Aug. 26, 2026
Judge Rejects Ghislaine Maxwell’s “Rambling” “Meritless” Attempt To Overturn Her Sex Trafficking Convictions
Apple Podcasts 
Spotify 
Castro 
RSS Feed Judge Paul A. Engelmayer gave Ghislaine Maxwell a verbal spanking while ruling against her bid to overturn her sex trafficking convictions for her role in the Jeffrey Epstein saga. Judge Engelmayer wrote a 67 page ruling where he calls Maxwell’s claims meritless and frivolous and said the Epstein file release not only didn’t exonerate her, it further incriminated her and reinforced the verdict against her. He also made it very clear, Maxwell is out of legal options, writing that no further appeals would be considered. We have reaction from Epstein survivors and what Congress has tried to do to prevent her only get-out-of-jail card left: a Presidential pardon.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
00:00:02
Speaker 1: Hey there, folks. It is Wednesday, August 26th, and Delaine Maxwell gave it the good old college try. And boy, this professor just sent her back to prison with some of the most damning and definitive language you will hear from a judge. And with that, welcome to this episode. of Amy and TJ. Why not? Give it a shot. She's in prison for 20 years. Might as well try one more time to get a new trial.
00:00:27
Speaker 2: Why not?
00:00:27
Speaker 3: Yeah, trying to overturn her conviction, but let's just say to say it was rejected or denied would be a massive understatement. She was overwhelmingly and resoundedly rejected by this judge.
00:00:41
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, it was a long shot.
00:00:43
Speaker 3: And look, for anyone who has been invested in the Jeffrey Epstein saga, whether you have personal reasons or you're just here to watch it all play out, this was fairly remarkable because we knew that Ghislaine Maxwell had filed all of this pro se back in December, meaning she did not have an attorney.
00:01:03
Speaker 2: But she was claiming that there had.
00:01:04
Speaker 3: Been a complete miscarriage of justice, that she has been singled out, that she has been made the scapegoat of the Jeffrey Epstein saga, the only person to have been charged and convicted with all that he did for all that time.
00:01:20
Speaker 2: And guess what? The judge kind of said, yeah, and you should have been.
00:01:24
Speaker 1: Why didn't she have an attorney? Could she not afford one? Did she want to do this on her own or nobody would take the case?
00:01:29
Speaker 2: It could be all of the above. I don't know how. I mean, her family is... Very wealthy.
00:01:33
Speaker 3: Her brother has been an outspoken supporter of hers. I would think that if she needed an attorney, he would have been able to provide one.
00:01:41
Speaker 1: Okay. And we saw this. I can't remember when she filed it, but we knew it was coming and we knew she.
00:01:46
Speaker 2: Was doing it. She filed it in December.
00:01:47
Speaker 1: But we got a look at it at the time. What is she saying? No, okay, we'll see what a judge thinks about this. But a center part of it, wasn't it, Robes? The Epstein files are out.
00:01:56
Speaker 2: Yes.
00:01:57
Speaker 1: My exoneration is public now.
00:01:59
Speaker 2: I have all of her claims. She had, I think, and it was great.
00:02:01
Speaker 3: Because in this 67-page ruling, the judge went through all of her claims one by one and shot them down. But she was claiming there was juror misconduct, that a jury, a member of the jury said that he hadn't experienced sexual abuse but actually had. She was saying there were mischaracterizations of the evidence. She says the private attorneys for many of the Epstein victims actually functioned as de facto prosecutors against her.
00:02:29
Speaker 1: Hey, man, sounds like she got a case to me.
00:02:31
Speaker 3: She claimed there were the decades-long delay between her alleged conduct and her indictment should be taken into consideration.
00:02:37
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's not fair.
00:02:40
Speaker 3: She also felt like she should have been protected. That sweetheart deal we talk about that Jeffrey Epstein was given back in 2007 should have protected her as an alleged co-conspirator from any sort of prosecution.
00:02:52
Speaker 1: That's what I'm trying to tell you.
00:02:53
Speaker 3: Yeah. So she claimed all of those things.
00:02:56
Speaker 1: My sarcasm is evident.
00:02:57
Speaker 2: I just want to make sure nobody... Well, yeah, I think it's important to make sure that people know.
00:03:00
Speaker 1: Well, the listeners. Okay. Didn't think I was being supportive of Glenn Mitchell.
00:03:03
Speaker 2: You were being sarcastic. Let everyone know that.
00:03:06
Speaker 3: And ultimately, she said the cumulative effect of... of these constitutional violations constitutes a complete miscarriage of justice, rendering petitioner's conviction invalid, unsafe, and infirm.
