Editorial: Maxwell talks, giving more life to a conspiracy

South Florida Sun Sentinel, South Florida Sun Sentinel on Jul 31, 2025

Published in Op Eds

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Ghislaine Maxwell is no one’s victim. But that’s the disturbing narrative being peddled in advance of a possible fast track to a presidential pardon.

Convicted of sex trafficking, Maxwell was not a bystander in Jeffrey Epstein’s global web of child sex abuse. The British socialite was its architect. She used money and power to lure girls.

She coerced, cajoled, threatened, and with Epstein, molested them too.

Former Miami Herald journalist Julie Brown pointed out that as a wealthy man, Epstein could have employed high-priced prostitutes. But what he wanted was a supply of underage girls, and Maxwell made sure he got them.

“I have never met a more predatory, terrifying human being in my entire life,” said Maria Farmer, one of Epstein’s first accusers. “The woman is not a victim. She is a victimizer.”

Maxwell was sentenced to 20 years in 2022 in a federal prison in Tallahassee, three years after Epstein died in a New York City jail cell awaiting trial on child sex trafficking charges. His death was ruled a suicide.

Now, she’s Donald Trump’s best bet to offset a self-inflicted political wound: Attorney General Pam Bondi slammed the door shut on producing the remaining unreleased documents in the Department of Justice’s investigation of Epstein. Those documents are at the center of talk about a conspiracy to protect powerful, wealthy men, including Trump and Bill Clinton.

Get over it, Trump told his own angry MAGA followers. They haven’t.

Is the fix already in?

All Maxwell has to do now is proclaim Trump had nothing to do with sex trafficking. Trump dangled the bait, twice telling reporters that he had the power to pardon her.

But Maxwell, who also faces two perjury charges, is not a sympathetic figure. So there’s political value to painting her as a victim, floated by Greg Kelly of “Greg Kelly Reports” on the relentlessly pro-Trump Newsmax TV.

“She just might be a victim,” Kelly said, sadly shaking his head. “She just might be.”

And just like that, the real or imagined discomforts of a woman who prosecutors labeled as a prolific liar is somehow on par with the girls she abused, girls who saw faces and knew names, and whom DOJ is not re-interviewing.

Endless contortions

Epstein and Trump were friends. As neighbors in Palm Beach, they partied together.

If the FBI and DOJ did a thorough job, Trump’s name would naturally be in those investigative files. It’s also possible that mentions of Trump would be politically embarrassing, but not evidence of a crime.

That was the case with the lewd “shared secrets” birthday card message Trump gave Epstein. And it’s not as though Trump hasn’t weathered sex scandals and scorching jury verdicts before.

But in this case, Trump is working his administration into contortions of increasingly suspect bluffs and pretense.

Trump said Bondi had not told him that his name was in the files, but multiple sources said she did. House Speaker Mike Johnson sent Congress home early rather than risk a vote on forcing the release of Epstein files. Maxwell is willing to testify before Congress but only if she gets immunity, or Trump grants her clemency.

Todd Blanche, the deputy U.S. attorney general who interviewed Maxwell last week, was once Trump’s personal attorney. That raises the question of who he represented: DOJ, or the man who rewarded Blanche’s loyalty with a high-level federal appointment.

Worse, Blanche also appears to have spoken to Maxwell alone, a sharp departure from DOJ norms.

Why was he all alone?

Frequently, a law enforcement witness to the conversation would also be present. For instance, one of the lead prosecutors in the Epstein case, Maurene Comey, could be in a position to know whether Maxwell was lying. But a week after announcing the Trump administration was done with the Epstein files, without explanation, Bondi’s DOJ abruptly fired Comey, the daughter of former FBI Director James Comey.

If it didn’t feel like a conspiracy before, it does now.

Virginia Giuffre, the abused Palm Beach teen who in adulthood came to be a powerful voice against the Epstein coverup, would know what to say about this sordid effort to enlist Maxwell and rehabilitate her reputation.

It was Maxwell, Giuffre has said, who found her working at Mar-a-Lago. Giuffre later said Maxwell was worse than Epstein, a string-pulling Geppetto to Epstein’s Pinocchio.

But Giuffre’s voice is gone. Suicide rates among sex abuse victims are high and in April, Giuffre killed herself. More grist for a growing conspiracy.

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The Sun Sentinel Editorial Board consists of Opinion Editor Steve Bousquet, Deputy Opinion Editor Dan Sweeney, editorial writers Pat Beall and Martin Dyckman, and Executive Editor Gretchen Day-Bryant. To contact us, email at letters@sun-sentinel.com.

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