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The Tara Palmeri Show
Ghislaine Maxwell Testified Before Congress — and Lawmakers Reviewed Unredacted Epstein Files
00:19:09
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- [00:00]
Katie Tur
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- [00:12]
Sarah Fitzpatrick
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- [00:13]
Katie Tur
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Sam Stein
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- [00:23]
Tara Palmeri
Bite it.
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Sam Stein
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- [00:38]
Mary (Jeffrey Epstein Victim)
Then she proceeded to start things I didn't want to happen, and I was just numb. I didn't have any words. And that's why. That's why when all of this came out, I remember it's not so much Jeffrey as it was Ghislaine, because she was just the one that was guiding it all and leading it all. And I just kept on talking to myself through this and holding back the tears. The whole thing just sucks.
- [01:32]
Katie Tur
Good to be with you. I'm Katie Tur. That Netflix documentary identifies that Jeffrey Epstein victim as Mary. Up until that interview, which aired back in 2022, she had never spoken out. She was only moved to do so because she says she wanted people to know what she thought about Maxwell, that she was even worse than Epstein, that she was the one who lured her in, made her feel safe, only to set her and girls like her up for abuse, to help groom them, and to even abuse them herself. Mary's description of Maxwell is in line with what prosecutors accused her of back in 2021, according to the Justice Department, from at least 1994 up to and including on or about 2004 in Ghislaine, Maxwell assisted, facilitated and participated in Jeffrey Epstein's abuse of minor girls by, among other things, helping Epstein to recruit, groom and ultimately abuse victims known to Maxwell and Epstein to be under the age of 18. A federal jury agreed with those allegations, found them plausible, finding her guilty on five counts, including sex trafficking of minors. And in 2022, she was sentenced to 20 years in prison. The Bureau of Prisons guidelines states someone with that sort of conviction cannot be transferred to a minimum security prison. And yet that is where she currently resides, at a federal prison camp nicknamed Club Fed in residential Bryan, Texas, a place that mostly houses white collar criminals, including Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes and up until December, the Real Housewives of Salt Lake City star Jen Sh. Also a place where you can get a nursing degree and have access to puppies. She was transferred there after she spoke for nine hours with President. With the president's personal lawyer turned Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanch, a conversation that DOJ has not said came with any promise of immunity, clemency or favorable treatment. And yet when asked many of those same questions and more by Congress today that Attorney General Blanch Deputy Attorney General Blanche asked, well, Maxwell pleaded the fifth today a blanket plea to all lawmakers questions unless, as her attorney told House Oversight, the president grants her clemency. So is that on the table? Cuz the president has not ruled it out. If it happened, why would this administration be so lenient on a child sex predator? Why is she at Club Fed? Even the blast radius is big on the Epstein files. Yes, and it's shown rank hypocrisy, a lust for power and a willingness to look the other way at best for dozens of high profile men and women. But the destruction is still relatively limited, at least on this side of the Atlantic. Why is that? Joining us, managing editor of the Bulwark and Emma is now contributor Sam Stein, host of the Tara Palmeri show and author of the Red Letter on Substack, Tara Palmeri, former Deputy Assistant Attorney General Tom Dupree and staff writer for the Atlantic, Sarah Fitzpatrick. Lots of places to start with this. I guess one of the first ones is why would Ghislaine Maxwell talk so freely with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanch, Tom. And not with Congress?
- [04:59]
Tom Dupree
Well, one possibility is that she expected she would have an easier time answering his questions than she would answering congressional questions, particularly in a context in which her answers would certainly become public in fairly short order. Look, Maxwell is a reprehensible individual. I think there are frankly few people on this planet who are less deserving of clemency than Maxwell. And what she is doing now, as we heard from her lawyer, is she is basically trying to trade information that she may or may not have in her possession, but trade that information for clemency from President Trump. It's a cynically transparent ploy. I hope that the president does not see fit to exercise his pardon or his clemency power in her favor. But that is clearly the strategy she is deploying. And it's entirely consistent with her unsurprising decision today to take the Fifth, clam up and refuse to answer a single question from Congress.
- [05:50]
Katie Tur
So even if she did get clemency and did answer questions, Tara, would you trust her answers?
- [05:56]
Tara Palmeri
No. She's been charged with perjury in the past in her civil dispute with Virginia Giuffre. And she is a known liar. Not a number of survivors of Jeffrey Epstein that I've interviewed personally have said what the survivor that you featured in the show have said before, that the, the crime committed by her in some ways is even worse than what happened with Jeffrey Epstein. And that sexual abuse, because they would have never ended up in a 50 year old man's home if it wasn't for a posh British woman with her little dog, G Max, this little Yorkie driving around picking up children, telling them they're special, saying, you know, she can help them with whatever they need, targeting children who are from disadvantaged families and then saying in a way like I'll take care of you and instead bringing them in to the Dragon's Den and, and being a part of it. I mean, Virginia Giuffre remembers that it was Ghislaine Maxwell who took off her hello Kitty underwear the first time she met Jeffrey Epstein. These women remember the graphic details of how another woman adult abused them as children. And so it's horrific. And I don't understand why someone who's been charged with perjury is even given a stand and convicted, convicted of the crimes that she was accused of in prison. I mean, well, camp now.
