BREAKING: Every Senate Republican turns against Trump on a Ghislaine Maxwell pardon!
Donald Trump still won’t rule out pardoning Jeffrey Epstein’s convicted accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell. But every single Senate Republican just did.
Democrats forced the issue Wednesday with a resolution declaring that Maxwell – serving 20 years for helping Epstein sexually abuse underage girls – should never receive “a pardon, commutation, or any other form of executive clemency.”
The resolution passed by unanimous consent, with not one Republican objecting.
That means the entire Senate Republican caucus went on record saying Maxwell deserves no mercy from the president.
Trump, meanwhile, has repeatedly left the door open.
Trump has told reporters that “I’m allowed to give her a pardon, but nobody’s approached me with it… Right now it would be inappropriate to talk about it.”
Senate Republicans – including some of Trump’s staunchest allies – are willing to cross the Dear Leader by voting on the nonbinding resolution that Maxwell should stay in prison despite his hedging when the subject comes up.
The president responded to her sentence with “I wish her well,” betraying a soft spot for the convicted child trafficking-abetter.
The issue isn’t hypothetical, though. Maxwell has been openly lobbying for clemency, prompting Democrats to force Republicans to publicly declare where they stand.
“She is campaigning over and over again to get that pardon from President Trump, and this president has not ruled it out,” Rep. Suhas Subramanyam said earlier this year.
The vote also shines a spotlight on acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, Trump’s former personal attorney, who personally interviewed Maxwell for roughly nine hours over two days last year as controversy swirled around the administration’s handling of the Epstein files.
Epstein survivor Dani Bensky later told senators that Blanche spent hours meeting with Maxwell but “did not even spend nine minutes meeting with a survivor.”
The resolution carries no legal force, and the Constitution gives presidents broad authority to grant pardons. Trump could still pardon Maxwell if he chose to do so.
But Wednesday’s vote left him in an increasingly lonely position. Every Senate Republican was willing to go on record saying Ghislaine Maxwell deserves no presidential clemency.
Donald Trump still won’t say the same.