00:03:20
Speaker 2: She wrote all of this, right?
00:03:22
Speaker 3: On her own.
00:03:22
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know what the judge called it? Rambling.
00:03:27
Speaker 1: Okay, maybe. But that doesn't mean she doesn't make a good case.
00:03:30
Speaker 2: Well, I'll continue. So this is Judge Paul A. Engelmeyer.
00:03:34
Speaker 3: You have seen his name a lot because he has been overseeing this.
00:03:38
Speaker 2: And again, a 67-page ruling. This is how it begins.
00:03:42
Speaker 3: In a lengthy and rambling petition, which Maxwell twice supplemented with similarly discursive addenda, she claims that her constitutional rights at trial and sentencing were violated.
00:03:53
Speaker 2: In multiple respects.
00:03:55
Speaker 3: Even as he's just setting up what she set out to do, He insulted her. Yeah.
00:04:01
Speaker 1: I don't know if they write like this, but it's something funny about him saying, she said, it's like you're talking about it right in front of her and not addressing her.
00:04:08
Speaker 3: Right. Yeah.
00:04:09
Speaker 2: And she keeps saying it. She's like redundant.
00:04:12
Speaker 1: Yes.
00:04:13
Speaker 3: So he goes on to say, my goodness, judges are so good with their words.
00:04:17
Speaker 2: I love how it's- Yes.
00:04:19
Speaker 3: Sometimes it's Shakespearean because you have to get through the legalese. but you totally know what they mean when they're saying what they're saying. So he writes, Maxwell's claims are all meritless and all or almost all are frivolous.
00:04:35
Speaker 2: That's tough.
00:04:36
Speaker 3: Yeah, the vast majority are procedurally barred either because Maxwell made and lost the same arguments on direct appeal or because she could have made such arguments on appeal but elected not to do so. And the purported new evidence to which Maxwell points is, Principally, materials released under the Epstein Files Transparency Act is largely irrelevant to the charges against Maxwell and does not support her claims of error.
00:04:58
Speaker 1: This is my favorite.
00:04:59
Speaker 3: On the contrary, to the extent it is relevant, far from exculpating her, it incriminates her or reinforces the correctness of the legal rulings Maxwell challenges.
00:05:24
Speaker 1: He essentially said the Epstein files buried you. Yes.
00:05:28
Speaker 3: They actually made it worse for you. Like, had we known all of this, your trial would have ended sooner. No, I mean, he didn't say that, but he was kind of saying that. And he said, for the reasons reviewed in depth above, and he did, he went one by one, every single thing she was claiming she was wronged by, he.
00:05:47
Speaker 2: Was like, yeah, no. He said, Maxwell's petition falls very far from the mark. He didn't have to say that. He chose it. He said nearly all its claims are procedurally barred.
00:05:58
Speaker 3: The overwhelming testimonial and documentary evidence adduced at trial conclusively established her guilt. and her petitions claims are demonstrably meritless and generally based on speculation, distortions.
00:06:14
Speaker 2: And or outright falsehoods. Colin are a liar.
00:06:18
Speaker 3: There is no fact that Maxwell fairly puts in dispute that has any potential to disturb the outcome of her trial.
00:06:29
Speaker 1: This is as definitive as it gets. You don't have a leg to stand on. How many documents are out? Six million. We can't find a page that helps you.
00:06:37
Speaker 2: In fact, it only hurts you further.
00:06:39
Speaker 3: And then this was my favorite because just in case Ghislaine Maxwell thinks that she can find another judge or file another appeal, he said, Maxwell is not to submit any further filings. Any such filings will not be considered.
00:06:58
Speaker 2: You're done, ma'am, is what he said.
00:07:01
Speaker 1: That part... I don't think he was being punitive, but it almost came across as stop wasting my time.
00:07:10
Speaker 2: That is exact.
00:07:11
Speaker 3: When you say frivolous, when you say meritless, and when you say, and there are no more filings that you could possibly introduce.
00:07:19
Speaker 1: You're not allowed.
00:07:20
Speaker 2: That we will even look at.
00:07:22
Speaker 1: We won't entertain this anymore.
00:07:23
Speaker 3: We're not looking at anything you send us ever again. Yes, and look, I was going back in the timeline because, look, this is kind of wild. Jeffrey Epstein arrested in July of 2019 found dead one month later. It took another year before Maxwell was arrested. I didn't realize that a full year, July of 2020, she's arrested December of 2021. She's convicted of sex trafficking sentence to 20 years. Um, and then it took four years for them to file this petition to the Supreme court of the United States, uh, And they based it on that written promise to Epstein not to prosecute co-conspirators.
