The New York Times and MS NOW’s Sam Stein reported that Vice President JD Vance and members of Trump’s Cabinet — including FBI Director Kash Patel, Attorney general Pam Bondi, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche — met in the White House Situation Room where they panicked over releasing the Jeffrey Epstein files and considered telling President Donald Trump to pardon convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell:
There’s one anecdote in there where they talk about whether they should give a pardon for Ghislaine Maxwell, and the response inside the room has nothing to do with the morality, ethics or legality of it. It’s “Oh no, that would create a real PR problem for us if we were to do that.”
(Sources: MS NOW, The New York Times)