🌊 Breaking Down the Maxwell Transcript

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By Rob McGreevy

Last Friday, the US Department of Justice released a recording of the entire two-day question-and-answer session from late July between Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche and convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell.

The conversation was part of a proffer agreement, granting Maxwell immunity from prosecution for information revealed during the sessions, conditional on her telling the truth. While critics caution that we should take everything she said with a grain of salt, she nonetheless painted a vivid picture of the deeply entrenched position she and Epstein – her former boss and lover – had within high society. 

We at Roca went through the 500 pages of text to pick out the most interesting, relevant, and newsworthy moments from the conversation. While some outlets have reported that there was nothing explosive from Maxwell’s testimony, the longtime Epstein associate sprinkled numerous new or interesting pieces of information throughout her responses. Today, we feature them here.

As a reminder, Maxwell was at various times Epstein’s co-conspirator, friend, girlfriend, assistant, friend with benefits, and even the caretaker of his mother. She’s serving a 20-year prison sentence for her role in “helping Epstein to recruit, groom, and ultimately abuse victims” who were between 14 and 17 years old.

Maxwell and Epstein met in 1991 while he was working at Bear Stearns, a bank. Maxwell recalled that a friend had told her Epstein was looking for a wife. But Maxwell told Blanche that the pair had sex once within the early stages of their meeting, but did not do so again for nine months. She added that Epstein told her he had a heart condition that precluded him from having sex often, as well as erectile dysfunction.

“He told me he didn't – he had difficulty having an erection … because when I didn't have sex with him after the first time, and it took – so I asked him, was it me? And he told me it was him.”

Maxwell did add, though, that “he liked other forms of sexual activities.” 

“There is no list. We'll start with that,” Maxwell’s first day of testimony began.

Editor’s Note

Thanks for reading another edition of We The 66. Yesterday, we sat for a three-hour interview with the podcaster Julian Dorey. Epstein came up at length, and the question was simply: Why hasn’t Trump released “the Epstein files” as he promised to do? Is it because of concerns about the victims, as the White House has said? Is it because Trump is implicated? Is it because the “files” aren’t nearly as notable as people think? Let us know what you think by replying here. 

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Stay tuned for more tomorrow.
—Max and Max