🌊 The Ghislaine Transcript: Part 2

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By Rob McGreevy

We went through the 500-page transcript of the two-day conversation between Ghislaine Maxwell and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche. Yesterday, we brought you the notable parts of day one; today, we bring you day two. 

The first day of Maxwell’s two-day Department of Justice (DoJ) interview session in July focused on her relationship – working and romantic – with Jeffrey Epstein from the early 1990s through the early 2000s. On day two, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche spent a considerable amount of time questioning Maxwell about two things: The nature of payments she received from Epstein and the numerous trips taken by powerful figures on Epstein’s plane.

On day one, Maxwell revealed that Epstein had paid her a yearly salary of up to $250,000 in the 1990s and 2000s. On day two, Blanche asked about a series of lump-sum payments she received from Epstein that she had not voluntarily disclosed. 

Blanche recalled three specific payments – $18M in 1999, $5M in 2002, and $7.4M in 2007 – that Epstein wired to accounts in Maxwell’s name. Maxwell evaded the question, saying she didn’t know what the money was for, then concluded, “I don't believe any of that was my money.”

Blanche said that prosecutors in Maxwell’s 2021 sex trafficking conviction believed the payments were for bringing girls to Epstein; Maxwell denied it.

“The idea that you were paid $30M between '99 and 2007 by Mr. Epstein to reward you for recruiting young women…you're saying that is categorically, completely false?” 

“That is categorically false, correct,” she responded.

Maxwell proceeded to name drop a who’s-who of power brokers with whom she had ties.

She met Elon Musk in 2011 at Google co-founder Sergey Brin’s birthday party. She was close with former NY Governor Andrew Cuomo’s ex-wife, Kerry Kennedy, and attended their wedding. Kennedy, who is now divorced from Cuomo, is the sister of current Health and Human Services Secretary RFK Jr., whose name Maxwell also dropped in her testimony. 

“Bobby knew Mr. Epstein,” she told Blanche, recalling that the three of them once went on a fossil hunting expedition together to the Dakotas.

But the politician who came up the most in the conversation was Bill Clinton. Describing Clinton as “a man that I found truly extraordinary,” Maxwell waxed poetic about his charity, the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI), and her role in it.

Editor’s Note

That’s all for the Maxwell testimony. By now, you may have already sent in your thoughts. But if you still have ‘em, share ‘em! We’ll be back tomorrow with a change of pace. No Epstein or Maxwell this weekend. 

Thanks for reading. And if you’ve missed our recent stories, find them below.

• The Ghislaine Transcript: Part 1

• How Betting Took Over ESPN

• 5 Lessons from 5 Years of RocaNews

• Loomer Looms Large

• Oakland's Political Experiment Gone Wrong

That’s all, see you tomorrow.
—Max and Max