The Senate unanimously agreed on Wednesday that socialite and convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell should not be allowed a presidential pardon or clemency.
The resolution was introduced by Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-NV) to prevent the president from granting “a pardon, commutation, or any other form of executive clemency” to Maxwell, the accomplice and occasional girlfriend of dead pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
The resolution is not binding, but signals to the Trump administration that Senate Republicans and Democrats oppose clemency for Maxwell, 64, who is currently serving a 20-year federal prison sentence after being convicted in late 2021 on charges including sex trafficking conspiracy and trafficking of a minor.
Rosen asked for unanimous consent for her resolution during an impassioned speech on the Senate floor on Wednesday — and received no opposition.
“It’s frankly horrifying that Trump would entertain the idea of clemency for even a second for a convicted sex trafficker,” Rosen said in a speech on the Senate floor, according to The Hill.
“If Republicans advance Todd Blanche’s nomination tomorrow in the Judiciary Committee, this is the least they can do to make their opposition to a Maxwell pardon clear,” she said.
A vote to confirm Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche as Trump’s pick to replace former Attorney General Pam Bondi was derailed by two Senate Republicans on Wednesday.
Blanche, who oversaw the rollout of the Epstein files as deputy attorney general, has said he wouldn’t recommend a pardon for Maxwell.
White House officials have repeatedly denied that clemency for the convicted sex trafficker is under consideration.
Trump, however, has previously been coy when questioned by reporters about whether he’s considered granting Maxwell a pardon.
“I haven’t even thought about [it]. I haven’t thought about it for months. Maybe I haven’t thought about it all,” the president said in November. “But I don’t talk about that. I don’t rule it in or out.”
The month before, Trump had said, “I will speak to the DOJ. I wouldn’t consider it or not consider — I don’t know anything about it.”
The Supreme Court rejected Maxwell’s appeal of her sex trafficking conviction this past October.
Maxwell appeared virtually before the House Oversight Committee from the minimum-security Texas prison camp in February — where she was moved shortly after an interview with Blanche last summer.
She invoked her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination during the deposition.
Her defense lawyer, David Oscar Markus, said she was eager to testify that President Trump and former President Bill Clinton were “innocent of any wrongdoing,” despite ties to Epstein in the 1990s and 2000s.
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