Top Dem Flags Sign of Secret Trump-Maxwell ‘Quid Pro Quo’

A House Democrat suggested there may be a “meeting of the minds” between Ghislaine Maxwell and President Donald Trump.

Appearing on MSNBC’s Morning Joe on Thursday, Rep. Jamie Raskin discussed information House Democrats received from a whistleblower about Maxwell, 63, addressing whether it suggests she views Trump, 79, as sympathetic to her.

“There’s an indication they’ve got some kind of meeting of the minds about what he can provide to her and what she can provide to him,” Raskin said about the president and the convicted sex trafficker, noting Maxwell’s unusual transfer to a minimum-security prison where “no sex offenders” have previously been allowed to enter.

Ghislaine Maxwell in Manhattan, New York City, on Sunday, January 4, 2015. — Maxwell is serving a 20-year sentence after being convicted for sex trafficking and conspiring with disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein. Andrew Savulich/NY Daily News Archive via Getty Images

In August, Maxwell—who is serving a 20-year sentence after being convicted for sex trafficking and conspiring with disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein—was transferred from a federal prison in Florida to a lower-security facility in Texas, two days after her lawyers indicated that she planned to seek a presidential pardon and following a nine-hour interview with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche.

House Democrats announced on Monday that they had received information from a whistleblower regarding Maxwell’s preferential treatment in the new facility, including access to play with puppies and customized meals delivered to her cell.

“He obviously doesn’t want anybody who can verify the kinds of explosive things that have just come out from our colleagues at the oversight committee,” Raskin said about Trump, suggesting that Maxwell could “testify” and that’s why actions have been taken to make sure “she would not say anything about Trump.”

The Daily Beast has reached out to the White House and the Department of Justice for comment regarding these claims.

From left, American real estate developer Donald Trump and his girlfriend (and future wife), former model Melania Knauss, financier (and future convicted sex offender) Jeffrey Epstein, and British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell pose together at the Mar-a-Lago club, Palm Beach, Florida, February 12, 2000. (Photo by Davidoff Studios/Getty Images) — Trump was a friend of Epstein’s from the 1980s into the 2000s. He has repeatedly said he did not know anything about Epstein’s crimes. Davidoff Studios/Getty Images

On Wednesday, Democrats on the House Oversight Committee released documents obtained from the Epstein estate showing that Trump was mentioned multiple times by Epstein in email exchanges spanning more than a decade before Epstein’s death in 2019. The White House has dismissed the released emails as part of a “smear” campaign against the president.

In one email, the convicted sex offender claimed the president “knew about the girls as he asked Ghislaine [Maxwell] to stop,” though it is unclear what exactly the president was asking her to “stop.”

“Our whistleblower has come forward with a lot of bravery to tell us what’s taking place,” Raskin said, claiming that there is a “regime of fear” and a “free speech clampdown” in the Texas prison where Maxwell was placed.

Shortly after Maxwell was moved to the prison in August, an inmate at the facility told The Telegraph that she was “disgusted” by Maxwell’s transfer, saying the facility is meant for non-violent offenders while Maxwell was convicted of a “violent crime.” That inmate was reportedly later relocated to a different facility.

Following a leaked whistleblower communication, Democratic members of the House Judiciary Committee sent a letter to Trump, claiming that Maxwell is preparing a formal request for clemency. They asserted to the president that the application is “undoubtedly coming to you for your direct consideration.”

The president has previously said he “doesn’t know anything” about Maxwell’s potential request for a presidential pardon and that he “wouldn’t consider it or not consider it.”

Based on communications from the whistleblower, Raskin concluded: “All of it is an indication about what kind of quid pro quo is coming into view right now.”

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