Ghislaine Maxwell urges supreme court to overturn her conviction
Ghislaine Maxwell, the convicted sex trafficker and close confidante of Jeffrey Epstein, has urged the supreme court to take up her pending appeal and overturn her conviction, claiming that she was covered by an agreement Epstein made with federal authorities that shielded her from prosecution, Axios is reporting.
“This case is about what the government promised, not what Epstein did,” Maxwell’s attorneys told the justices in a new brief.
Maxwell has serving a 20-year in federal prison since 2022 for carrying out a years-long scheme with Epstein to groom and sexually abuse teenage girls.
She has recently had meetings with deputy attorney general Todd Blanche for interviews amid a political firestorm over the Trump administration’s mishandling of the Epstein case.
Those talks were not mentioned in the latest supreme court filing.
“President Trump built his legacy in part on the power of a deal – and surely he would agree that when the United States gives its word, it must stand by it,” Maxwell’s attorney, David Oscar Markus, said in a statement. “We are appealing not only to the supreme court but to the president himself to recognize how profoundly unjust it is to scapegoat Ghislaine Maxwell for Epstein’s crimes, especially when the government promised she would not be prosecuted.”
Asked earlier today if he would consider giving Maxwell a pardon, Donald Trump said:
Nobody’s approached me with it. Nobody’s asked me about it. It’s in the news about that, that aspect of it, but right now, it would be inappropriate to talk about it.
He has previously not ruled it out, asserting that he has the power and authority to issue one.
Key events
Trump administration reportedly blocks Taiwan’s president from travel to US, after Chinese request
As US and Chinese trade negotiators meet in Stockholm on Monday, the Financial Times reports that the Trump administration “has denied permission for Taiwan’s President Lai Ching-te to stop in New York en route to Central America, after China raised objections with Washington about the visit.”
Lai had planned to transit the US in August en route to Paraguay, Guatemala and Belize, the newspaper reports, until “the US told Lai he could not visit New York on the way, according to three people familiar with the decision.”
US treasury secretary Scott Bessent and Chinese vice premier He Lifeng met in Stockholm on Monday for more than five hours of talks and are expected to meet again on Tuesday to defuse the trade war between the world’s two biggest economies
Taiwan’s supporters in Washington are concerned that Trump might be willing to use Taiwan as a bargaining chip in trade talks and to pave the way for a summit with China’s president, Xi Jinping.
China, which considers Taiwan part of its nation, has called Lai a “separatist” and “parasite”.
China staged large military exercises surrounding the island after then US House speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taipei in 2022.
European officials say trade deal with US is a bad one
There was widespread discontent across Europe on Monday at the terms of the framework agreement on trade between the European Union and the United States, announced on Sunday by Donald Trump and Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission.
The prime minister of France, François Bayrou, called the agreement for 15% tariffs on European goods imported to the US, “a dark day” for Europe, arguing that the “alliance of free peoples, united to affirm their values and defend their interests”, had opted for “submission”.
Even those who welcomed the deal, like the German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, who said that it avoided “needless escalation in transatlantic trade relations”, suggested it was a bad deal. Merz said on Monday that while “more simply wasn’t achievable” in the talks, the tariffs would do “significant” damage to the German economy.
Rasmus Jarlov, a conservative member of Denmark’s parliament, and a former minister of business, was scathing. “An illiterate bully and a weak European negotiator walk in to a negotiation room and agree on humiliating Europe and harming its industries with openly unfair trading terms” the Dane wrote on social media. “Only way to make sense of it is that our “ally” has threatened us on security. Must liberate ourselves.”
“The EU played a bad hand about as well as it could have,” Stephen Olson, a former US trade negotiator now with the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute told Bloomberg News. “The EU sees value in healthy, robust and open North Atlantic trade relations; President Trump does not. That simple dynamic put the EU behind the eight ball throughout the negotiations.”
The day so far
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In a rare break with Benjamin Netanyahu, Donald Trump told Israel to allow “every ounce of food” into Gaza as he acknowledged for the first time that there is “real starvation” in the devastated Palestinian territory. During a visit to Scotland, the US president contradicted the Israeli prime minister, who claimed it was a “bold-faced lie” to say Israel was causing starvation in Gaza. Trump is under growing pressure to intervene in the humanitarian crisis, with dozens of Palestinian people having died of hunger in recent weeks in a crisis attributed by the UN and other humanitarian organisations to Israel’s blockade of almost all aid into the territory. The US president told reporters that Israel bore “a lot of responsibility” for the crisis”. Here is our report.
