Ghislaine Maxwell, the Epstein Files, and the scandal that won’t go away

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1:59Which I was interested in. I mean, the story of the Epstein files had frankly been a little bit dormant here in Washington. But on Wednesday, it suddenly exploded again. And the House is expected to vote next week to release the full files. Well, it's been big news over here in London as well. We saw it pop up when there was this dump of a few emails by Democrats. Could you just explain this to me, please? How did this come about? Yeah, Democrats on this committee in the House released three email exchanges from the estate of the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. And those emails kicked off a huge news cycle here because they raised fresh questions about what President Trump may have known about Jeffrey Epstein's behavior.

2:47In one of these messages, Epstein writes that, and I'm going to quote here, of course he knew about the girls. And the he there is allegedly referring to Donald Trump. Okay, well, there was one email in particular that stood out to me because I think it's relevant to our show today. And I want to warn listeners that in today's episode, we're talking about themes of sexual abuse and grooming. So the email I'm talking about is the one between Epstein and his longtime associate and co-conspirator who's now in prison, Ghislaine Maxwell. She's a British socialite. she supposedly introduced Epstein to many of her rich and powerful friends.

3:26That email you're referring to is from 2011. And in it, Jeffrey Epstein writes to Ghislaine Maxwell that Trump spent hours at his house with a victim. And Maxwell responds, quote, I have been thinking about that. The White House said the victim being referred to is the late Virginia Geoffrey, a prominent Epstein accuser who died by suicide earlier this year. And the White House press secretary also pointed out that Geoffrey has repeatedly said President Trump was not involved in any wrongdoing whatsoever. I should also say that Geoffrey's posthumous memoir, which was released recently, also contained no allegations against Donald Trump.

4:09And to be clear, President Trump has consistently denied any wrongdoing in relation to Jeffrey Epstein. And then very shortly after that, you then get another tranche of documents altogether released by Republicans also from Congress. Can you explain to me the second tranche? Well, just hours after those three initial emails were put out by Democrats, in response, we saw Republicans on this same House Oversight Committee release more than 20 ,000 pages of documents. You know, the Republicans on this committee have accused the Democrats of just cherry-picking information. And the White House press secretary said that Democrats had selectively leaked those three prior email exchanges to smear the president.

4:54All right. So at this point, every news outlet is picking through this massive trove of documents. Our colleagues here at the BBC are looking through them. You can read more about what they've been finding at BBC.com. But there's a lot of information to get through here. And the dust is kind of still settling on all of this.

5:14And it seems that until the full Epstein files are released, and this trash, big as it is, still isn't the full so-called Epstein files, it's hard to see how all the massive attention on all this is going to die away. But there is one person who may have a lot of the answers in this case, and that is Ghislaine Maxwell. She is sort of like the living embodiment of the Epstein files. She was Epstein's side and so far she's the only person who's been jailed for the sex trafficking scandal. So Asma, with your permission, I'm going to take this one on today. Go for it. From the BBC, I'm Tristan Redman in London.

5:58And today on The Global Story, who is Ghislaine Maxwell and what's her role in the Epstein scandal?

6:12All right. Are you guys happy? Thank you so much for joining us, Neda. Could you introduce yourself for us, please? Yeah, absolutely. I am the New York correspondent for the BBC. And what do you cover in New York mostly? Well, New York, there's a lot to cover. From the United Nations, high-profile court cases that have included, of course, the trials of Donald Trump before he was re-elected to the presidency. I covered Ghislaine Maxwell's trial here in New York during COVID, actually. Really, in between all of that, I cover everything from breaking news and politics to social justice issues in the city.

6:56It really is all encompassing. Well, having covered the Ghislaine Maxwell trial, you are very well versed in the Jeffrey Epstein story. And we would really like to lean on your expertise to try to understand how Ghislaine Maxwell fits into this story and how she might be able to shed light one day potentially on what has actually happened in this case. Can you tell us a little bit about what kind of life she had before she met Jeffrey Epstein, please, Nena? So Ghislaine Maxwell's life is kind of marked from tragedy right from the start. She is the youngest daughter in her family to nine kids, but she's born at a time when her brother is in a coma.

