MSNBC host Lawrence O’Donnell made a bold prediction about when Donald Trump may use his power to free convicted sex offender Ghislaine Maxwell.
The Last Word host O’Donnell referenced Trump saying in 2020 of his former friend Maxwell, “I just wish her well.”
“Donald Trump is, of course, in a position to make his own wish come true,” the host said. “Donald Trump could pardon Ghislaine Maxwell, just completely erase her conviction...or commute her sentence and release her from prison.”
However, the MSNBC host added Monday that Trump may need to be politically strategic and delay Maxwell‘s early exit for a few years.
“That might be something that has to wait until Donald Trump’s last day in office,” O’Donnell said, referring to 2029 when Trump will be 82. “Because it could really hurt Republicans running for re-election next year, who have devoted their political lives to the support of Donald Trump.”
He added, “It could certainly hurt badly in the next presidential campaign.”
O’Donnell then noted that if Trump freed Maxwell “in exchange for her publicly insisting that she and Jeffrey Epstein were never really friends with Donald Trump, and that Donald Trump knew nothing about anything illegal that they ever did, well, the last day of the presidency would be the time for him to do that. And then Donald Trump’s wishing her well will really come true.”
Last Friday, Maxwell, 63, was moved from a prison in Florida where she was serving her 20-year sentence for sex trafficking to a cushy minimum-security federal prison camp in Bryan, Texas.
That required the waiving of a policy designed to punish convicted sex offenders by keeping them held in at least a low-level security prison.
The transfer was greenlit after Trump’s former lawyer and current Deputy Attorney General, Todd Blanche, interviewed Maxwell over two consecutive days last month.
O’Donnell also stated that Trump sending Blanche to talk to Maxwell in jail will “send the message that friends of Donald Trump are above the law and too rich and too powerful to be held accountable.”
He added, “That is the message that sending Ghislaine Maxwell to the easiest federal facility sends to her victims.”
Trump has not publicly revealed his thinking on pardoning Maxwell. He has said “nobody has asked” him to pardon her, but also insisted he has “the right to do it.”
A White House source said the administration will not comment.
