WASHINGTON – The Trump administration has given no explanation for its transfer of sex offender and Jeffrey Epstein accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell to a minimum-security federal prison camp.
Maxwell’s lawyer confirmed Friday that she had been transferred from a low-security facility in Florida to a minimum-security facility in Bryan, Texas. The federal Bureau of Prisons confirmed the move.
But nobody in the Trump administration has explained why Maxwell was transferred. President Donald Trump himself ignored a question about the transfer on Friday, though he has said he is allowed to pardon Maxwell, and her attorney has said she would be “eager” to provide public testimony in exchange for clemency.
Maxwell’s transfer occurred after Todd Blanche, the Justice Department’s No. 2 official and Trump’s former personal lawyer, interviewed Maxwell for two days in July, prompting widespread speculation that Trump will somehow use Maxwell to get out of a political jam after refusing to release the government’s files on Epstein.
“There is every reason to fear that Donald Trump could offer Ghislaine Maxwell a pardon in exchange for silence or, even worse, phony exoneration,” Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said last month.
In response to a request for an explanation of the transfer sent to the White House, a senior administration official said: “Any false assertion this individual was given preferential treatment is absurd. Prisoners are routinely moved in some instances due to death threats, and significant safety and danger concerns.”
Maxwell was convicted in 2021 of helping Epstein recruit, groom and sexually assault underage girls. Specifically, a jury found her guilty of conspiracy to entice minors to travel to engage in illegal sex acts, conspiracy to transport minors to participate in illegal sex acts, transporting a minor to participate in illegal sex acts, sex trafficking conspiracy, and sex trafficking of a minor. She’s serving a 20-year prison sentence.
Trump was a longtime friend of Maxwell and Epstein. In the 1980s, Trump was an acquaintance and business rival of Maxwell’s father, Robert Maxwell, a British business titan revealed to be a crook and a fraud after his death in 1991. Ghislaine, who worked for her father, befriended Trump in the late 1980s and the two popped up at parties in New York and Florida, often with Epstein, then Maxwell’s supposed boyfriend.
Ghislaine and Trump could be seen chatting it up at a Ford Models event in 1997 in the New York Daily News. That same year, Ghislaine appears as a passenger on Trump’s 727 jet bound for Palm Beach, Florida — where Trump’s Mar-a-Lago and Epstein’s home sat close by each other — in a New Yorker profile of the recently divorced Trump. And British model Anouska De Georgiou, then 20 years old, attended a Manhattan party alongside Ghislaine, “who has introduced several of her attractive friends to” Trump, the Sunday Mirror reported in November 1997.
“After their meeting, Trump flew Madam Maxwell and the model south to the sunshine state, where all three enjoyed a happy weekend together,” according to the Sunday Mirror report. “When they returned to New York, Anouska was installed in one of Donald’s many apartments there.”
But whatever tryst De Georgiou and Trump may have had didn’t last. Instead, she found herself sucked into Epstein’s orbit. She said in court, during a 2019 hearing in Epstein’s federal case after his death, that Epstein raped and sexually abused her for years.
De Georgiou wasn’t the only woman who crossed paths with Trump, Epstein and Maxwell. Virginia Giuffre, who died by suicide in 2025, testified that Maxwell groomed her when she worked as a teenage spa attendant at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago.
Russian beauty pageant contestant Anna Malova found herself with a penthouse suite at Trump Tower in the mid-1990s and a controversial repeat performance as Miss Russia for the Trump-owned Miss Universe contest in 1998. Malova subsequently signed a contract with Jean-Luc Brunel, a modeling agent closely tied to Epstein. Brunel died by suicide in prison in 2022 while facing charges involving minors of rape, trafficking and sexual assault. The next year, Malova appeared in Epstein’s flight records sharing a ride from Little St. James, Epstein’s private Caribbean island, with Epstein, Maxwell and British Prince Andrew in 1999.
When Maxwell was arrested and charged as an accomplice in Epstein’s crimes in 2020, Trump said that he had “met her numerous times over the years,” adding, “I just wish her well, frankly.”
Moving Maxwell to a minimum-security facility appears contrary to Bureau of Prisons policy. In a 2019 memo on inmate security designation and custody classification, the bureau says anyone with a history of sexual assault or sexual contact with a minor should be “housed in at least a Low security level institution.”
The Bureau of Prisons did not respond to a request for comment. Neither did the Justice Department, which oversees the bureau.
The BOP describes minimum-security facilities as “camps,” explaining on its website they “have dormitory housing, a relatively low staff-to-inmate ratio, and limited or no perimeter fencing.” Low-security facilities feature double-fenced perimeters and higher staff-to-inmate ratios.
After her arrest, Maxwell repeatedly petitioned a judge to be let out on bail, claiming in pretrial motions she was mistreated by guards and deprived of sleep. The motions were denied; the government argued her foreign ties and substantial resources made her a flight risk.
Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) said over the weekend that the transfer looked suspicious.
“Sexual predators shouldn’t be afforded preferential treatment,” Reed said. “President Trump needs to come clean about his past personal relationship with Mr. Epstein and Ms. Maxwell.”
S.V. Date contributed reporting.