7:43And the story kind of goes, her mother wrote in a memoir that she told her mother when she was a young toddler, I do exist. And that in turn apparently made her family and her parents kind of dote over her. She ended up being the favorite. And her father, Robert Maxwell, was this powerful figure in UK media. He owned Mirror Group, also owned the Daily News here in New York at a time. And so she was, in a sense, kind of involved in a bit of the family businesses until it turned out that her father was essentially a fraudster. He had stolen from the pension of the Mirror Group and then mysteriously died in the 90s, found floating away from the boat that was named after her, Lady Ghislaine.

8:36Good evening. The publisher, Mr. Robert Maxwell, owner of the Daily Mirror, died today off the Canary Islands. His body has been recovered from the sea. How he came to be in the sea is a mystery. She had grown up in this life of privilege and all of a sudden there was a big question mark over what she would do moving forward. And she ended up moving to New York. That is when she says at least that she met Jeffrey Epstein and this whole new life started for her in New York. What's the nature of their relationship when they get together? Well, she claims that they were introduced by a friend of Maxwell's who thought that they would be perfect together.

9:18You know, Maxwell does admit that they were intimate for a time. You know, some suggest that she was just too old for him because of his liking for younger and underaged girls. But again, we don't know what exactly led to the breakdown of this from an intimate relationship to a professional one. But then Jeffrey Epstein is convicted of sex offenses and jailed in 2008. He's then released. And this is when you first come across Ghislaine Maxwell in person, isn't it? Can you tell us the story of that, please? So in 2015, we wanted to get to Ghislaine Maxwell directly to try to understand her role in all of this.

10:06And we went to her Upper East Side brownstone in the dead of winter. And when she emerged from her townhome, she was wearing a full winter parka with a hood with fur around it. She was covering her face. This is a time when she honestly was not wanting to be seen out in public, but we were able to catch her in that moment when she emerged.

10:31Can I just get your comment to the allegations that have been raised? And I tried to push her on any kind of statement she could give to the BBC about the allegations against her. Thank you. I made a statement and that's my statement. So thank you and I wish you Happy New Year. She just said Happy New Year. I've already made a statement through my lawyer. I'm not going to be speaking anymore. And she just kept walking away from us and from our cameras. All right. So the mid-20 teens, the pressure is really piling onto Ghislaine Maxwell. What happens next? So at that point, you know, Ghislaine Maxwell has really been out of the public eye for, I think, about two years.

11:17She's essentially caught at one point, and I kid you not, photographed at an In-N-Out burger eating. And this photo gets widely circulated because there's a question of where is Ghislaine Maxwell? We've had breaking news. Many say she was the missing link in the Jeffrey Epstein saga. The FBI says they have her. So roughly a year after that photo, there comes word that she has been arrested and that the FBI actually went and raided her home really in a state in New Hampshire. It was a very secluded estate. We've been discreetly keeping tabs on Maxwell's whereabouts as we work this investigation.

11:53And more recently, we learned she had slithered away to a gorgeous property in New Hampshire. And she had kind of at that time married another man, was trying to live a quiet, different lifestyle. But I think all along she must have been afraid that this was all going to catch up to her. Well, this arrest happened during Donald Trump's first term, towards the end of his first term as president, which seems notable. Did he seem to have any particular reaction or interest in the case? It's very interesting because here was Ghislaine Maxwell. Keep in mind, the only person who is now going to face justice for at that time allegedly helping Jeffrey Epstein carry out the sex trafficking operation.

12:44And Donald Trump is asked about that. I don't know. I haven't really been following it too much. I just wish her well, frankly. I've met her numerous times over the years, especially since I lived in Palm Beach and I guess they lived in Palm Beach. But I wish her well. And many people, that kind of took them back a bit because, you know, here's somebody accused of horrific crimes and you have the president of the United States wishing her well. So it was for many a very strange response. But Donald Trump kind of insisted that, you know, he knew her from previously, had never seen anything wrong and wished her well.

13:24All right. So Ghislaine Maxwell goes on trial in November 2021. And you actually reported on that trial in court. What was it like? This trial happened at the height of COVID. And you had just massive interest to the point where, you know, journalists, but also members of the public were clamoring to get into the courtroom. And they had to open up three overflow courtrooms to fit everybody who was interested and wanted to see her in person. And what was so striking to me was that, you know, Ghislaine Maxwell tried to put up appearances of being tough. She would wave to her family, blow them kisses.

