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Epstein Records Sent To House Oversight Committee; DOJ Releases Blanche-Maxwell Interview Transcript & Audio. Aired 3-3:30p ET

Aired August 22, 2025 - 15:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

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[15:01:21]

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is CNN Breaking News.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: We begin this hour with major breaking news in the Jeffrey Epstein file saga. CNN has learned that the DOJ has handed the Epstein files over to the House Oversight Committee.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: And in addition, the Justice Department has publicly released a transcript and audio of the interview between Deputy AG Todd Blanche, who of course was formerly President Trump's personal attorney, and Ghislaine Maxwell. We have a team of reporters who are following this.

We begin with Katelyn Polantz. Katelyn, what more are we learning about the release of this audio and this transcript?

KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN SENIOR CRIME AND JUSTICE REPORTER: Well, this is quite an unusual moment for the Justice Department to release something like this. The transcript of the interview between Ghislaine Maxwell, the convicted conspirator of Jeffrey Epstein in this child sex trafficking situation, and to also release audio.

But of course, this is a very unusual situation for a lot of different reasons. We're still going through this transcript, and I can see, just as a top line, that Ghislaine Maxwell speaks about the fact that she had met Donald Trump before and that she knew Jeffrey Epstein and Donald Trump were in contact.

There is nothing more that I'm seeing here as of now related to that. That is a question that we're going to have as we're going through this, if there is anything more said there in the transcript that is substantive. Trump, of course, has not been accused of any crimes, but a lot of questions about his relationship with Epstein have been out there.

The other thing here that we are seeing is what happened with the Justice Department's handling of Ghislaine Maxwell. We see at the very top of this transcript that Todd Blanche, the Deputy Attorney General, so that's pretty much as far up as you get in the Justice Department (INAUDIBLE) herself, he's the one that sits down with Maxwell and outlines there's an immunity agreement, that what she says in this interview cannot be used against her in court unless, of course, she lies in some way. Very unusual to have a proffer such as this, that's what you would call it in legal terms, for someone like Ghislaine Maxwell, whose post-trial, never cooperated. Blanche even says he's not interviewing her as a cooperator at this time, that they were just, quote-unquote, "talking" when he sat down with her a month ago, and that she continues to be appealing her case, could potentially, in the legal world, have another trial out there for her if the appeals were to work in her favor.

But they did do this interview. She did have a limited immunity agreement. She did sit down with the Deputy Attorney General, and the Justice Department now has released both -- four sets. So, four different documents, documenting the transcript of the two days of interviews, as well as many audio recordings capturing Ghislaine Maxwell speaking to the deputy attorney general at the end of July in this interview.

SANCHEZ: And Katelyn, what are we expecting on the Epstein files handed over to House Oversight? We understand that committee members are going to review it, potentially add additional redactions. How soon can we see it?

POLANTZ: Well, that would be the full Epstein files, or the portion of the Epstein files that the Justice Department is willing to release to the House Oversight Committee. So, the Ghislaine Maxwell-Todd Blanche transcript, that's a new filing that the Justice Department itself is putting out there. But we also are learning from our producer, Hannah Rabinowitz, over at the Justice Department, that the Justice Department has sent the records related to Jeffrey Epstein to the House Oversight Committee.

[15:05:06]

We'll have to wait and see exactly what that is and how fulsome of a collection it is. The FBI has thousands of records from its investigation of Epstein. A small portion of them have been released in the public sphere in the Justice Department previously when they tried to say they were releasing records. It was largely the same as what had been out there before about Epstein. So, we will wait to see what that is, what went from the Justice Department to the House Oversight Committee. We expect there to be redactions around there. We're waiting to see exactly how much would be in those documents. But the House Oversight Committee, the Republicans on the Hill, they did want essentially everything. Everything from the Epstein investigation, everything from the Ghislaine Maxwell investigation, and everything surrounding Jeffrey Epstein's death in 2019 at a jail.

KEILAR: Yes. And Kristen Holmes, you're there at the White House. What can you tell us about the conversations there that led to the release of the transcript?

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Brianna and Boris, this has been an ongoing conversation for weeks now. Just to take you back in time, we know the White House was having a lot of problems managing the Epstein story. One, the Department of Justice, they believed, and staffers at the White House, in addition to people across the country, had really botched the rollout of that memo saying that there was essentially nothing within the Epstein files, and they couldn't get away from this story.

So, about three weeks ago, there started to be an internal conversation, it was just after Todd Blanche sat down for this interview with Ghislaine Maxwell, about how they could attempt to be more transparent. And one of the conversations around this was whether or not to release not only the transcript, but the audio as well, which, as Katelyn said, is really unprecedented. I mean, even the fact that they took audio in the first place when we reported that, that was unprecedented. That doesn't happen in every sit-down interview.