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Trump also criticised Hamas for not releasing the remaining hostages and said they were “very difficult to deal with”, while suggesting he had asked the Israeli government to change its approach. “I told Israel, I told Bibi, that you have to now maybe do it a different way,” he said.
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Trump also announced that he would cut his deadline for Vladimir Putin to move on Ukraine from 50 days to “10 or 12” saying: “There’s no reason in waiting. It’s 50 days. I want to be generous, but we just don’t see any progress being made.” His final decision on the exact deadline is expected to be made “tonight or tomorrow,” the US president said. Trump went further, adding that he was “not so interested” in talking to the Russian president any more, after being disappointed by the outcome of their previous talks. Our report is here.
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Away from foreign affairs, Trump couldn’t escape questions about Jeffrey Epstein, even from across the pond. Asked about his denials that his name appears in the Epstein files and whether the attorney general would have to tell him if it did, Trump claimed (unbelievably) that he hadn’t been “overly interested” in the whole affair and, as usual, blamed the Democrats.
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Asked if he would consider giving Ghislaine Maxwell, the convicted sex trafficker and Epstein’s close confidante, a pardon, Trump said: “Nobody’s approached me with it. Nobody’s asked me about it. It’s in the news about that, that aspect of it, but right now, it would be inappropriate to talk about it.”
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He also told reporters that he “never had the privilege” of visiting Epstein’s island, saying he turned down an invitation from the convicted sex offender in what the president called a moment of good judgment. “I never had the privilege of going to his island, and I did turn it down,” Trump told reporters in Scotland. “In one of my very good moments, I turned it down.”
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He also revealed the reason for his falling out with Epstein, telling reporters in Scotland: “For years I wouldn’t talk to Jeffrey Epstein. He did something that was inappropriate. He hired help and I said ‘Don’t ever do that again.’ He stole people that worked for me and I said ‘Don’t ever do that again.’ And he did it again and I threw him out of the place … and that was it. I’m glad I did.”
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Trump also today asked a US court to order a swift deposition for billionaire Rupert Murdoch in the president’s defamation lawsuit against the Wall Street Journal over its 17 July article asserting that Trump’s name was on a 2003 birthday greeting for Epstein. Trump’s lawsuit called the alleged birthday greeting “fake” and said the Journal published its article to harm the president’s reputation. In a court filing, Trump’s lawyers said Trump told Murdoch before the WSJ’s article was published that the birthday letter to Epstein referenced in the story was fake, and Murdoch told Trump he would “take care of it”. “Murdoch’s direct involvement further underscores Defendants’ actual malice,” Trump’s lawyers wrote, referring to the legal standard Trump must clear to prevail in his lawsuit. His lawyers asked US district judge Darrin Gayles in Miami to compel Murdoch, 94, to testify within 15 days. Gayles ordered Murdoch to respond by 4 August.
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Ghislaine Maxwell urged the supreme court to take up her pending appeal and overturn her conviction, claiming that she was covered by an agreement Epstein made with federal authorities that shielded her from prosecution. “This case is about what the government promised, not what Epstein did,” Maxwell’s attorneys told the justices in a new brief. Maxwell has serving a 20-year in federal prison since 2022 for carrying out a years-long scheme with Epstein to groom and sexually abuse teenage girls. She has recently had meetings with deputy attorney general Todd Blanche for interviews amid a political firestorm over the Trump administration’s mishandling of the Epstein case. Those talks were not mentioned in the latest supreme court filing.
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Speaking of those meetings, the top Democrat on the Senate judiciary committee, Dick Durbin, and senator Sheldon Whitehouse today called for the release of the transcripts and recordings of the Department of Justice’s meetings last week with Maxwell.
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And in another headache for the Department of Justice, it is facing a federal lawsuit for refusing to release a legal memorandum that reportedly cleared the way for Trump’s acceptance of a $400m luxury jet from Qatar’s government. The Freedom of the Press Foundation, represented by the watchdog group American Oversight, filed the Freedom of Information Act (Foia) lawsuit in Washington DC’s federal district court after the justice department failed to produce the document despite granting expedited processing more than two months ago. The president’s “deal to take a $400m luxury jet from a foreign government deserves full public scrutiny – not a stiff-arm from the Department of Justice”, American Oversight’s executive director, Chioma Chukwu, said in a press release. “This is precisely the kind of corrupt arrangement that public records laws are designed to expose.” Here’s our story.