00:08:04
Speaker 2: SCOTUS said, we don't care. We dismiss this. It doesn't work.
00:08:09
Speaker 3: But in July of 2025, that's when she met with Todd Blanche, she gave those interviews, and she was moved to Camp Fed in Texas shortly after her interview. That was July of 2025, exactly a year ago. And within, like, days, remember that? She meets with him at the end of July. All of a sudden, we find out a few days later, she's been moved.
00:08:29
Speaker 1: It was the same weekend. They moved her that weekend.
00:08:32
Speaker 2: Clearly the two were connected.
00:08:34
Speaker 3: The Justice Department has never admitted it, but obviously she got a little sweetheart deal of her own where she is in a minimum security federal resort prison. People have made all sorts of descriptives to describe this very cushy existence.
00:08:53
Speaker 2: Club Fed, right? Club Fed is absolutely what it's called.
00:08:57
Speaker 3: And look, if she was convicted and put in prison in 2021, look, this woman could be out.
00:09:03
Speaker 2: I don't know what the exact release date is, but 20 years.
00:09:06
Speaker 3: If you actually consider and if you've paid attention and listened to these victims, what she did, Jeffrey Epstein would not have been able to commit the atrocities he did on the scale he did for as long as he did if she had not been by his side making it all happen every step of the way. And many of these girls directly also claim that she.
00:09:29
Speaker 2: Personally sexually abused them as well.
00:09:32
Speaker 3: She was not just his facilitator. They also say she was their physical abuser as well.
00:09:39
Speaker 1: I know he is this sex offender. So is she.
00:09:43
Speaker 2: So is she.
00:09:44
Speaker 1: I mean, if she got out, wouldn't she have to register as a sex offender?
00:09:48
Speaker 3: When she gets out, and she will if she doesn't die in prison, she will absolutely have to.
00:09:53
Speaker 1: I think for whatever reason, sometimes she gets a pass as a sidekick. she's no she was much more than.
00:09:59
Speaker 3: That exactly and I really like people need to remember and she tries to you know to pawn this off that she's the scapegoat that she actually didn't do anything wrong that she's paying for the sins of Jeffrey Epstein and that is just patently patently false when you hear the victim victim after victim after victim absolutely directly I've even one of the victims even said she was worse than Epstein Because she made the girls trust her. He could not have gotten all those girls to come into his home to give him massages if she hadn't convinced them that they were safe and that they were okay.
00:10:32
Speaker 2: And then she exploited that trust she built.
00:10:35
Speaker 3: And absolutely exposed these girls to his abuse and, according to them, her own abuse as well. So when we come back, what about this presidential pardon? We have never heard President Trump say whether or not he would. We actually have some, there is an update that I kind of missed. This is really interesting about what Congress did, and we'll have the victim's reaction to the judge's eviscerating ruling. Welcome back everyone to Amy and TJ.
00:11:11
Speaker 2: Yes.
00:11:11
Speaker 3: I think a lot of the victims were slow clapping or maybe loudly cheering.
00:11:17
Speaker 2: If they took the time, I'm sure they did.
00:11:19
Speaker 3: It was probably some of the best reading material they've had since this all began to see the judge literally throw the book at Ghislaine Maxwell. That certainly happened.
00:11:29
Speaker 1: You could re-throw it. It's already been thrown. You're right.
00:11:31
Speaker 3: You know what?
00:11:31
Speaker 1: How many books do you want to get hit with?
00:11:34
Speaker 3: Apparently no more because she cannot file anything ever again.
00:11:39
Speaker 1: You know, you spoke of the victims. That sucks. I know this is a relief maybe. But Rose, from the moment she sat down with Todd Blanche, they had to be nervous. Like, oh my God, they're going to get this woman out. And then they moved her to Club Fed. You don't feel good about that.
00:11:54
Speaker 3: No.
00:11:54
Speaker 1: She's still in prison. So, yeah, for a year, they've kind of been on edge waiting for this.
00:11:58
Speaker 3: You make some very excellent points, and we heard directly from a representative. This person represents 11 of the Epstein survivors, and this was kind of a joint statement, but this is what they had to say or he had to say.
00:12:11
Speaker 2: It was apparently not enough for Ms. Maxwell that she was moved.
