'Complete misreading of room': Ex-aide warns Trump move will spectacularly 'backfire'

The Department of Justice meetings with convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell could end up backfiring on President Donald Trump, according to one of his former aides.

Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, who was one of the president's former criminal defense lawyers, is meeting this week with Jeffrey Epstein's co-conspirator as Trump tries to clear up questions about his longtime association with the disgraced financier, and former White House aide Alyssa Farah Griffin told "CNN News Central" those discussions were politically perilous.

"I honestly think it's a complete misreading of the room," Griffin said. "If you want justice for Jeffrey Epstein, if you are outraged over the behavior he engaged in, you should be equally outraged over Ghislaine Maxwell's behavior. I mean, there's a special place in hell for women who would help men abuse younger women. That's just, I think, that's a universal take of people who want to get to the bottom of this Epstein saga."

Maxwell is still appealing a 20-year prison sentence for her conviction for sex trafficking and other crimes, and Griffin said any information she provides about Epstein, who killed himself in jail six years ago while awaiting trial, would be viewed with suspicion.

"So there, I think, is a real fear – is she going to get some kind of a deal?" Griffin said. "Is she incentivized that she should cooperate with what the Justice Department or the White House wants to hear her say, because she might get a more lenient sentence or, ultimately, a pardon at the end of Trump's term? Those are things that his base does not want. They see her as as big of a monster as Jeffrey Epstein, so I think they have to navigate this really carefully."

The White House has to balance multiple considerations to try and clear the president's name while also satisfying the MAGA base, who feel they've been promised that Trump's enemies would be brought down by the Epstein case.

"I think the first thought is, okay, we're getting, we might get some answers from her, but we're skeptical because she's untrustworthy," Griffin said. "If she helps us nail some people who are involved in this, fine. But if it seems like this is actually kind of to whitewash her own wrongdoing and criminality, I think that that's going to really backfire on the White House."

Watch the video below or at this link.

- YouTubeyoutu.be