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Elsewhere, a federal judge blocked the Trump administration’s efforts to defund Planned Parenthood and ordered that it keep getting Medicaid funds. The judge ruled that Planned Parenthood clinics nationwide must continue to be reimbursed for Medicaid funding as the nation’s largest abortion provider fights Trump’s administration over efforts to defund the organization in his signature tax legislation.
Trump asks for swift deposition of Murdoch in Epstein defamation case
Earlier today, Donald Trump asked a US court to order a swift deposition for billionaire Rupert Murdoch in the president’s defamation lawsuit against the Wall Street Journal over its 17 July article asserting that Trump’s name was on a 2003 birthday greeting for the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Trump promptly sued the Journal, its owners, including Murdoch, and the reporters who wrote the story, on 18 July over the story, which said Trump’s letter included a sexually suggestive drawing and a reference to secrets they shared.
Trump’s lawsuit called the alleged birthday greeting “fake” and said the Journal published its article to harm the president’s reputation. In a court filing on Monday, Trump’s lawyers said Trump told Murdoch before the article was published that the letter referenced in the story was fake, and Murdoch told Trump he would “take care of it”.
“Murdoch’s direct involvement further underscores Defendants’ actual malice,” Trump’s lawyers wrote, referring to the legal standard Trump must clear to prevail in his lawsuit.
His lawyers asked US district judge Darrin Gayles in Miami to compel Murdoch, 94, to testify within 15 days. Gayles ordered Murdoch to respond by 4 August.
Dow Jones, the Journal’s publisher, declined to comment. Dow Jones has said the Journal stood by its reporting and would vigorously defend against the lawsuit. Neither Dow Jones owner News Corp nor a spokesperson for Murdoch immediately responded to requests for comment.
The article was published amid growing criticism from Trump’s conservative supporters and congressional Democrats over the administration’s decision not to release additional documents from the justice department’s investigation into Epstein.
Trump and Epstein were friends for years before what Trump has called a falling out.
Legal experts say the president faces a high bar in proving the Journal defamed him, let alone collecting the $10bn in damages he is seeking. The “actual malice” standard means Trump must prove not only that the article was false, but also that the Journal knew or should have known it was false.
Trump says he turned down invitation to visit Epstein’s island
Donald Trump has said he “never had the privilege” of visiting Jeffrey Epstein’s island, saying he turned down an invitation from the convicted sex offender in what the president called a moment of good judgment.
Trump’s remarks were his latest effort to distance himself from the political furore over his administration’s mishandling of files related to Epstein’s case and renewed questions over his past relationship with the disgraced financier, who died by suicide in a New York jail in 2019.
“I never had the privilege of going to his island, and I did turn it down,” Trump told reporters in Scotland. “In one of my very good moments, I turned it down.”
Epstein owned a private island in the US Virgin Islands where he entertained prominent people from politics, business and entertainment. Prosecutors have alleged he used the compound to conceal the sex trafficking and abuse of underage victims.
Trump, who socialized with Epstein in the 1990s and early 2000s, also offered new insight into why their relationship ended. The president said he cut ties after Epstein attempted to recruit staff who worked for Trump.
“He hired help. And I said: ‘Don’t ever do that again.’ He stole people that work for me,” Trump said. “He did it again. And I threw him out of the place persona non grata.”
Last week, White House communications director Steven Cheung said Trump had cut ties with Epstein because he regarded him as a “creep”.
The White House has been under growing pressure from Trump’s supporters and political opponents to release more information about the justice department’s investigation into Epstein.
After attorney general Pam Bondi earlier this year promised to release additional materials related to possible Epstein clients and the circumstances surrounding his death, the justice department reversed course this month and issued a memo concluding there was no basis to continue investigating and no evidence of a client list.
Those findings sparked an angry outcry from some of Trump’s supporters who have long believed the government was covering up Epstein’s ties to the rich and powerful – theories which Trump and his allies have long fuelled.
Trump’s efforts to deflect attention from the case have so far faltered. On Monday, the president again called the story “a hoax”.
