WASHINGTON – The Trump administration has given no explanation for its transfer of sex offender and Jeffrey Epstein accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell to a minimum-security federal prison 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 move.
But nobody in the Trump administration has explained why Maxwell was transferred. President Donald Trump himself ignored a question about the transfer on Friday, though he has said he is allowed to pardon Maxwell, and her attorney has said she would be “eager” to provide public testimony in exchange for clemency.
Maxwell’s transfer occurred after Todd Blanche, the Justice Department’s No. 2 official and Trump’s former personal lawyer, interviewed Maxwell for two days in July, prompting widespread speculation that Trump will somehow use Maxwell to get out of a political jam after refusing to release the government’s files 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.) said last month.
