President Donald Trump's Justice Department played a new card in the exploding Jeffrey Epstein case scandal on Tuesday morning, with Attorney General Pam Bondi and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche both announcing they would be questioning Ghislaine Maxwell, the British socialite serving a 20-year prison sentence for her role in Epstein's child sex trafficking ring.
"Justice demands courage," Blanche wrote in his announcement on X, adding, "I intend to meet with [Maxwell] soon. No one is above the law — and no lead is off-limits."
This move may have been intended to quell the rising anger from Trump's own base that the DOJ has been unable to deliver on their promise of turning over all files on the Epstein case, including the rumored "client list" of wealthy and powerful people who indulged in Epstein's dark acts with him — which has no evidence of existing and which the DOJ has stated does not exist, but which has persisted in the narrative of conspiracy theorists on both the left and right for years.
But the timing of the announcement, coupled with longstanding knowledge that Trump himself used to be friends with Epstein, has spurred a more sinister theory from some political and legal observers on social media: that administration officials are moving to secure Maxwell's silence, or maybe even offer her a presidential pardon, something Trump biographer Michael Wolff alleged he has considered in the past.
"Now the Trump DOJ is rushing to meet with Ghislaine Maxwell to try to find out what she knows. Not suspicious [at] all," wrote the liberal news and podcasting network Meidas Touch.
"Ghislaine Maxwell Pardon Watch starts now," wrote Bulwark reporter Will Sommer.
"They are going to pardon Ghislaine Maxwell in exchange for her silence on what she knows about Trump and Jeffrey Epstein," wrote New York health care activist Melanie D'Arrigo. "The coverup will continue, and the Trump administration will rewrite the entire official story, release it, and treat it as fact. Pay attention."
"It is a near certainty that what the Deputy AG is planning to do in this meeting with Ghislaine Maxwell would best be described as witness tampering," wrote former federal prosecutor and district court clerk Elizabeth de la Vega.