14:09She was kind of animated throughout her defense. You know, I would watch as she would, you know, hurriedly write notes and pass them on to her lawyers. She was very involved in the direction they were taking. And I wondered at some points if that almost hurt her because there was so much speculation about what her defense would be. Would she claim to have been a victim herself of Jeffrey Epstein's? But here we had Ghislaine Maxwell, her lawyers comparing her to Eve, kind of as the scapegoat of being blamed for another man's sins and denying everything and anything that came up in that trial and trying to paint the victims as liars.

14:53What did we learn in the trial about the extent of her involvement in Jeffrey Epstein's crimes? There was really heartbreaking testimony from the victims who were very clear that Ghislaine Maxwell was central to everything that Jeffrey Epstein did. One girl, Jane, described how Maxwell would take her out shopping and make it like she was her best friend, but then would lead her into being abused with Jeffrey Epstein and would make it all seem normal. And we had one victim who went by the name Carolyn speaking about how she was actually recruited by Virginia Giffray and told that she could make a few hundred dollars by massaging a wealthy man.

15:42And so she describes how at that point Maxwell had kind of created this pyramid scheme where she would not only groom the girls, but she would get other young girls to recruit others to come for Epstein. So through the trial, you understood that she was central to disarming these young women in a way to feel like they could trust these two and then leading them to their abuse. And that secondly, she with her connections and these powerful people that she introduced Epstein to, her and Epstein would name drop these figures. And the victims also spoke about feeling intimidated and scared because by name dropping these powerful figures, they understood just how powerful those two were and were afraid to speak out.

16:32So Ghislaine Maxwell, in many ways, not just being the right hand man for Jeffrey Epstein, for them, she was even worse in a way because this was a woman victimizing other young girls instead of protecting them. So what was she actually convicted of and how long was she sentenced for? So she was convicted of almost all of the charges against her. Sex trafficking of a minor, transporting a minor with the intent to engage in criminal sexual activity, conspiracy to transport minors with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity, conspiracy to commit sex trafficking of minors, conspiracy to entice minors to travel to engage in illegal sex acts.

17:15And she was then sentenced to 20 years in prison.

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18:35So at this point, it's been several years since the trial, but the Epstein story still hasn't gone away. it's now become this kind of fault line for MAGA. Since Trump's been in office, what's the administration done to try and deal with this situation? Well, look, Donald Trump campaigned on this promise to a sizable portion of his base that, you know, yes, I'm going to expose Epstein. I'm going to expose these elites. But then once he got into office, Donald Trump's administration said essentially, actually nothing to see here. There's no client list. Jeffrey Epstein didn't blackmail anybody. We're not releasing any more documents.

19:18This is case closed. And so it felt like a self-inflicted wound in a sense because his base that is always so loyal and always kind of followed his direction refused to let this go. We should release the Epstein files. I'll get on board with anyone's push to release those files. Release the Epstein files. Bring it all out into the light. And it ended up generating speculation, not just on the left from Democrats, but on the right, as to what else could be in these files and why they weren't being released. So come July, this controversy is still not going away. And the kind of latest idea that the administration has is to send Donald Trump's personal attorney, who's the deputy attorney general at that time, Todd Blanche, to go interview Ghislaine Maxwell.

20:10And again, he paints this as I'm going to go and try to get what she knows out of her. again, the administration is determined to be transparent. And he sits for what ends up being kind of a two-day interview with Ghislaine Maxwell, which is heavily criticized, not just by the victims, but other Republicans and certainly Democrats as well, who point out that she was charged with two counts of perjury by federal prosecutors in New York, that she's hardly a reliable narrator because rather than opening up and sharing what she knows about Jeffrey Epstein, she has always tried to claim that there's nothing there to see, that there was never any wrongdoing despite the fact that she was convicted.

20:57So what's the reaction publicly to the transcript of Blanche and Ghislaine Maxwell's conversations? Well, look, in the transcript, Ghislaine Maxwell not only absolves Donald Trump of any wrongdoing, saying that he was an absolute gentleman, that she never saw him do anything wrong. But she's really in this interview laying it on thick how much she admires Donald Trump, saying how his win was an extraordinary win. And these are all things that we know Donald Trump likes to hear. He likes the attention. He likes admiration. And so what many took from this interview was Ghislaine Maxwell is clearly angling for a pardon here.