00:12:15
Speaker 3: to a minimum security resort-style prison, and she has once again attempted to get her sentence and conviction overturned. I am very pleased to see that those frivolous efforts were rejected, and I agree that her arguments were meritless. Ghislaine Maxwell is a convicted child sex trafficker, and she belongs behind bars for the remainder of her sentence.
00:12:38
Speaker 1: Period.
00:12:39
Speaker 2: And that should be the end of the story.
00:12:42
Speaker 1: You know, it's kind of weird to think that she... I mean, you kind of made the point. You lucky you there.
00:12:49
Speaker 2: Exactly.
00:12:50
Speaker 3: Like, you should be thanking your lucky stars that you're where you are, and that's more than you ever deserved. Now, in terms of this pardon, which we have talked ad nauseum about, and I don't know why President Trump just won't put it to bed and say, I'm not going to pardon her. It is questionable to the point that last month, the Senate unanimously passed a resolution, this is at the end of July, declaring that Ghislaine Maxwell should never receive a presidential pardon. Obviously, the president can do whatever he wants. But this was something that Democrats did because they, I appreciate this, they wanted every Republican on record, every Republican senator on record as being opposed to a potential presidential pardon.
00:13:40
Speaker 2: So Look, I don't think they can do anything else.
00:13:43
Speaker 3: Obviously, the president, that is one of the powers of the presidency, and he can do what he wants whenever he wants, and he doesn't even have to offer an explanation. But the Senate, I do appreciate that. Look, a lot of what they do, unfortunately, is.
00:13:57
Speaker 1: Gamesmanship.
00:13:58
Speaker 3: Yes.
00:13:58
Speaker 1: This is what you want to make. You're making a political point. Who does this help? Who feels better? Who feels good? Okay, fine. You can call them on it for how they vote. Come on, man. You can't do anything to the president. You're not going to take away his pardon power. You just can't. You're not going to. So now what? They can go out there and run against Republicans and talk about how they might have voted on something?
00:14:24
Speaker 2: Well, yes, but they all voted.
00:14:26
Speaker 3: Every single senator voted that They don't believe Ghislaine Maxwell should.
00:14:31
Speaker 2: Receive a presidential pardon.
00:14:33
Speaker 3: But look, the problem for the president is by him not saying he won't and his alleged ties to Jeffrey Epstein, it just keeps everyone believing or guessing or assuming that she has something on him, that she could hold something over his head, and that he is keeping that in his back pocket in case he needs to pull it out, the presidential pardon.
00:15:00
Speaker 1: Okay, so she's what? She's trying to negotiate a pardon?
00:15:04
Speaker 2: Well, that is her only way of getting out right now.
00:15:08
Speaker 1: What is her negotiating ploy, her tactic, and what card is she holding? Now, obviously, she's the only one that knows that, but she has in some way threatened to use that to a point that the president will make a move.
00:15:20
Speaker 2: She hasn't threatened it. In fact, we've only heard her give glowing, glowing.
00:15:25
Speaker 1: She tried one way. That didn't work.
00:15:27
Speaker 2: Through Todd Blanch, that interview.
00:15:29
Speaker 3: That's what made that also so suspicious that, oh, these recorded or we saw the transcripts of these interviews where she just said that President Trump was a gentleman.
00:15:37
Speaker 2: Like, it just was so over the top in the other direction.
00:15:41
Speaker 1: Even when she wasn't asked about him.
00:15:42
Speaker 3: Correct.
00:15:43
Speaker 1: He was talking about him.
00:15:44
Speaker 3: So, yeah, we will wait and see if that ever does come back.
00:15:50
Speaker 2: To fruition.
00:15:51
Speaker 3: But until he is willing to say he's not going to, or until the point comes at the end of his presidency where he does not give her a presidential pardon, people are always going to think what they're going to think.
00:16:03
Speaker 1: I think this is a part of him, mastery of the media sometimes. He knows that. He can hold on to that. If anything else starts going on, he can start getting bad press, he can make a Ghislaine Maxwell mention, and that'll be the headline. That'll take whatever else off I think he knows how to hold on to things and make sure he's holding on to a media pawn. He can put this thing several places if he needs to. It's not time yet, maybe. But it feels like that. For a while, he didn't say whether or not he would pardon Diddy. He kept getting asked about it. He could have clearly just given an answer, but he liked the power.
00:16:39
Speaker 3: You know what?
00:16:39
Speaker 2: You make a very, very good point.
00:16:42
Speaker 3: But I do think at least given this This ruling now, I hope that for the Epstein survivors and all of those women who suffered under the hands of Ghislaine Maxwell, they can at least breathe a little sigh of relief that she not only isn't getting out from any sort of judicial standpoint.
