The family of Virginia Giuffre, one of Jeffrey Epstein’s most high-profile sex trafficking survivors, is asking U.S. President Donald Trump not to pardon the late financier’s aide, Ghislaine Maxwell, who is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence for her role in Epstein’s underage abuse ring.
The request comes in the wake of U.S. deputy attorney General Todd Blanche’s meeting with Maxwell at a Florida prison, and days after Trump suggested that he ended his friendship with Epstein because he poached employees from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate, including Giuffre, who died by suicide earlier this year.
Blanche facilitated the meeting with Maxwell, a British socialite and the daughter of late media mogul Robert Maxwell, in an ongoing effort by the Justice Department to cast itself as transparent following fierce backlash from some of Trump’s supporters over an earlier refusal to release additional records in the Epstein investigation.
The encounter stoked speculation that Trump may pardon Maxwell. On Friday, she was moved from a prison in Florida to a lower-security prison camp in Texas.
“We can confirm, Ghislaine Maxwell is in the custody of the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) at the Federal Prison Camp (FPC) Bryan, in Bryan, Texas,” the Bureau of Prisons said in a statement.
The prison is described as a minimum-security federal prison camp housing 635 female inmates.
Maxwell had previously been held at FCI Tallahassee, a low-security federal correctional institution with a detention centre housing 1,191 male and female inmates.
Giuffre’s family said Trump’s invocation of her earlier this week was unexpected and questioned whether he was aware of the full extent of Maxwell and Epstein’s abuse of their late relative.
“It was shocking to hear President Trump invoke our sister and say that he was aware that Virginia had been ‘stolen’ from Mar-a-Lago. It makes us ask if he was aware of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell’s criminal actions, especially given his statement two years later that his good friend Jeffrey ‘likes women on the younger side … no doubt about it.’ We and the public are asking for answers; survivors deserve this,” the family said.
On Wednesday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the president mentioned Giuffre in response to a question from a reporter who mentioned her.
“He did not bring her up. The fact remains that President Trump kicked Jeffrey Epstein out of his club for being a creep to his female employees,” she said in a statement, NBC News reported.
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Giuffre’s family said it was “convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell who targeted and preyed upon our then 16-year-old sister, Virginia, from Mar-a-Lago, where she was working in 2000, several years before Epstein and President Trump had their falling out.”
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The Giuffre family responded Friday to Maxwell’s transfer to a new prison facility and criticized the Trump administration’s “preferential treatment” of the convicted sex offender, as reported by CNN’s Kaitlan Collins.
“Ghislaine Maxwell is a sexual predator who physically assaulted minor children on multiple occasions, and she should never be shown any leniency. Yet, without any notification to the Maxwell victims, the government overnight has moved Maxwell to a minimum security luxury prison in Texas,” they said.
The family said Maxwell’s transfer is “the justice system failing victims right before our eyes,” and that the American people should be outraged by it.
They also urged the Trump administration not to “credit a word Maxwell says,” and accused the government of orchestrating “a cover-up.”
“The victims deserve better,” the statement concluded.
Maxwell’s lawyer, David Oscar Markus, said Friday there have been “no asks and no promises” regarding a pardon but told reporters that his client “would welcome any relief.”
Meanwhile, Giuffre’s family had previously said clemency for Maxwell should never be an option.
“The government and the President should never consider giving Ghislaine Maxwell any leniency,” the family said.
“Ghislaine Maxwell is a monster who deserves to rot in prison for the rest of her life for the extraordinary violence and abuse she put not just our sister Virginia through, but many other survivors, who may number in the thousands,” they said.
Asked last week if he would pardon Maxwell, Trump told reporters he had not considered it but that he was “allowed to do it.”
A Trump administration official told the outlet after the family’s initial statement was released that “no leniency is being given or discussed.”
“The president himself has said that clemency for Maxwell is not something he is even thinking about at this time,” they said.
— With files from The Associated Press
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