- [07:30]
Katie Tur
Yeah, no, she's at a much nicer place than she was before on the subject of clemency. I guess it's just confusing to me given the conviction and given just what you brought up there and how Tom describes her as, well, just confusing that she would be transferred to a nicer place, number one. But also why the President wouldn't just rule out ever giving her clemency. Let's listen to him back on November 14th. Mr. President, have you ruled out a pardon for Ghislaine Maxwell?
- [07:56]
Donald Trump
I haven't even thought about it. I mean, I haven't thought about it for months. Maybe I haven't thought about it at all. You're just asking me a question. But I don't talk about that. I don't roll it in or out. I don't even think about it.
- [08:10]
Katie Tur
I mean, why not, Sam?
- [08:16]
Sam Stein
Well, it sort of fits with the patent for Trump where he doesn't like to be committal to any of these things so that he can probably leverage it going forward. Right. I mean, one of the things that we need to know more information about is what happened with Todd, Blanche and Ghislaine Maxwell, what was offered? Why did she get transferred? There's been some contradictory explanations for what exactly transpired there. Was it because Donald Trump does want to have some leverage over her or does want to dangle at the idea of a commutation or pardon? I Don't know. But Trump is very much that fits a pattern for what Donald Trump does, which is he doesn't like to commit doing a pardon or commutation. He likes to keep his options open. But it does raise questions. In a normal circumstance, I think a president who would just keep open the idea of giving a commutation to this type of character would be fairly scandalous and was we're seeing in other governments across the country, across the world. It actually is scandalous with this one. It's just sort of par for the course.
- [09:20]
Katie Tur
Yeah, that's, that's what's so confusing here, the dichotomy. You see in the UK the pressure building on the Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, and who knows if it's actually going to lead to him needing to resign. But there is definite pressure there in the UK even among people in his own party, saying that how he neglected to take seriously the relationship that his former Ambassador to the US Peter MendelsinThe relationship Mendelssohn had with Epstein. How could he not take that more seriously? How did he not know more about it? Why would he give themgive him that job as ambassador to the U.S. given that he had a relationship with somebody as notorious Epstein? The blast radius out there seems to be, you know, engendering some destruction. But the blast radius here, the destruction is so far limited. I'll put up on the screen just a number of the figures that are mentioned in the file. And so far, a lot of these folks maybe have been facing public ridicule or condemnation, but not much more than that. This includes people, Sarah, within Donald Trump's own administration, Howard Lutnick being one of them, Steve Bannon who is an ally, being another. I mean, President Bill Clinton's going to have to testify, but that's basically the end of it.
- [10:38]
Sarah Fitzpatrick
That's right, Katie. And I think that tells you everything that you need to know about why this extensive sex trafficking operation was able to go on for decades. Because Epstein and Maxwell and their associates worked very, very hard to cultivate a network of people that was bipartisan, that were in positions of power, and that would not look too carefully whether or not they knew about the actual criminality or were participating in the criminality. These were individuals who they cultivated for a specific reason, which is that it insulated their criminal conspiracy from law enforcement taking any real material action once it got to a certain level. We certainly know that in the United States at the FBI. We also know that in the UK and secondly, it prevented anyone who, who may have raised questions from pursuing them further because, oh, well, if Bill Clinton's here, if Howard Lutnick's here, then it can't be that bad. And so I think what we're seeing in the United States right now is the fact that this process, this very, very spectacular organization, has continued to keep this kind of omerta even after Epstein's death.
- [11:50]
Katie Tur
Let me read a little bit from some new Miami Herald reporting from Claire Healy and Julie K. Brown. Documents not previously public show the FBI had compiled its own list of accusations against prominent men based largely on uncorroborated tips and interviews the DOJ had compiled since Epstein's 2019 arrest. Among the names on the list, President Donald Trump, former President Bill Clinton, Harvey Weinstein, private equity investor Leon Black, L Brand's founder Les Wexner, banker Jess Staley and others. A version of the PowerPoint was sent to FBI Director Kash Patel on August 7, 2025, a month before he told Congress the agency had no evidence to prosecute other men in connection with Epstein's crimes. I wonder, Tom, when you consider the public's there's a broad public sentiment that what the DOJ has is quite a bit and there's just a lot of disbelief that there's nobody else, nobody else in this orbit who could have possibly been prosecuted given what the victims have said about their treatment, given how just how large and how vast Epstein and Maxwell's contacts were, what they were doing on the island. There's a lot of mistrust in the FBI and the DOJ about how this case was handled. Do you share any of that?
