ArcaMax

When Donald Trump pardoned the Jan. 6 gangsters upon returning to the White House, he proved that he is capable of any depraved act to protect himself. So while everybody should be outraged by the prospect of a presidential pardon for Ghislaine Maxwell, nobody should be surprised. There is no dishonor too low for him.

The 63-year-old Maxwell is the most notorious child predator in the U.S. federal prison system, globally reviled for enabling the sexual abuse of hundreds of young girls by the late Jeffrey Epstein. Sentenced to 20 years in prison for those crimes, she has until very recently languished in a Florida maximum-security prison, as required by federal law for felons like her.

Suddenly and mysteriously, the Bureau of Prisons moved Maxwell to a shiny new facility in Texas, with far less stringent security and far more comfortable quarters. It provides the luxury version of detention coveted by all the incarcerated guests of the federal system.

Since registered sex offenders such as Maxwell are not supposed to be eligible for a "Club Fed" dormitory, the events leading up to her transfer are highly suggestive of favoritism and even corruption. She was moved without any notice to the public or to her many victims following a series of long, closed meetings between Maxwell and her lawyer and Todd Blanche, the former Trump defense lawyer appointed by the president to serve as deputy attorney general of the United States Justice Department.

As everyone paying attention knows, those meetings occurred amid a national uproar over the Trump administration's continuing coverup of the "Epstein files" -- meaning all the information gleaned by the FBI during its investigation of that predator. As rage mounted, even among Trump loyalists, the public has seen increasing indications that Trump himself has much to fear from his own multiple appearances in those files. He might be in even more trouble if his old friend Maxwell, a constant presence during his long and troubling relationship with Epstein, were to tell what she knows.

Yet with a pardon dangled before her eyes by a Trump defense lawyer wearing a Justice Department badge, Maxwell might easily be induced to forget whatever she knows about the president -- or start to "remember" terrible things about his political enemies. When the old Trump Justice Department convicted her in 2019, prosecutors considered indicting her for perjury after she lied repeatedly under oath. This Trump Justice Department has fired Maurene Comey, the professional prosecutor who won Maxwell's conviction, and sent a hack defense counsel to bargain with her.

Julie K. Brown, the Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter who first exposed the Bush Justice Department's 2008 sweetheart deal with Epstein, says that the "survivors" who testified against Epstein and Maxwell feel betrayed -- and fear a renewed coverup. There is no conceivable reason to pardon her or commute her sentence, except to save Trump from embarrassment or worse.

"(Maxwell) does know a lot," Brown told Sidney Blumenthal and Sean Wilentz on the "Court of History" podcast last week. "She was on the ground level of this sex trafficking operation. In fact, some of the ... survivors believe that she, in a way, was a bigger monster than Epstein, because she was the one that made them feel safe. She was the one that brought them in. She used fraud (to attract girls) by saying, 'He's going to hire you, you're going to travel, you're going to be a masseuse.' ... She sort of acted like a motherly nurturing type, you know, English lady with her English accent."

Her false front allowed Epstein to get "a foot in the door" at local high schools and spas, where she scouted the "pretty girls" that she and her wealthy coconspirator would rape, abuse and intimidate. Even the consideration of a pardon for her is appalling -- but wholly in character for this president, his Justice Department and the pious hypocrites in his party.

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To find out more about Joe Conason and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

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