“It’s a hoax that’s been built up way beyond proportion,” Trump claimed once again.
Trump flew with Epstein aboard his plane at least six times, according to logs for flights spanning from 1991 through 2005. None of those trips were to Epstein’s private island.
Trump has denied ever being on the plane and has not been accused of any wrongdoing.
Democrats call for DoJ to release recordings of Ghislaine Maxwell meetings
The top Democrat on the Senate judiciary committee, Dick Durbin, and senator Sheldon Whitehouse have called for the release of the transcripts and recordings of the Department of Justice’s meetings last week with Ghislaine Maxwell.
The Trump administration is trying to look like it’s doing something amid unrelenting bipartisan uproar over its mishandling of the Jeffrey Epstein case, while Maxwell, Epstein’s co-conspirator who is serving a 20-year sentence for sex trafficking and other crimes, is seeking to have her conviction overturned.
In a letter to deputy attorney general Todd Blanche, who met with Maxwell on 24 and 25 July, the senators said:
It seems likely this meeting is another tactic to distract from DOJ’s failure to fulfill Attorney General [Pam] Bondi’s commitment that the American people would see ‘the full Epstein files,’ especially in light of credible reports that FBI officials were told to ‘flag’ any Epstein files in which President Trump was mentioned and that Attorney General Bondi told the President that his name appeared in the files …
Given her documented record of lying and her desire to secure early release, there are serious concerns that Ms. Maxwell may provide false information or selectively withhold information, in return for a pardon or sentence commutation; indeed, President Trump noted to reporters on Friday that he is ‘allowed to’ pardon Ms. Maxwell, and Ms. Maxwell’s defense attorney said, ‘We hope he exercises that power.’ Your false claim that the meeting is the ‘first time’ DOJ has reached out to Ms. Maxwell also raises questions about the Trump Administration’s motives.
The Senators further pushed for the justice department to provide full transparency to Epstein and Maxwell’s victims and survivors with respect to any decisions it makes regarding Maxwell’s appeal to the supreme court; and demanded that the justice department would not offer a pardon or commutation of sentence to her in exchange for information or advocate for a pardon or commutation of sentence on her behalf to the White House in exchange for her cooperation.
The letter goes on:
Rather than engaging in this elaborate ruse, DOJ should simply release the Epstein files, as Attorney General Bondi promised to do.
On Monday afternoon, about 100 protesters gathered in Balmedie, the closest village to Trump’s Aberdeenshire golf course, waving Palestinian flags and chanting:
You are not welcome here.
Kay Collin, a retired modern studies teacher, said she had made the trip from Edinburgh because “watching what is happening in Gaza, if it was happening to my grandchildren I would hope other people would stand up for them”.
While many people cited the starvation crisis in Gaza as the most urgent reason for their protest, Trump’s policies on immigration, transgender rights and cuts to international aid, and there were placards and chants accusing him of misogyny and bullying behaviour.
Jenna Harpin, a mother of four from Portsoy, said she was “disgusted” at how much money was being spent by the Scottish and UK governments on hosting Trump’s visit, especially as a time when local councils were making cuts to vital services.
The protesters marched through the village as the police presence swelled in anticipation of Trump’s arrival. Local access had been significantly restricted with lines of police officers blocking off the beach and snipers spotted on the dunes.
Ghislaine Maxwell urges supreme court to overturn her conviction
Ghislaine Maxwell, the convicted sex trafficker and close confidante of Jeffrey Epstein, has urged the supreme court to take up her pending appeal and overturn her conviction, claiming that she was covered by an agreement Epstein made with federal authorities that shielded her from prosecution, Axios is reporting.
“This case is about what the government promised, not what Epstein did,” Maxwell’s attorneys told the justices in a new brief.
Maxwell has serving a 20-year in federal prison since 2022 for carrying out a years-long scheme with Epstein to groom and sexually abuse teenage girls.
She has recently had meetings with deputy attorney general Todd Blanche for interviews amid a political firestorm over the Trump administration’s mishandling of the Epstein case.
Those talks were not mentioned in the latest supreme court filing.
“President Trump built his legacy in part on the power of a deal – and surely he would agree that when the United States gives its word, it must stand by it,” Maxwell’s attorney, David Oscar Markus, said in a statement. “We are appealing not only to the supreme court but to the president himself to recognize how profoundly unjust it is to scapegoat Ghislaine Maxwell for Epstein’s crimes, especially when the government promised she would not be prosecuted.”
