WASHINGTON – The Trump administration has given no rationalization for its switch of intercourse offender and Jeffrey Epstein confederate Ghislaine Maxwell to a minimum-security federal jail camp.
Maxwell’s lawyer confirmed Friday that she had been transferred from a low-security facility in Florida to a minimum-security facility in Bryan, Texas. The federal Bureau of Prisons confirmed the transfer.
However no one within the Trump administration has defined why Maxwell was transferred. President Donald Trump himself ignored a query concerning the switch on Friday, although he has mentioned he’s allowed to pardon Maxwell, and her lawyer has mentioned she could be “eager” to supply public testimony in change for clemency.
Maxwell’s switch occurred after Todd Blanche, the Justice Division’s No. 2 official and Trump’s former private lawyer, interviewed Maxwell for 2 days in July, prompting widespread hypothesis that Trump will by some means use Maxwell to get out of a political jam after refusing to launch the federal government’s recordsdata on Epstein.
“There is every reason to fear that Donald Trump could offer Ghislaine Maxwell a pardon in exchange for silence or, even worse, phony exoneration,” Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) mentioned final month.
In response to a request for an evidence of the switch despatched to the White Home, a senior administration official mentioned: “Any false assertion this individual was given preferential treatment is absurd. Prisoners are routinely moved in some instances due to death threats, and significant safety and danger concerns.”
Maxwell was convicted in 2021 of serving to Epstein recruit, groom and sexually assault underage ladies. Particularly, a jury discovered her responsible of conspiracy to entice minors to journey to interact in unlawful intercourse acts, conspiracy to move minors to take part in unlawful intercourse acts, transporting a minor to take part in unlawful intercourse acts, intercourse trafficking conspiracy, and intercourse trafficking of a minor. She’s serving a 20-year jail sentence.
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Trump was a longtime good friend of Maxwell and Epstein. Within the Eighties, Trump was an acquaintance and enterprise rival of Maxwell’s father, Robert Maxwell, a British enterprise titan revealed to be a criminal and a fraud after his loss of life in 1991. Ghislaine, who labored for her father, befriended Trump within the late Eighties and the 2 popped up at events in New York and Florida, typically with Epstein, then Maxwell’s supposed boyfriend.
Ghislaine and Trump might be seen chatting it up at a Ford Fashions occasion in 1997 in the New York Day by day Information. That very same 12 months, Ghislaine seems as a passenger on Trump’s 727 jet certain for Palm Seashore, Florida — the place Trump’s Mar-a-Lago and Epstein’s dwelling sat shut by one another — in a New Yorker profile of the not too long ago divorced Trump. And British mannequin Anouska De Georgiou, then 20 years previous, attended a Manhattan celebration alongside Ghislaine, “who has introduced several of her attractive friends to” Trump, the Sunday Mirror reported in November 1997.
“After their meeting, Trump flew Madam Maxwell and the model south to the sunshine state, where all three enjoyed a happy weekend together,” in accordance with the Sunday Mirror report. “When they returned to New York, Anouska was installed in one of Donald’s many apartments there.”
However no matter tryst De Georgiou and Trump could have had didn’t final. As a substitute, she discovered herself sucked into Epstein’s orbit. She mentioned in court docket, throughout a 2019 listening to in Epstein’s federal case after his loss of life, that Epstein raped and sexually abused her for years.
De Georgiou wasn’t the one lady who crossed paths with Trump, Epstein and Maxwell. Virginia Giuffre, who died by suicide in 2025, testified that Maxwell groomed her when she labored as a teenage spa attendant at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago.
Russian magnificence pageant contestant Anna Malova discovered herself with a penthouse suite at Trump Tower within the mid-Nineteen Nineties and a controversial repeat efficiency as Miss Russia for the Trump-owned Miss Universe contest in 1998. Malova subsequently signed a contract with Jean-Luc Brunel, a modeling agent intently tied to Epstein. Brunel died by suicide in jail in 2022 whereas dealing with fees involving minors of rape, trafficking and sexual assault. The subsequent 12 months, Malova appeared in Epstein’s flight data sharing a journey from Little St. James, Epstein’s personal Caribbean island, with Epstein, Maxwell and British Prince Andrew in 1999.
When Maxwell was arrested and charged as an confederate in Epstein’s crimes in 2020, Trump mentioned that he had “met her numerous times over the years,” including, “I just wish her well, frankly.”
Transferring Maxwell to a minimum-security facility seems opposite to Bureau of Prisons coverage. In a 2019 memo on inmate safety designation and custody classification, the bureau says anybody with a historical past of sexual assault or sexual contact with a minor needs to be “housed in at least a Low security level institution.”
The Bureau of Prisons didn’t reply to a request for remark. Neither did the Justice Division, which oversees the bureau.
The BOP describes minimum-security services as “camps,” explaining on its web site they “have dormitory housing, a relatively low staff-to-inmate ratio, and limited or no perimeter fencing.” Low-security services characteristic double-fenced perimeters and better staff-to-inmate ratios.
After her arrest, Maxwell repeatedly petitioned a choose to be let loose on bail, claiming in pretrial motions she was mistreated by guards and disadvantaged of sleep. The motions had been denied; the federal government argued her overseas ties and substantial sources made her a flight danger.
Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) mentioned over the weekend that the switch regarded suspicious.
“Sexual predators shouldn’t be afforded preferential treatment,” Reed mentioned. “President Trump needs to come clean about his past personal relationship with Mr. Epstein and Ms. Maxwell.”
S.V. Date contributed reporting.