00:17:02
Speaker 2: There aren't going to be more hearings. There isn't going to be another trial. There isn't going to be another appeal.
00:17:07
Speaker 3: And hopefully that can give them some small sense of closure, at least when it comes to Ghislaine. And with that, everyone, we always appreciate you listening to us. I'm Amy Robach alongside TJ Holmes.
00:17:19
Speaker 2: We'll talk soon.
Speaker 1: Hey there, folks. It is Wednesday, August 26th, and Delaine Maxwell gave it the good old college try. And boy, this professor just sent her back to prison with some of the most damning and definitive language you will hear from a judge. And with that, welcome to this episode. of Amy and TJ. Why not? Give it a shot. She's in prison for 20 years. Might as well try one more time to get a new trial.
00:00:27
Speaker 2: Why not?
00:00:27
Speaker 3: Yeah, trying to overturn her conviction, but let's just say to say it was rejected or denied would be a massive understatement. She was overwhelmingly and resoundedly rejected by this judge.
00:00:41
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, it was a long shot.
00:00:43
Speaker 3: And look, for anyone who has been invested in the Jeffrey Epstein saga, whether you have personal reasons or you're just here to watch it all play out, this was fairly remarkable because we knew that Ghislaine Maxwell had filed all of this pro se back in December, meaning she did not have an attorney.
00:01:03
Speaker 2: But she was claiming that there had.
00:01:04
Speaker 3: Been a complete miscarriage of justice, that she has been singled out, that she has been made the scapegoat of the Jeffrey Epstein saga, the only person to have been charged and convicted with all that he did for all that time.
00:01:20
Speaker 2: And guess what? The judge kind of said, yeah, and you should have been.
00:01:24
Speaker 1: Why didn't she have an attorney? Could she not afford one? Did she want to do this on her own or nobody would take the case?
00:01:29
Speaker 2: It could be all of the above. I don't know how. I mean, her family is... Very wealthy.
00:01:33
Speaker 3: Her brother has been an outspoken supporter of hers. I would think that if she needed an attorney, he would have been able to provide one.
00:01:41
Speaker 1: Okay. And we saw this. I can't remember when she filed it, but we knew it was coming and we knew she.
00:01:46
Speaker 2: Was doing it. She filed it in December.
00:01:47
Speaker 1: But we got a look at it at the time. What is she saying? No, okay, we'll see what a judge thinks about this. But a center part of it, wasn't it, Robes? The Epstein files are out.
00:01:56
Speaker 2: Yes.
00:01:57
Speaker 1: My exoneration is public now.
00:01:59
Speaker 2: I have all of her claims. She had, I think, and it was great.
00:02:01
Speaker 3: Because in this 67-page ruling, the judge went through all of her claims one by one and shot them down. But she was claiming there was juror misconduct, that a jury, a member of the jury said that he hadn't experienced sexual abuse but actually had. She was saying there were mischaracterizations of the evidence. She says the private attorneys for many of the Epstein victims actually functioned as de facto prosecutors against her.
00:02:29
Speaker 1: Hey, man, sounds like she got a case to me.
00:02:31
Speaker 3: She claimed there were the decades-long delay between her alleged conduct and her indictment should be taken into consideration.
00:02:37
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's not fair.
00:02:40
Speaker 3: She also felt like she should have been protected. That sweetheart deal we talk about that Jeffrey Epstein was given back in 2007 should have protected her as an alleged co-conspirator from any sort of prosecution.
00:02:52
Speaker 1: That's what I'm trying to tell you.
00:02:53
Speaker 3: Yeah. So she claimed all of those things.
00:02:56
Speaker 1: My sarcasm is evident.
00:02:57
Speaker 2: I just want to make sure nobody... Well, yeah, I think it's important to make sure that people know.
00:03:00
Speaker 1: Well, the listeners. Okay. Didn't think I was being supportive of Glenn Mitchell.
00:03:03
Speaker 2: You were being sarcastic. Let everyone know that.
00:03:06
Speaker 3: And ultimately, she said the cumulative effect of... of these constitutional violations constitutes a complete miscarriage of justice, rendering petitioner's conviction invalid, unsafe, and infirm.
00:03:20
Speaker 2: She wrote all of this, right?
00:03:22
Speaker 3: On her own.
00:03:22
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know what the judge called it? Rambling.
00:03:27
Speaker 1: Okay, maybe. But that doesn't mean she doesn't make a good case.
00:03:30
Speaker 2: Well, I'll continue. So this is Judge Paul A. Engelmeyer.
