A prominent MAGA TV host says convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell may be innocent.
The British former socialite, 63, is currently serving 20 years behind bars for sexually exploiting teenage girls alongside disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein.
“People are horrified when I say there’s a possibility that this individual just might be innocent,” NewsMax host Greg Kelly said. “But think about it. Who told us about her? The most reviled institutions in America: the media and the Biden Justice Department.”
Kelly also noted that Trump has not weighed in on Maxwell’s guilt.
“[President Donald Trump] could have easily gotten away with saying what the media wanted to hear,” Kelly said. “But he didn’t, and I find that remarkably human, and it’s telling, and it signals to me that there’s something else going on here, and it’s an injustice.”
In fact, it was Trump’s Department of Justice (DOJ) that arrested Maxwell in July 2020, charging her with enticement of minors, sex trafficking, and perjury. The DOJ arrested Epstein in New York on federal sex trafficking charges a year prior, also while Trump was in office.
Trump has long courted far-right conspiracy theorists who believe Epstein and Maxwell were members of a global pedophilic cabal and that Epstein’s 2019 death in police custody was orchestrated as a cover-up to protect the pair’s supposed co-conspirators. Trump promised during his campaign last year to release all files related to the Epstein case.
Those promises have backfired massively. A July 6 memo from the DOJ and Federal Bureau of Investigation concluded Epstein died by suicide and that, contrary to rumors long cherished by the far right, the convicted sex trafficker kept no “client list” of powerful accomplices. The news sent MAGA into a frenzy, with many of the president’s supporters calling for Attorney General Pam Bondi to resign.
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche has held at least one extensive meeting with Maxwell, during which she discussed more than 100 names tied to Epstein’s network.
Amid reportedly ongoing negotiations with the DOJ, as well as Maxwell’s transfer to a minimum-security prison in Texas, Trump has not ruled out the possibility of granting the convicted sex trafficker a full pardon, raising concerns that any prospective deal may well be politically motivated if it’s also seen to insulate Trump from further scrutiny over his relationship with Epstein.
“Well, I’m allowed to give her a pardon, but … nobody’s approached me with it,” Trump told reporters Monday. “Right now, it would be inappropriate to talk about it.”
NewsMax’s Greg Kelly is far from the only leading conservative voice to have pushed a more generous view of Maxwell’s complicity in Epstein’s crimes.
FBI Chief Kash Patel and Deputy Chief Dan Bongino, both leading figures in the conspiratorial world of pro-Trump podcasting, have both lately downplayed the severity of evidence against the former socialite.
“Maxwell is in prison because of some charges, but that doesn’t mean she or President Trump were part of some secret ring,” Patel has said, with Bongino adding: “People need to understand, this entire thing has been manipulated to smear Trump … Maxwell’s conviction doesn’t prove a massive conspiracy.”
Others have included Trump’s Deputy Assistant Sebastian Gorka, who’s described “this whole Epstein mythology [as] a disinformation campaign” and the allegations against Maxwell as “murky at best,” as well as media adviser Kari Lake, who claims “even Maxwell’s trial didn’t actually prove what the left says it did.”
The post MAGA Host Says Ghislaine Maxwell May Be Innocent appeared first on The Daily Beast.
