Our new book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. The second Trump administration is has been full of ominous developments. Scandals persist.
The Trump DOJ’s release on Friday of the audio and transcript of the Ghislaine Maxwell interview conducted by Deputy AG Todd Blanche was also effectively meaningless.
The decision to interview Maxwell in the first place was — at least as an investigative and prosecutorial matter — a baffling one. For reasons too numerous to recount, no serious prosecutor would take her at her word on anything related to her misconduct, Epstein’s misconduct or, frankly, pretty much anything.
Ironically, the department’s release of the Maxwell interview itself ought to put to rest the notion that she is credible in any form. That is because Maxwell told the DOJ that she was unaware of any criminal misconduct and that she never witnessed any misconduct by any men who visited or traveled with Epstein.
As a practical matter, that would mean one of two things.
The first possibility is that Maxwell was indeed innocent all along — that the first Trump DOJ falsely accused Maxwell when they charged her, that she was wrongfully convicted at trial by a unanimous jury, that most if not all of the overwhelming evidence against Maxwell at the trial was false or fabricated and, in addition, that for some reason she did not testify in her own defense despite watching all of this false evidence come in.
The second possibility is that she is a serial liar who committed terrible crimes and whose self-serving interview with Blanche should be dismissed out of hand — whether it helps or hurts Trump or anyone else. (If you need a refresher on what the evidence at trial revealed about the type of person that Maxwell is, we suggest pages 5-14 of the DOJ’s post-trial sentencing submission.)
We’re going with Occam’s razor on this one.
Meanwhile, House Oversight Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) has just begun a series of depositions on the Epstein matter. Former AG Bill Barr appeared last week, and the remainder of the schedule includes former AGs Alberto Gonzales, Jeff Sessions, Loretta Lynch, Eric Holder and Merrick Garland, among others.
None of these people would seem to have much useful information to offer. In fact, to answer the most pressing Epstein-related questions, the people you would want to speak with would probably include — in no particular order — Trump himself, Bondi, Patel, Blanche, FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino and Alex Acosta, who negotiated the sweetheart 2007 plea deal with Epstein while serving as U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Florida.
You might even call these bizarro investigations. They do not appear to be asking the right questions or talking to the right people to address the things that the average American might actually want to know.
— George Conway 👊🇺🇸🔥 (@gtconway3d) August 24, 2025