00:03:34
Speaker 3: You have seen his name a lot because he has been overseeing this.
00:03:38
Speaker 2: And again, a 67-page ruling. This is how it begins.
00:03:42
Speaker 3: In a lengthy and rambling petition, which Maxwell twice supplemented with similarly discursive addenda, she claims that her constitutional rights at trial and sentencing were violated.
00:03:53
Speaker 2: In multiple respects.
00:03:55
Speaker 3: Even as he's just setting up what she set out to do, He insulted her. Yeah.
00:04:01
Speaker 1: I don't know if they write like this, but it's something funny about him saying, she said, it's like you're talking about it right in front of her and not addressing her.
00:04:08
Speaker 3: Right. Yeah.
00:04:09
Speaker 2: And she keeps saying it. She's like redundant.
00:04:12
Speaker 1: Yes.
00:04:13
Speaker 3: So he goes on to say, my goodness, judges are so good with their words.
00:04:17
Speaker 2: I love how it's- Yes.
00:04:19
Speaker 3: Sometimes it's Shakespearean because you have to get through the legalese. but you totally know what they mean when they're saying what they're saying. So he writes, Maxwell's claims are all meritless and all or almost all are frivolous.
00:04:35
Speaker 2: That's tough.
00:04:36
Speaker 3: Yeah, the vast majority are procedurally barred either because Maxwell made and lost the same arguments on direct appeal or because she could have made such arguments on appeal but elected not to do so. And the purported new evidence to which Maxwell points is, Principally, materials released under the Epstein Files Transparency Act is largely irrelevant to the charges against Maxwell and does not support her claims of error.
00:04:58
Speaker 1: This is my favorite.
00:04:59
Speaker 3: On the contrary, to the extent it is relevant, far from exculpating her, it incriminates her or reinforces the correctness of the legal rulings Maxwell challenges.
00:05:24
Speaker 1: He essentially said the Epstein files buried you. Yes.
00:05:28
Speaker 3: They actually made it worse for you. Like, had we known all of this, your trial would have ended sooner. No, I mean, he didn't say that, but he was kind of saying that. And he said, for the reasons reviewed in depth above, and he did, he went one by one, every single thing she was claiming she was wronged by, he.
00:05:47
Speaker 2: Was like, yeah, no. He said, Maxwell's petition falls very far from the mark. He didn't have to say that. He chose it. He said nearly all its claims are procedurally barred.
00:05:58
Speaker 3: The overwhelming testimonial and documentary evidence adduced at trial conclusively established her guilt. and her petitions claims are demonstrably meritless and generally based on speculation, distortions.
00:06:14
Speaker 2: And or outright falsehoods. Colin are a liar.
00:06:18
Speaker 3: There is no fact that Maxwell fairly puts in dispute that has any potential to disturb the outcome of her trial.
00:06:29
Speaker 1: This is as definitive as it gets. You don't have a leg to stand on. How many documents are out? Six million. We can't find a page that helps you.
00:06:37
Speaker 2: In fact, it only hurts you further.
00:06:39
Speaker 3: And then this was my favorite because just in case Ghislaine Maxwell thinks that she can find another judge or file another appeal, he said, Maxwell is not to submit any further filings. Any such filings will not be considered.
00:06:58
Speaker 2: You're done, ma'am, is what he said.
00:07:01
Speaker 1: That part... I don't think he was being punitive, but it almost came across as stop wasting my time.
00:07:10
Speaker 2: That is exact.
00:07:11
Speaker 3: When you say frivolous, when you say meritless, and when you say, and there are no more filings that you could possibly introduce.
00:07:19
Speaker 1: You're not allowed.
00:07:20
Speaker 2: That we will even look at.
00:07:22
Speaker 1: We won't entertain this anymore.
00:07:23
Speaker 3: We're not looking at anything you send us ever again. Yes, and look, I was going back in the timeline because, look, this is kind of wild. Jeffrey Epstein arrested in July of 2019 found dead one month later. It took another year before Maxwell was arrested. I didn't realize that a full year, July of 2020, she's arrested December of 2021. She's convicted of sex trafficking sentence to 20 years. Um, and then it took four years for them to file this petition to the Supreme court of the United States, uh, And they based it on that written promise to Epstein not to prosecute co-conspirators.
00:08:04
Speaker 2: SCOTUS said, we don't care. We dismiss this. It doesn't work.
