Yes, Donald Trump Should Pardon Ghislaine Maxwell
Alan Dershowitz has suggested the President should pardon Ghislaine Maxwell who is currently serving a twenty year sentence for sex trafficking, specifically four counts of sex trafficking and one of sex trafficking a minor. The details are a bit more complicated than that but her Wikipedia page gives an accurate summary.
Maxwell is the only person (so far) to stand trial for what has been portrayed by the media as a complex network of sexual predators and their enablers. The big fish, the man without whom there would have been no trial and no anything, was of course Jeffrey Epstein who died while awaiting trial - either at his own hand or by some as yet unidentified party.
Because of this and because of the extraordinarily lenient treatment he received when his sordid activities came to light, a vast mythology has grown up around Epstein, but what does trafficking really mean?
People trafficking means moving illegal immigrants from A to B. Sex trafficking is concerned primarily with prostitution, and also with child sexual abuse. In the United States, with the exception of certain counties in Nevada, prostitution is a crime for both prostitutes and their patrons.
Street prostitution can be a pest or worse because it can lead to kerb crawling and the harassment of decent young women, including underage girls, but there is no good reason to criminalise voluntary sexual transactions between men and women, or men and men for that matter, sordid and disgusting though such activities may be.
That being said, even adults engaged in this trade can face harsh penalties, but what did Jeffrey Epstein actually do? The only allegations that have been proven against him is that he paid underage girls - the youngest appears to have been fourteen - to give him massages. These massages do not appear to have involved massaging his libido. These girls were well-remunerated for their services, but of course, this is rightly a serious criminal offence. What kind of sentence could he have expected in Britain, and what kind of sentence could Ghislaine Maxwell have expected?
Instead of answering that question, let us look at a far more serious case than Jeffrey Epstein. In September last year, seven members of a grooming gang convicted of offences against two girls (from the ages of eleven and fifteen) were sentenced to a total of 106 years. The girls were said to have been plied with alcohol and cannabis in addition to being raped. The heaviest sentence handed down was to Mohammed Siyab for inter alia two rapes. Ramin Bari who was convicted of four rapes received only a nine year sentence. The difference can be explained by their antecedents; one of these lowlifes was already serving a twenty year sentence, having been convicted in 2019.
The suffering endured by some of the victims of these numerous grooming gangs beggars belief. There is no suggestion that any of Epstein’s young victims were treated like that. They massaged him, were paid, left, and often came back for more without duress. Maxwell recruited girls for him, but being of previous good character, in the UK she would have received a sentence of five years at most.
It should also be pointed out that at least two of her accusers have little credibility. Virginia Giuffre sued Maxwell in 2015 while Sarah Ransome sued her and Epstein in 2017.
Ransome was an adult when she met Epstein; like the then Virginia Roberts she was one of his willing whores. Ransome claimed there were sex tapes of Bill Clinton, Prince Andrew, and, of all people, Richard Branson. She was unable to produce these tapes because they never existed, but the fact that the claim was made is all some people need.
The recently deceased Virginia Giuffre was discussed here in April. That article documents her many lies, the only thing worth repeating is that the authorities thought so little of her testimony that she was not called as a witness at the Ghislaine Maxwell trial, although an excellent case can be made for making her a co-defendant.
Having said all that, Trump is unlikely to pardon her or commute her sentence, even if he has that power. The reason is not far to seek, wagging tongues on-line have linked him to the crimes of Jeffrey Epstein. The simple fact is that Epstein lived in Florida where Trump owns a certain magnificent club, and extremely wealthy people move in the same circles. In 1978, the First Lady of the United States was photographed shaking hands with serial killer John Gacy, who was arrested later the same year. So what? Most of us have probably met notorious criminals at some point in our lives; that doesn’t mean we approve of their crimes or are even aware of them.
Aside from that, the President has far more pressing matters to deal with at the moment, from domestic problems caused by left wing lunatics rioting in the streets to preventing the third world war the neo-cons are seeking to bring about.