Donald Trump continues to mull pardoning child sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell because she too is a rich felon, his biographer says.
Author Michael Wolff told the Daily Beast podcast Inside Trump’s Head in Friday’s episode that while it may be politically hazardous to grant a pardon to the Jeffrey Epstein associate, the president identifies with her.
“He knows it is actually not the politic thing to do. But at the same time, I think he wants to pardon her,” Wolff told host Joanna Coles. “I think he feels something for her, and in addition to owing her something because she delivered on what she had to do.”
Maxwell, in her interview last month with Deputy Attorney General—and former Trump personal attorney —Todd Blanche, did not implicate Trump in any nefarious activity. Days later, she was moved to a minimum-security prison in Texas in what many considered an upgrade.
Wolff explained further why Maxwell’s twenty-year sentence may soon be cut short.
“I think it is politically fraught for [Trump] to do this, but I think he will do this because he wants to do it, because he owes her and because he feels some sympathy for her,” he said.
“He pardons rich criminals,” he went on, with Coles citing the white-collar cases of Ozy Media founder Carlos Watson, reality television hosts Todd and Julie Chrisley, former Las Vegas councilwoman Michele Fiore, healthcare executive Paul Walczak, former congressman Michael Grimm, and former Arkansas state senator Jeremy Hutchinson.
Other pardons by Trump this year went to former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, former Virginia sheriff Scott Jenkins and former Connecticut Gov. John Rowland.
“He has a feeling for these people, and he may identify with them because he’s kind of—not kind of—he is a rich criminal," Wolff noted.
Trump last year was convicted on all 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to help his 2016 campaign.
Wolff added that Trump is also swayed by the more “structural” element of the pardon lobbying industry.
“There could be 100 people in this category,” he suggested. “A lot of these people are making money off of—let’s be perfectly blunt—selling pardons.”
Later in the discussion, Wolff noted that Maxwell and Trump both come from the “same world.”
“So there is this sympathy, there is this, you know, ‘This person who knows this person who does this, and this is where the money moves, and all that.’ That’s Donald Trump’s world,” Wolff said. “And it’s no coincidence that Ghislaine has known Donald Trump for many, many, many years.”
When reached for comment, the White House doubted the credibility of Wolff, the author of four books about Trump.
“Michael Wolff is a lying sack of s--t and has been proven to be a fraud,” White House Communications Director Steven Cheung told the Daily Beast in a statement. “He routinely fabricates stories originating from his sick and warped imagination, only possible because he has a severe and debilitating case of Trump Derangement Syndrome that has rotted his peanut-sized brain.”
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