00:08:09
Speaker 3: But in July of 2025, that's when she met with Todd Blanche, she gave those interviews, and she was moved to Camp Fed in Texas shortly after her interview. That was July of 2025, exactly a year ago. And within, like, days, remember that? She meets with him at the end of July. All of a sudden, we find out a few days later, she's been moved.
00:08:29
Speaker 1: It was the same weekend. They moved her that weekend.
00:08:32
Speaker 2: Clearly the two were connected.
00:08:34
Speaker 3: The Justice Department has never admitted it, but obviously she got a little sweetheart deal of her own where she is in a minimum security federal resort prison. People have made all sorts of descriptives to describe this very cushy existence.
00:08:53
Speaker 2: Club Fed, right? Club Fed is absolutely what it's called.
00:08:57
Speaker 3: And look, if she was convicted and put in prison in 2021, look, this woman could be out.
00:09:03
Speaker 2: I don't know what the exact release date is, but 20 years.
00:09:06
Speaker 3: If you actually consider and if you've paid attention and listened to these victims, what she did, Jeffrey Epstein would not have been able to commit the atrocities he did on the scale he did for as long as he did if she had not been by his side making it all happen every step of the way. And many of these girls directly also claim that she.
00:09:29
Speaker 2: Personally sexually abused them as well.
00:09:32
Speaker 3: She was not just his facilitator. They also say she was their physical abuser as well.
00:09:39
Speaker 1: I know he is this sex offender. So is she.
00:09:43
Speaker 2: So is she.
00:09:44
Speaker 1: I mean, if she got out, wouldn't she have to register as a sex offender?
00:09:48
Speaker 3: When she gets out, and she will if she doesn't die in prison, she will absolutely have to.
00:09:53
Speaker 1: I think for whatever reason, sometimes she gets a pass as a sidekick. she's no she was much more than.
00:09:59
Speaker 3: That exactly and I really like people need to remember and she tries to you know to pawn this off that she's the scapegoat that she actually didn't do anything wrong that she's paying for the sins of Jeffrey Epstein and that is just patently patently false when you hear the victim victim after victim after victim absolutely directly I've even one of the victims even said she was worse than Epstein Because she made the girls trust her. He could not have gotten all those girls to come into his home to give him massages if she hadn't convinced them that they were safe and that they were okay.
00:10:32
Speaker 2: And then she exploited that trust she built.
00:10:35
Speaker 3: And absolutely exposed these girls to his abuse and, according to them, her own abuse as well. So when we come back, what about this presidential pardon? We have never heard President Trump say whether or not he would. We actually have some, there is an update that I kind of missed. This is really interesting about what Congress did, and we'll have the victim's reaction to the judge's eviscerating ruling. Welcome back everyone to Amy and TJ.
00:11:11
Speaker 2: Yes.
00:11:11
Speaker 3: I think a lot of the victims were slow clapping or maybe loudly cheering.
00:11:17
Speaker 2: If they took the time, I'm sure they did.
00:11:19
Speaker 3: It was probably some of the best reading material they've had since this all began to see the judge literally throw the book at Ghislaine Maxwell. That certainly happened.
00:11:29
Speaker 1: You could re-throw it. It's already been thrown. You're right.
00:11:31
Speaker 3: You know what?
00:11:31
Speaker 1: How many books do you want to get hit with?
00:11:34
Speaker 3: Apparently no more because she cannot file anything ever again.
00:11:39
Speaker 1: You know, you spoke of the victims. That sucks. I know this is a relief maybe. But Rose, from the moment she sat down with Todd Blanche, they had to be nervous. Like, oh my God, they're going to get this woman out. And then they moved her to Club Fed. You don't feel good about that.
00:11:54
Speaker 3: No.
00:11:54
Speaker 1: She's still in prison. So, yeah, for a year, they've kind of been on edge waiting for this.
00:11:58
Speaker 3: You make some very excellent points, and we heard directly from a representative. This person represents 11 of the Epstein survivors, and this was kind of a joint statement, but this is what they had to say or he had to say.
00:12:11
Speaker 2: It was apparently not enough for Ms. Maxwell that she was moved.
00:12:15
Speaker 3: to a minimum security resort-style prison, and she has once again attempted to get her sentence and conviction overturned. I am very pleased to see that those frivolous efforts were rejected, and I agree that her arguments were meritless. Ghislaine Maxwell is a convicted child sex trafficker, and she belongs behind bars for the remainder of her sentence.
00:12:38
Speaker 1: Period.
00:12:39
Speaker 2: And that should be the end of the story.
00:12:42
Speaker 1: You know, it's kind of weird to think that she... I mean, you kind of made the point. You lucky you there.
