President Donald Trump raised eyebrows with his response to a question about potentially pardoning sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell.
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, the president's former criminal defense lawyer, met twice this week with Maxwell at a Florida prison, where she's serving a 20-year sentence for sex crimes, and a reporter asked Trump as he departed Friday morning for Scotland whether he has considered a pardon or commutation for Jeffrey Epstein's co-conspirator.
"It's something I haven't thought about," Trump said Friday morning. "I'm allowed to do it, but it's something I have not thought about."
The meetings come as Trump attempts to fight off a growing scandal about his past relationship with the late Epstein after his Department of Justice reversed course and announced no additional information about his alleged crimes would be released, despite past assurances by Attorney General Pam Bondi, FBI Director Kash Patel and FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino that the financier's network would be revealed.
"The fix is in," posted Republican strategist Rick Wilson. "Just for the record, Donald Trump is going to pardon the woman who ran one of the largest known child sex trafficking pedophile rings in history."
"Trump heading to Scotland without googling if it does or doesn’t have an extradition treaty with America," said Rolling Stone's Asawin Suebsaeng.
"He’s tried multiple lies and each less plausible than the last," added the popular Grudgie the Whale account.
"If you submitted a creative writing assignment where a guy described pardoning a sex trafficker in the same language he used to brag about sexually assaulting women, your professor would kill you with a gun," joked one account on Bluesky.
"Genuinely how does this make the situation better for him?" asked The Nation's Kate Wehwalt. "'I pardoned the sex pest's convicted accomplice to prove I didn't do anything wrong' – dawg what."
"Is this supposed to satisfy MAGA?" asked X user Meghan McCarthy. "They think they’re so stupid that they’ll give up on the elite ring of pedophiles bc they let one of the elites out of jail?"
"The president of the United States refuses to rule out pardoning a convicted child sex trafficker," posted journalist Sam Youngman.
"The public stain of pardoning a convicted child rapist is so grave that it really does imply whatever she would 'exonerate' him for (in exchange for said pardon) must be somehow worse," added the ACLU's Gillian Branstetter.
"Trump: 'I’m allowed to pardon Ghislaine Maxwell.' Also Trump: 'I’m the law and order candidate,'" said Democratic strategist Adam Parkhomenko. "Pick a lane, bro."
"This is called a ‘thought balloon,'" noted Bluesky user Jay Lionel. "Trump says he hasn’t thought about it. (He DEFINITELY has) Then he floats the idea that he’s allowed to pardon her. Then goes back to his first statement. Now he waits to see what the reaction to the ‘pardon bit’ was like. This happens A LOT."
"Trump said he’s 'allowed' to pardon Ghislaine Maxwell but hasn’t 'thought about it,'" added Bluesky user Isabel Santos. "The only reason he’d consider it? To protect himself — suggesting a guilty conscience and a potential quid pro quo."