So, this conversation had been going on now for weeks, and there was a moment in which they were planning on releasing this information, and then they decided not to. They decided to pause on whether or not they were going to put this out and see where the story went. And the story had started to die down. So, then the thinking began to be, why would we reinsert this into the story?

Now, of course, the story was going to be the news today anyway. We know the Department of Justice was going to give this tranche of information on Epstein over to the House Oversight Committee. There was no way the White House could avoid that.

So clearly, what we're seeing here is them releasing this information in conjunction with handing that information over to the House Oversight Committee, which makes sense if you're looking at it from a perspective of not wanting to reignite the story when it doesn't exist. But now it's out there anyway. They're putting it out there.

And I will tell you one thing. I had been told up until last week that there was still some contention behind the scenes between different officials. Remember, we reported on that big blowup between the FBI Director, the Attorney General, the Deputy Attorney General, Dan Bongino, that caused him to storm out of a meeting at the White House. I was told there was still a little bit of contention behind closed doors as to what they should release and what it would look like.

Now, it appears by giving the Justice Department, by giving this to the House Oversight Committee, they're kind of putting this in their hands, saying, you guys be the ones that release the information. You choose what you're going to release. But there is something to be said here that we heard from the head of the House Oversight Committee, James Comer, earlier, I'm not sure if it was today or yesterday, where he said, you know, we're going to go through it. Hopefully, the White House will work with us.

It should be noted that Comer is a very close ally of President Trump's. He is incredibly close to the White House. So, this idea that they're not going to be in constant touch seems very strange, particularly given what we've seen of their relationship leading up to this point.

KEILAR: All right, Katelyn Polantz and Kristen Holmes, thank you very much for that.

SANCHEZ: Let's discuss with Dave Aronberg, he's a former state attorney in Palm Beach County, also attorney and co-host of the podcast "George Conway Explains It All," George Conway is with us. Thank you both for being with us in person.

Dave, first to you, your reaction to this news that they've released this transcript, the conversation between Blanche and Maxwell.

DAVE ARONBERG, FORMER STATE ATTORNEY, PALM BEACH COUNTY: Not surprised because the whole purpose of that meeting was to help Donald Trump. It was a self-serving interview by the number two person at the DOJ to exonerate Donald Trump. And it's in her interest, Ghislaine Maxwell, to do so because she wants a part. She already got a nice move to the Austin, Texas facility, minimum security prison, which she wasn't eligible for. But she is playing ball and it looks like the administration likes what she had to say because I can't imagine if she said something negative about Trump that they would gladly release it to the public.

I don't know how much information we're going to get from it. She is a liar. She was actually prosecuted by the Trump administration in 2020 for perjury. Then, the charge were dropped. She lied during her deposition in 2016 in a civil suit by Virginia Giuffre, saying that she has never seen Jeffrey Epstein act untoward towards young individuals.

[15:10:09]

I mean, she has never taken responsibility for anything. So, we should take her testimony now with a grain of salt.

KEILAR: Yes. And some of these young women talk about how she actually actively participated in their abuse. We should just be clear about that. She was instrumental in this scheme.

George, how are you seeing this?

GEORGE CONWAY, ATTORNEY: I see it exactly the same way. I don't think they'd be releasing this if they thought it was in some way harmful to Donald Trump. I think she had every reason to downplay any involvement that Donald Trump had in anything she was involved with. And I do think, you know, I think the real question is what's in the documents that they haven't produced? I mean, I also am suspicious for much the same reason that we're not seeing -- going to see all the documents.

I mean, they had FBI agents reviewing these documents for weeks on end. There's a massive trove of these documents. And, you know, one of the things that happens in litigation and investigations is you don't actually know what you're not getting unless you are asking lots of questions in an adversarial fashion. And as we know, this committee is not going to be adversarial to the President of the United States.

SANCHEZ: I wonder, then, what path there might be for victims and for the general public who want more information, who want the truth. Is there a day that we're going to see the rest of those documents?

CONWAY: That's a good question. I think it's going to be whether these documents answer questions that people have or whether they raise more questions. And that's really what we have to go through the documents to see what that is. And I remember back in 2019 when the White House, Donald Trump's White House, his first White House, released the not transcript, but the memo summarizing the call with Zelenskyy. And they thought that was going to exonerate, totally exonerate him, instead it raised more and more questions. I mean, these are not the people -- these are not people with good judgment and they are not people, I wouldn't want them to be my lawyers, I'll tell you that.

KEILAR: Your time in Palm Beach came after this, but there's a lot of criticism for your predecessor and you're very familiar with how this was handled. You know, there's a lot of stones that can still be turned over here. You just heard a lawyer for victims talking to Boris. These victims, they want to be heard. The lawyers, they want to be heard. Alex Acosta hasn't been subpoenaed and certainly I think a lot of people would want to hear from him. What stones do you want to see turned over?