Asked earlier today if he would consider giving Maxwell a pardon, Donald Trump said:
Nobody’s approached me with it. Nobody’s asked me about it. It’s in the news about that, that aspect of it, but right now, it would be inappropriate to talk about it.
He has previously not ruled it out, asserting that he has the power and authority to issue one.
Trump acknowledges ‘real starvation’ in Gaza and tells Israel to let in ‘every ounce of food’
Eleni Courea
Donald Trump told Israel to allow “every ounce of food” into Gaza as he acknowledged for the first time that there is “real starvation” in the region.
During a visit to Scotland, the US president contradicted Benjamin Netanyahu after the Israeli prime minister claimed it was a “bold-faced lie” to say Israel was causing hunger in Gaza.
Trump is under growing pressure to intervene in the humanitarian crisis, with dozens of Palestinian people having died of hunger in recent weeks in a crisis attributed by the UN and other humanitarian organisations to Israel’s blockade of almost all aid into the territory.
Starmer privately pressed Trump on Gaza during the trip, government sources said.
The US president told reporters that Israel bore “a lot of responsibility” for the crisis in a rebuke to Netanyahu, who claimed earlier on Monday that there was “no starvation in Gaza”.
Asked whether he agreed with this assessment, Trump said:
I don’t know. Based on television, I would say not particularly, because those children look very hungry.
He later added:
We can save a lot of people, I mean some of those kids, that’s real starvation, I see it and you can’t fake that. So we’re going to be even more involved.
Asked what he would ask Netanyahu for next time they spoke, Trump said:
We’re giving money and we’re giving food, but we’re over here … I want him to make sure they get the food. I want to make sure they get the food, every ounce of food.
Trump criticised Hamas for not releasing the remaining hostages and said they were “very difficult to deal with”, while suggesting he had asked the Israeli government to change its approach. “I told Israel, I told Bibi, that you have to now maybe do it a different way,” he said.
Israel announced over the weekend that it would suspend fighting in three areas of Gaza for 10 hours a day and open secure routes for aid delivery, while the UK confirmed it was working with Jordan to carry out airdrops into the territory.
Starmer is due to convene an emergency cabinet meeting on the humanitarian crisis in Gaza this week. Ministers will be presented with a peace plan which the UK is working up alongside France and Germany.
The prime minister is under pressure from senior cabinet ministers and more than 220 MPs to immediately recognise Palestine as a state, after Emmanuel Macron announced that France would do so at the UN general assembly in September. Trump dismissed the idea on Monday but suggested he had no objection to the UK or other allies doing so.
Trump also said the US and its allies would set up “walk-in” food centres without barriers in the region, though he gave little detail about how these would operate.
DoJ sued for withholding legal memo on Trump administration’s $400m jet gifted by Qatar
The Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) has filed a Freedom of Information Act (Foia) lawsuit against the Department of Justice failing to release a legal memorandum that reportedly justified the Trump administration’s acceptance of a $400m jet gifted by the Qatar government.
CBS News reported today that preparations were under way to refit the jet to be used as Air Force One, with floor plans or schematics having been seen by senior US officials. The renovation is set to cost hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars.
The Trump administration’s decision to accept the jet as a gift from the Qatari royal family has been heavily criticised, and raises serious legal, ethical and constitutional concerns.
The May 2025 memorandum, reportedly signed by attorney general Pam Bondi, who previously lobbied on behalf of the Qatari government, purportedly concluded that the Trump administration’s acceptance of the jet was legally permissible. The administration accepted the jet just days later.
The circumstances surrounding the jet deal, including reports that the transaction may have been initiated by the Trump administration and that it followed a lucrative Trump private business arrangement in Qatar, have only heightened calls for transparency.
“President Trump’s deal to take a $400m luxury jet from a foreign government deserves full public scrutiny – not a stiff-arm from the Department of Justice,” said Chioma Chukwu, executive director of American Oversight, which is representing FPF in its litigation.
This is precisely the kind of corrupt arrangement that public records laws are designed to expose. The DoJ cannot sit on its hands and expect the American people to wait years for the truth while serious questions about corruption, self-dealing, and foreign influence go unanswered.
