Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche completed nine hours of meetings with Ghislaine Maxwell over two days, but made no public statements about what she said or the next steps in the Justice Department’s much-criticized Jeffrey Epstein investigation. Former prosecutors said it was highly unusual and potentially unprecedented for a the department’s No. 2 official to personally interview a witness. Secrecy in a criminal investigation is normal, but the prosecutors involved in the case would typically be included in questioning. Victims of Epstein and Maxwell, who was convicted in 2021 of recruiting and grooming multiple teenage girls to be sexually abused by the late financier, questioned the lack of transparency as well. Jack Scarola, a lawyer representing roughly 20 Epstein victims, said he asked to attend the Maxwell interviews but was not included.
Attorney General Pam Bondi, Blanche, and President Donald Trump himself have struggled to quell the uproar since the DOJ and FBI announced on July 6 that an exhaustive Epstein case review had not uncovered evidence that justified investigating other individuals. FBI Director Kash Patel and Deputy Director Dan Bongino backed those findings and a DOJ decision to release no other Epstein case documents. Catherine Christian, a former Manhattan assistant district attorney and an NBC News legal analyst, said the Maxwell interviews could also be an effort to protect Trump, who now faces one of the largest political crises of his second term in the furor over the Epstein investigation.
Maxwell’s lawyer, David Oscar Markus, said the deputy attorney general “did an amazing job” and asked Maxwell thorough questions. A senior administration official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly, said that Maxwell was granted limited immunity by the Justice Department to answer questions about the Epstein case. The immunity is “limited” because it only applies if the defendant is telling the truth. If it is determined that a defendant lied during the interviews, then the agreement becomes void.