ARONBERG: Yes. Well, thank you for clarifying that this all occurred well before I got ...

KEILAR: That's right.

ARONBERG: ... to that office.

KEILAR: It's important.

ARONBERG: Yes. Alex Acosta could help shed light on the non- prosecution agreement. Why did the feds offer immunity to known and unknown co-conspirators? That's what Ghislaine Maxwell is using now before the U.S. Supreme Court said, I should never have been prosecuted by the Southern District of New York. I was given immunity even though my name wasn't mentioned. It's extraordinary. And also, the victims were not notified.

So, if Comer's committee really wanted to find the truth, they would subpoena Alex Acosta, but they didn't because they only subpoenaed Trump's enemies. As we all said, James Comer is a close ally of Donald Trump and will do his bidding.

SANCHEZ: We just got word from our Hannah Rabinowitz at the Justice Department saying the DOJ did not promise Maxwell anything in exchange for the meeting. That's according to the transcript and the conversation that was released.

I wonder, George, what you make of the way that Trump has handled this, specifically today in the Oval Office during this press availability. He was asked about the release of these files, and he said that there would probably be a lot of names in them that wouldn't deserve to be. He mentioned Bill Clinton by name. He mentioned Larry Summers by name as well.

CONWAY: Yes, I mean, that's the real question is, are -- was the release of this -- were the selection of these documents selective? And that's the question. I mean, are they withholding documents that might refer to him or things that are embarrassing to him and producing documents that refer to other people in order to distract? And I wouldn't put it past them that they would do that.

KEILAR: They didn't promise anything.

CONWAY: Right. All the promises, yes.

KEILAR: They're saying, you know, they didn't promise anything, the transcript says, but they delivered, to your point, right? I mean, she got something out of this. And I wonder if the promise may be not explicit if you think it was implicit in Todd Blanche making this extraordinary visit down to spend two days with Maxwell.

CONWAY: Yes.

ARONBERG: It's not how Donald Trump works. He doesn't do an explicit quid pro quo. You know, both sides talk around each other. Ghislaine Maxwell knows that she's facing years more in prison unless she gets that pardon. And that pardon is still out there. Trump is sort of dangling it, you know, he's being vague about it. He hasn't ruled it out.

Now, keep in mind, this whole file controversy is because the right wing, the MAGA base is -- has been told to believe that there are Democrats, Bill Clinton, Bill Gates, Larry Summers, their names are in there as the leaders of this elitist cabal of sex traffickers. So, if and when portions come out and it shows that's not true, they're going to be very disappointed.

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So, no matter how this fleshes out in the end, they're going to be very disappointed because they've been lied to for years with all these conspiracy theories.

SANCHEZ: I'm curious what you think is going to come out of House Oversight in the way of some kind of formal report or anything that might be of consequence. Both of you seem very skeptical.

ARONBERG: Well, I mean, we've lived through this and why would you think that they're going to put out something that is a full brief about everything that went on? For example, Donald Trump says that his letter, his birthday letter is a hoax. So, if the full file was released, the birthday letter would seemingly be in there, which would just prove the hoax and he'd have to drop the case against the Wall Street Journal.

So, no, I don't believe that you're going to get the full file or the full truth from this. If they really wanted the full truth, they would have subpoenaed Alex Acosta.

KEILAR: The victims know, right? I mean, some of the victims, some of them talk about being essentially loaned out by Epstein to some of his friends and associates. The victims know who those people are alleged to be. You don't just need some black book or the Epstein files to tell you there are a bunch of victims who know this. A number of them are represented by lawyers.

If you feel that not much is going to come out of these things, is there a way for more to come out? CONWAY: Again, I think the principal method is going to be public

pressure and the circumstances -- they're never going to be able to get around the unusual circumstances of what's going on here. The giving of a queen for a day immunity deal to somebody who's not part of an ongoing investigation to do it under these circumstances with the Deputy Attorney General coming to interview and then releasing the interview. And then, lo and behold, oh, no quid pro quo, but all of a sudden, days later, she gets sent to a low security prison camp that no sex offender probably has ever been sent to. Kind of lots of questions here, and I just don't think these documents are going to put them aside.

SANCHEZ: George, Dave, please hang out with us a bit longer. We have plenty of news to discuss. A big day of breaking news here on CNN when we come back more on the release of the Epstein files to Congress.

And another one of our top stories we're following closely, the FBI's search of the home and office of John Bolton, President Trump's former national security advisor, and now an outspoken critic. That is still ahead.

