<div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Jeffrey Epstein's imprisoned former girlfriend repeatedly denied to the Justice Department witnessing any sexually inappropriate interactions with Donald Trump, according to records released Friday (Saturday AEST) meant to distance the Republican president from the disgraced financer.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>The Trump administration issued hundreds of pages of transcripts from interviews that Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche conducted with Ghislaine Maxwell last month as the administration was scrambling to present itself as transparent amid a fierce backlash over an earlier refusal to disclose a trove of records from the sex-trafficking case.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>The records show Maxwell repeatedly showering Trump with praise and denying under questioning from Blanche that she had observed Trump engaged in any form of sexual behaviour.</span></div></div><div><div id="adspot-mobile-medium"></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><strong><span>READ MORE:</span></strong><span> </span><a href="https://www.9news.com.au/world/fbi-searches-home-of-extrump-national-security-adviser-john-bolton/2288745a-e764-4463-a22a-0b29cfcdef9d"><strong><span>FBI searches home of Trump 'enemy' John Bolton</span></strong></a></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>The administration was presumably eager to make such denials public at a time when the president has faced questions about a long-ago friendship with Epstein and as his administration has endured continued scrutiny over its handling of evidence from the case.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>The transcript disclosure represents the latest Trump administration effort to repair self-inflicted political wounds after failing to deliver on expectations that its own officials had created through conspiracy theories and bold pronouncements that never came to pass.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>By making public two days worth of interviews, officials appear to be hoping to at least temporarily keep at bay sustained anger from Trump's base even as they send Congress evidence that they had previously kept from view.</span></div></div><div><div class="OUTBRAIN" data-reactroot="" data-src="//www.9news.com.au/world/ghislaine-maxwell-tells-justice-department-she-did-not-see-trump-act-inappropriately/b82a5bb4-ce04-487f-b1d1-9e19193a518e" data-widget-id="AR_5"></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>"I actually never saw the President in any type of massage setting," Maxwell said, according to the transcript.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>"I never witnessed the President in any inappropriate setting in any way. The President was never inappropriate with anybody.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>"In the times that I was with him, he was a gentleman in all respects."</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><strong><span>READ MORE: </span></strong><a href="https://www.9news.com.au/world/how-british-hotels-became-a-flashpoint-for-a-furious-immigration-debate/e427beb3-abbc-4773-94d6-f92547b18ae4"><strong><span>This hotel has no new bookings but is full every night. Why some neighbours are upset</span></strong></a></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Maxwell recalled knowing about Trump and possibly meeting him for the first time in 1990, when her newspaper magnate father, Robert Maxwell, was the owner of the </span><em><span>New York Daily News</span></em><span>.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>She estimated that she hadn't seen Trump since the mid-2000s, again in a social setting. Asked if she ever heard Epstein or anyone else say Trump "had done anything inappropriate with masseuses" or anyone else in their orbit, Maxwell replied, "Absolutely never, in any context."</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Maxwell, a onetime socialite who was convicted in 2021 of helping lure teenage girls to be sexually abused by Epstein, was interviewed over the course of two days last month by Blanche at a Florida courthouse.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Blanche prefaced the interview by saying Maxwell had been given limited immunity, allowing her to speak freely without fear of prosecution for anything she said.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>The only exceptions, he said, were if she lied or gave statements inconsistent with what she'd previously said.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><strong><span>READ MORE: </span></strong><a href="https://www.9news.com.au/world/six-bodies-found-at-colorado-dairy/dc9ed6ae-cf80-43d6-bd30-602480a16d87"><strong><span>Six bodies recovered from US dairy after suspected accident</span></strong></a></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>After her interview, Maxwell was moved from the low-security federal prison in Florida where she had been serving a 20-year sentence to a minimum-security prison camp in Texas.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Neither her lawyer nor the federal Bureau of Prisons have explained the reason for the move.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>The Epstein case had long captured public attention in part because of the wealthy financer's social connections over the years to prominent figures, including Prince Andrew, former President Bill Clinton and Trump, who has said his relationship with Epstein ended years before.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Epstein was arrested in 2019 on sex-trafficking charges, accused of sexually abusing dozens of teenage girls, and was found dead a month later in a New York jail cell in what investigators described as a suicide.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>The saga has consumed the Trump administration over the last month following an abrupt two-page announcement from the FBI and Justice Department that Epstein had killed himself despite conspiracy theories to the contrary, that a "client list" that Attorney General Pam Bondi had intimated was on her desk did not actually exist and that no additional documents from the high-profile investigation were suitable to be released.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><strong><span>READ MORE: </span></strong><a href="https://www.9news.com.au/world/erik-menendez-denied-parole-after-decades-in-prison-for-parents-murder-us/dc19af85-0c19-4398-98aa-59cd75f1df30"><strong><span>Erik Menendez denied bail decades after parents' murder</span></strong></a></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>The announcement produced outrage from conspiracy theorists, online sleuths and Trump supporters who had been hoping to see proof of a government cover-up.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>That expectation was driven in part by comments from officials, including FBI Director Kash Patel and Dan Bongino, who on podcasts before taking their current positions had repeatedly promoted the idea that damaging details about prominent people were being withheld.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Patel, for instance, said in at least one podcast interview before becoming director that Epstein's "black book" was under the "direct control of the director of the FBI."</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>The administration had an early stumble in February when far-right influencers were invited to the White House in February and provided by Bondi with binders marked "The Epstein Files: Phase 1" and "Declassified" that contained documents that had largely already been in the public domain.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>After the first release fell flat, Bondi said officials were poring over a "truckload" of previously withheld evidence she said had been handed over by the FBI and raised expectations of forthcoming releases.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><strong><span>READ MORE: </span></strong><a href="https://www.9news.com.au/world/world-news-archaeologists-pull-2000yearold-statues-from-egyptian-bay/0a6f9f8a-d49b-4cb7-b407-bc04b7b35ab9"><strong><span>Archaeologists pull 2000-year-old statues from Egyptian bay</span></strong></a></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>But after a weekslong review of evidence in the government's possession, the Justice Department said last month that no "further disclosure would be appropriate or warranted."</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>The department noted that much of the material was placed under seal by a court to protect victims and "only a fraction" of it "would have been aired publicly had Epstein gone to trial."</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Faced with fury from his base, Trump sought to quickly turn the page, shutting down questioning of Bondi about Epstein at a White House Cabinet meeting and deriding as "weaklings" supporters who he said were falling for the "Jeffrey Epstein Hoax."</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>The kerfuffle also created bitter divisions within the administration, as Bondi and Bongino angrily clashed at a White House meeting last month.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Bongino was uncharacteristically silent on social media for several days after that.</span></div></div>