- [13:17]
Tom Dupree
I do, Katie. And look, the fact that there is distrust and concern among rank and file prosecutors, rank and file FBI agents, that does give me a lot of pause because the inevitable conclusion or inference that you could draw from this is that there was political pressure, either explicit or implicit, brought to bear on DOJ's charging decisions or lack thereof. I think that the fact that DOJ had gone so far both is to compile evidence and also to put together a list of particular individuals that at least potentially could be considered as targets of a criminal investigation or charges could be brought against them. But then ultimately, at the end of the day, not a single one of them was subject to charges raises questions in my mind. And I think it is very appropriate to ask people who were in decision making roles both then and now, how could you have concluded, given all this evidence that you had at the time and that we've seen come out in the years since, how could you have concluded that it didn't support criminal charges against a single other individual?
- [14:23]
Katie Tur
Yeah. You know, the survivors aren't letting this go. They had an ad in the super bowl yesterday. They're trying to put public pressure on Attorney General Pam Bondi, who, by the way, is going to be sitting in front of Congress on Wednesday. I know you've done a lot of reporting on the survivors, Tara. They seem very adamant that they're not going to go anywhere until they get more answers.
- [14:45]
Tara Palmeri
Yeah. And just to chime in on the idea that the Justice Department hasn't followed through on these tips, I mean, for example, Leon Black, he's mentioned many times in the files. And Jay Clayton, who is in charge of the future Epstein investigations into Democrats as President Trump said he was selected by Leon Black to succeed him at Apollo Management Group after Leon Black was pushed out of the, out of the hedge fund. And, you know, how is that not a conflict of interest? And he's not being investigated, as we know. Apollo said that they have not been subpoenaed for anything in regards to their internal investigation. So, you know, I know that the survivors told me that they're very angry about this, about who's leading the future investigation, and they're unhappy with the conclusion that there were no other men involved because that's not the story that they have been telling and that is not their experience. And again, they're, their depositions don't seem to have a sort of weight with the FBI and our Justice Department.
- [15:51]
Katie Tur
Sam, how much faith do you have in lawmakers going through these unredacted files and doing something more than just a handful of hearings with maybe some of the most prominent names?
- [16:02]
Sam Stein
Well, I have faith in some of the lawmakers. Right. I mean, Tom Massey, Ro Khanna, they've been dutiful about this. They've been supported by a few others. Where my faith sort of lapses is on the next phase of this, which is accountability from the members of Congress. I mean, what we've seen pretty quickly on is that the Oversight Committee led by James Comer is keen on doing what Donald Trump really wants him to do, which is to haul up Bill Clinton, embarrass some Democrats, keep the focus off of Trump, and there's no better example of this than Howard Lutnick. I mean, Howard Lutnick, the Commerce Secretary, is caught lying. He gave an interview to the New York Post where he said he completely cut off contact with Jeffrey Epstein in 2005, found him disgusting and deplorable, couldn't be around him. There are literal emails of them having some basic interactions. They were, there's a Cancer Fitzgerald deal that Jeffrey Epstein was involved in. There was some money that exchanged hands in terms of gifts. He lied. The committee could easily say, hey, you know, yes, we're having Bill Clinton up here. He's going to be testifying. But we also feel like it's important to bring Howard Lutnick up here to explain his lie. But they're not going to do that. James Comer was asked today and he sort of skirted around it, even as Tom Massey said Howard Lutnick should be forced out or should resign. So I don't have that much faith in accountability because I do think ultimately Congress, the Republicans specifically in Congress are going to try to protect Trump and the people around Trump while going after.
- [17:28]
Katie Tur
Democrats just like that, as if somebody might have been watching the show. A White House spokesperson has now doubled down on support for Secretary Letnick. Here's what the message says. Look at that. President Trump has assembled the best and most transformative cabinet in modern history. The entire Trump administration, including Secretary Lutnick and the Department of Commerce, remains focused on delivering for the American people. That's from White House spokesman Kush Desai. All right, on that note, thank you, everybody. Sarah, don't go anywhere. Still ahead, help wanted at the Department of Justice. Why officials are having a hard time replacing everyone who's left or been fired. Plus what officials in Georgia say took place with, quote, callous disregard for constitutional rights. We're back in 90 seconds.
- [18:19]
Tara Palmeri
That was another episode of the Tara Palmieri Show. Thanks so much for tuning in. If you like the show, please subscribe. Like Rate Follow Share it with your friends. Go to tarapaulmerie.com that's T-A R A P A L M E R I.com Sign up for my newsletter, the Red Letter. You'll get my exclusive reporting straight to your inbox by becoming a paid subscriber. Get the exclusives and you can support my independent journalism. I want to thank my producer, Eric Abenate. I want to thank Abby Baker on the socials and research, Adam Stewart, who does my graphics and Dan Rosen, my manager. See you again soon.
- [18:55]
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