstein files, his spokesperson claims his administration is 'the most transparent in history,' and yet, they continue to hide from the American people," Democracy Forward president and CEO Skye Perryman said in a statement. "The only thing transparent about the Trump-Vance administration is how clearly they continue to disregard our nation's laws."
"Public records laws outline a clear and simple process that requires the government to immediately produce important documents in response to urgent public information requests, and yet again, this administration is ignoring the law," Perryman added. "The court should intervene urgently to ensure the public has access to the information they need about this extraordinary situation."
Trump's efforts to deflect and distract from the Epstein scandal have outraged even many of his hardcore supporters and resulted in calls for transparency from both sides of the political aisle. The president denies any wrongdoing related to Epstein, calling the controversy over the files a "hoax" while denouncing Republicans demanding transparency as "weaklings." Trump also sued The Wall Street Journal over reporting that he wrote a "bawdy" letter for Epstein's 50th birthday in 2003.
On Thursday, Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) led 15 Democratic colleagues in a letter urging House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) to hold a hearing with victims of Epstein and Maxwell.
Congress must stand up for Epstein’s victims, not protect his rich and powerful friends.@pressley.house.gov is demanding a public Oversight hearing to give these survivors the opportunity to share their stories with the American people.
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— Oversight Dems (@oversightdemocrats.house.gov) August 7, 2025 at 2:19 PM
"If we are to hold powerful people to account, our investigation must center the voices they tried to silence," the Democratic lawmakers wrote. "To ensure that our investigation is comprehensive and credible, we urge the committee to allow survivors the opportunity to provide their testimony if they wish to do so."
Pressley—a survivor of childhood sexual abuse and rape in college—told The 19th* that if Comer refuses to hold such a hearing, "I will remind people why it didn't happen and that those elected officials are on the side of predators, while the Democrats are on the side of survivors."
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