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[15:21:54]

KEILAR: We are following major news in the Jeffrey Epstein saga. The Justice Department has publicly released a transcript and audio of the interview between Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, who of course is also the former personal attorney of President Trump, and Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein's imprisoned accomplice. CNN's Kara Scannell is with us now.

Kara, we know that you're going through the transcripts. We have a team doing that. What more are we learning?

KARA SCANNELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Brianna, we're still going through these transcripts, and, you know, the beginning of this meeting, which took place over two days and lasted for just about nine hours, the Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche explains to Maxwell that this is not a cooperation agreement. It's a proffer, meaning that they won't say what she tells them as a reason to prosecute her, but he said if she lies in any way, it would open up the door for her to potentially face charges.

So, you know, we're still going through this transcript, but from my quick reading of various sections of it, I mean, Blanche is asking Maxwell about a number of famous names, politicians, what she knows about President Trump, what she knows about President Bill Clinton. So, as her lawyer said after that meeting, you know, they did talk about, as he put it, something like a hundred different people. So, we're starting to get a sense of what Maxwell is saying.

Now, on a quick scan of that and President Trump and President Bill Clinton, Maxwell does not say that they did anything wrong. She's just explaining how she knows them. So, no one -- neither of them are being accused of any wrongdoing from Maxwell, and she is just kind of putting into context how she knows them. You know, we are still going through that, but that would be consistent with what Maxwell has said.

I mean, she was charged by the Justice Department with perjury because she had told someone in a civil deposition involving an accuser that she knew nothing about what Jeffrey Epstein was doing with underage girls, about any sexual assault. So that is what she was charged with perjury of. And then, of course, she was indicted and went to trial and was convicted of sex trafficking conspiracy, helping recruit, groom and, at times, sexually abuse young girls with Jeffrey Epstein herself.

So, these questions, though, that we're just starting to get a handle on here as we go through this transcript, though she is not saying that anyone else so far from our reading was complicit in any way. She, though, of course, has always maintained that nothing nefarious or illegal had gone on. So that is not surprising. But we are getting a sense of just how detailed the Deputy Attorney General Blanche was in his questionings of her and what he was asking her specifically.

I've been reading through sections related to President Bill Clinton, you know, how he knew them and Hillary Clinton. And she is talking about that Bill Clinton was her friend that she met through a boyfriend of hers and was not Epstein's friend. So, you know, providing a little bit more context around the relationships here. But we're still going through this. It's still very early stage.

[15:24:59]

And, you know, Bill Clinton has always maintained that he just had traveled on Epstein's planes at -- you know, to go to certain events, sometimes with the Clinton Foundation, and was not accused of wrongdoing and has denied any wrongdoing. And the same for President Donald Trump. He has not been accused of any wrongdoing and has always denied any wrongdoing, although his -- both of their relationships with Epstein, in this case, according to Maxwell, at least the Bill Clinton one emanated from her, but they had gone back to the '90s. Brianna, Boris?

KEILAR: All right, Kara. I will free you up to keep looking.

Let's go to Katelyn Polantz who has also been looking through some of the transcripts. What more are you learning, Katelyn?

POLANTZ: Well, Brianna, the part that I have found in these transcripts from the first day of the interview, the morning of that first day of the interview, is Ghislaine Maxwell speaking to Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche about what she knew of Donald Trump. And what she says is that she never heard of any allegations that Trump acted inappropriately. She never witnessed any inappropriate actions on the part of Donald Trump whenever she was around him in social settings. Quote, "Absolutely never in any context."

A little more of what she says there is Todd Blanche is asking her in this interview many different types of questions: How did Trump know you? How did Trump know Epstein? Where did you see them? Did you see them at the spa? At Mar-a-Lago? And she says that she never saw Donald Trump, who she refers to as the President, in any type of massage setting. She says that he -- she never witnessed Donald Trump in any inappropriate setting in any way. "The President was never inappropriate with anybody," she says. "He was a gentleman in all respects." That's the direct quote.

She does say, though, however, that she didn't recall it was possible that masseuses from Donald Trump's spa at Mar-a-Lago were in touch with Epstein and potentially had even give him -- given him private massages, something that would raise questions of possible abuse there. But that she is putting a lot of distance between the actions of Jeffrey Epstein and herself and Donald Trump, even though she describes a friendship or a social relationship between both her and Trump and Epstein and Trump over many years.

KEILAR: Yes. Virginia Giuffre, the late Virginia Giuffre said she was trafficked from the spa at Mar-a-Lago by Ghislaine Maxwell.

Katelyn, thank you so much. We know that you're going to keep looking through those documents.

And we'll have much more on our breaking news, the DOJ releasing the Epstein files to Congress and new details that we are learning minute by minute. Stay with us. We'll be right back.

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