The arrest of notorious paedophile Jeffrey Epstein’s longtime associate Ghislane Maxwell left former president Donald Trump anxious that she might raise his name to investigators or the press, according to a new book by New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman.
In Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America, Haberman writes that the then-president’s mind became occupied by aJuly 2020 story in the New York Post about Maxwell’s arrest on sex trafficking charges. The Independent obtained a copy of Haberman’s book ahead of the 4 October publication date.
The Post report, authored by Page Six gossip column editor Emily Smith, quoted an associate of Epstein (who hanged himself in federal custody in 201) as describing Maxwell as believing herself to be “protected by the intelligence communities she and [Epstein] helped with information ... by Prince Andrew, President Clinton and even by President Trump,” who the Epstein associate described as having been “well-known to be an acquaintance of her and Epstein’s”.
According to Haberman, Trump queried his advisers about the Post story during a meeting in the Oval Office, asking: “You see that article in the Post today that mentioned me?”
After his aides reacted with silence, Mr Trump pressed them further about Maxwell, who was at that moment a prisoner in the custody of the Department of Justice.
“She say anything about me?” he asked.
Maxwell never raised Mr Trump’s name in her defence during her trial in 2021, and in December 2021 was convicted on five counts of sex trafficking.
