Jeffrey Epstein’s accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell sent a mystery USB drive to the Justice Department days after Melania Trump sought to distance herself from the pair’s heinous sex crimes.
The disgraced former socialite sent the USB on April 16 in a fresh attempt to quash her criminal conviction and 20-year jail sentence for helping Epstein recruit and abuse women and girls.
While the details of the electronic files are not known, the timing of it—seven days after the first lady delivered a surprise statement about Epstein and Maxwell—raised eyebrows across Washington.
In her April 9 statement, Melania Trump denied any ties to Epstein’s crimes and demanded that “lies” being spread about her must end.
Reading from prepared remarks at the White House, she told reporters that she went to the same parties as Epstein “from time to time, since overlapping in social circles is common.”
However, she never had a relationship with Epstein or Maxwell, the first lady insisted, despite numerous photos with the pair, as well as a gushing email exchange with Maxwell being included in a recent dump of Epstein files.
“Dear G! How are you?” read one email message. “Nice story about JE in NY mag. You look great in the picture.”
The mysterious USB was received this week by Trump prosecutor Jay Clayton, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York.
In a letter to federal judge Paul Engelmayer, Clayton confirms receipt of the package and asks the court to give the government until June 5 to file a response.
He did not outline the details of the material Maxwell sent, but noted that her arguments appear to be “duplicative” and “meritless”.
According to Clayton, Maxwell also cited about 50 exhibits to support her claims, but only 33 were included in the package.
“Yesterday, the Government received a FedEx envelope—marked with a “ship date” of April 16, 2026—that contained a USB drive with the defendant’s amended motion and exhibits,” his letter says.
“Upon an initial review, the amended motion seems to have some overlap with the defendant’s claims in her original motion.
“Although the claims raised appear to be equally meritless, the arguments pressed by the defendant appear to be fact and document intensive and thus the Government is not in a position to assess how much of the new material is truly duplicative.”
Epstein died in a Manhattan jail in 2019 while awaiting trial for his crimes, while Maxwell was subsequently sentenced for being his accomplice, after spending years helping to recruit young girls for Epstein to sexually abuse.