21:46She is trying to flatter Donald Trump. She is trying to tell him exactly what he wants to hear, kind of giving him this win at this moment where all of the speculation is on him. And that is what really kind of comes through throughout all of this. And lawyers of the victims put out statements, especially Virginia Giffray's family, with just how disgusted and upset they are by all of this. It's exhausting to have this, you know, cycle happen. And I actually interviewed Annie Farmer, one of the victims who testified in Ghislaine Maxwell's trial right when all of this was happening. I think really the case has been politicized so much and it's hard not to feel used in that process.

22:30And Annie told me that she was just unbelievably afraid by this move by the administration that this was just going to lay the groundwork to have Ghislaine Maxwell pardoned. And she told me that that would be a devastating blow to the victims because the only bit of justice they got throughout all of this was that Ghislaine Maxwell was sentenced to 20 years in prison. So literally days later after this interview, Ghislaine Maxwell has moved from a low security prison in Tallahassee, Florida, to a minimum security facility in Bryan, Texas, one that's nicknamed actually Club Fed because the conditions there are so much better for inmates.

23:13And Democrats kind of outraged about this note that Ghislaine Maxwell there is reportedly getting almost VIP treatment. They claim that those at the prison are waiting on her hand and foot, that the warden is there assisting her and even kind of coordinating off private areas for her to meet with visitors that come see her and providing refreshments, that she's given special treatment like being able to take late night showers or getting concierge style special meals. and Democrats say that Ghislaine Maxwell in communications with her family says that she feels like Alice falling through the looking glass, that they can all now breathe a sigh of relief because she is finally comfortable.

24:06Okay. Where is her legal case though at this point? Because she's being convicted. She's lost an appeal. She's taken it all the way to the Supreme Court where it was rejected again. does she actually have any options left? Her only hope now to get out before 2037 is to get a pardon from Donald Trump. There's going to be a big will he or won't he moment brewing for President Trump, who's been on a kind of pardon binge lately. Here's the deal. House Democrats say documents from a whistleblower show this woman, Ghislaine Maxwell, is in the process of seeking a commutation from the White House. And how realistic would that be?

24:44I mean, Donald Trump granting her a pardon or a reduced sentence when the Epstein files are such a live issue, especially amongst his MAGA supporters? I mean, what could be the upside for Donald Trump of giving her a pardon? Donald Trump has said... I say, well, I'll take a look at it. I will speak to the DOJ. I wouldn't consider it or not consider it. I don't know anything about it. I will speak to the DOJ. Why would she be a candidate for policy, sir? I don't know. I mean, I'd have to speak to the DOJ. I'll look at it. I have a lot of people have asked me for pardons. And it's really hard to understand what benefit this would have for Donald Trump, given the scrutiny on his administration and how it has so far handled the Epstein files.

25:36But look, the White House insists they aren't considering one. Stephen, go ahead. If the president is considering a pardon for Ghislaine Maxwell. Again, he's answered this repeatedly. it's not something he's talking about or even thinking about at this moment in time, I can assure you of that. So I think it's unrealistic that we will see that happen. Epstein seems to be the story that just won't go away. On Wednesday, there was an entirely new turn in the tale. Yeah, absolutely. More revelations coming from Epstein's estate. They have been asked to release documents to the House Oversight Committee.

26:14and what we saw were Democrats releasing excerpts of emails and emails that have to do with Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein. In this email, Jeffrey Epstein writes to Ghislaine Maxwell and says, quote, I want you to realize that the dog that hasn't barked is Trump. Another email in 2019 to author Michael Wolff, Epstein wrote, quote, of course he knew about the girls as he asked Ghislaine to stop. The president has consistently denied any knowledge of Epstein's crimes and said he cut ties with him back in 2004. Well, then we got a response from the White House, from Caroline Levitt, the White House press secretary.

26:51And she claimed that Democrats were essentially selectively leaking emails to the media to create a fake narrative to smear President Trump. And in response, the Republicans have put out 20 ,000 pages of documents that the Epstein estate had given the committee based on a subpoena. And so now everyone is combing through these 20 ,000 pages to see if there are any new revelations. So can you just clear something up for me, please? These 20 ,000 pages of documents, are these the Epstein files? Is this it? Are they now public or is this something else. This is something else. When they talk about the Epstein files being released, they're talking about everything in the Department of Justice's possession.