00:12:49
Speaker 2: Exactly.
00:12:50
Speaker 3: Like, you should be thanking your lucky stars that you're where you are, and that's more than you ever deserved. Now, in terms of this pardon, which we have talked ad nauseum about, and I don't know why President Trump just won't put it to bed and say, I'm not going to pardon her. It is questionable to the point that last month, the Senate unanimously passed a resolution, this is at the end of July, declaring that Ghislaine Maxwell should never receive a presidential pardon. Obviously, the president can do whatever he wants. But this was something that Democrats did because they, I appreciate this, they wanted every Republican on record, every Republican senator on record as being opposed to a potential presidential pardon.
00:13:40
Speaker 2: So Look, I don't think they can do anything else.
00:13:43
Speaker 3: Obviously, the president, that is one of the powers of the presidency, and he can do what he wants whenever he wants, and he doesn't even have to offer an explanation. But the Senate, I do appreciate that. Look, a lot of what they do, unfortunately, is.
00:13:57
Speaker 1: Gamesmanship.
00:13:58
Speaker 3: Yes.
00:13:58
Speaker 1: This is what you want to make. You're making a political point. Who does this help? Who feels better? Who feels good? Okay, fine. You can call them on it for how they vote. Come on, man. You can't do anything to the president. You're not going to take away his pardon power. You just can't. You're not going to. So now what? They can go out there and run against Republicans and talk about how they might have voted on something?
00:14:24
Speaker 2: Well, yes, but they all voted.
00:14:26
Speaker 3: Every single senator voted that They don't believe Ghislaine Maxwell should.
00:14:31
Speaker 2: Receive a presidential pardon.
00:14:33
Speaker 3: But look, the problem for the president is by him not saying he won't and his alleged ties to Jeffrey Epstein, it just keeps everyone believing or guessing or assuming that she has something on him, that she could hold something over his head, and that he is keeping that in his back pocket in case he needs to pull it out, the presidential pardon.
00:15:00
Speaker 1: Okay, so she's what? She's trying to negotiate a pardon?
00:15:04
Speaker 2: Well, that is her only way of getting out right now.
00:15:08
Speaker 1: What is her negotiating ploy, her tactic, and what card is she holding? Now, obviously, she's the only one that knows that, but she has in some way threatened to use that to a point that the president will make a move.
00:15:20
Speaker 2: She hasn't threatened it. In fact, we've only heard her give glowing, glowing.
00:15:25
Speaker 1: She tried one way. That didn't work.
00:15:27
Speaker 2: Through Todd Blanch, that interview.
00:15:29
Speaker 3: That's what made that also so suspicious that, oh, these recorded or we saw the transcripts of these interviews where she just said that President Trump was a gentleman.
00:15:37
Speaker 2: Like, it just was so over the top in the other direction.
00:15:41
Speaker 1: Even when she wasn't asked about him.
00:15:42
Speaker 3: Correct.
00:15:43
Speaker 1: He was talking about him.
00:15:44
Speaker 3: So, yeah, we will wait and see if that ever does come back.
00:15:50
Speaker 2: To fruition.
00:15:51
Speaker 3: But until he is willing to say he's not going to, or until the point comes at the end of his presidency where he does not give her a presidential pardon, people are always going to think what they're going to think.
00:16:03
Speaker 1: I think this is a part of him, mastery of the media sometimes. He knows that. He can hold on to that. If anything else starts going on, he can start getting bad press, he can make a Ghislaine Maxwell mention, and that'll be the headline. That'll take whatever else off I think he knows how to hold on to things and make sure he's holding on to a media pawn. He can put this thing several places if he needs to. It's not time yet, maybe. But it feels like that. For a while, he didn't say whether or not he would pardon Diddy. He kept getting asked about it. He could have clearly just given an answer, but he liked the power.
00:16:39
Speaker 3: You know what?
00:16:39
Speaker 2: You make a very, very good point.
00:16:42
Speaker 3: But I do think at least given this This ruling now, I hope that for the Epstein survivors and all of those women who suffered under the hands of Ghislaine Maxwell, they can at least breathe a little sigh of relief that she not only isn't getting out from any sort of judicial standpoint.
00:17:02
Speaker 2: There aren't going to be more hearings. There isn't going to be another trial. There isn't going to be another appeal.
00:17:07
Speaker 3: And hopefully that can give them some small sense of closure, at least when it comes to Ghislaine. And with that, everyone, we always appreciate you listening to us. I'm Amy Robach alongside TJ Holmes.
00:17:19
Speaker 2: We'll talk soon.