Ghislaine Maxwell, a longtime confidante of the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, told a top administration official she never saw President Trump engage in improper or illegal acts during his long friendship with Mr. Epstein, according to interview transcripts released late Friday.
The transcripts and audio, covering two days of discussions between Ms. Maxwell and Todd Blanche, a former Trump defense lawyer tapped to the No. 2 post at the Justice Department, are likely to raise as many questions as they answer.
Over a two-day discussion at a Florida courthouse, Ms. Maxwell, who is serving a 20-year prison sentence for assisting Mr. Epstein’s trafficking of underage girls, calmly swatted down any suggestion that there were significant details in the government’s investigative files that had not already been made public.
“I actually never saw the president in any type of massage setting,” she said. “I never witnessed the president in any inappropriate setting in any way.”
She told Mr. Blanche there was no hidden list of powerful clients, no blackmail campaign by Mr. Epstein to extort money or favors from the wealthy and powerful men he befriended, and no dark secrets about Mr. Trump, who considered Mr. Epstein a friend before the two had a falling-out.
Ms. Maxwell, who is seeking a pardon or reduction of her long prison sentence for sex trafficking, downplayed the president’s relationship with Mr. Epstein, a serial predator, and went out of her way to praise him.
“President Trump was always very cordial and very kind to me,” she told Mr. Blanche. “I admire his extraordinary achievement in becoming the president now. And I like him, and I’ve always liked him.”
Alan Feuer, Sharon LaFraniere and Chris Cameron contributed reporting.
Glenn Thrush covers the Department of Justice for The Times and has also written about gun violence, civil rights and conditions in the country’s jails and prisons.
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