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Photo: Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

The world may never know what convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell told President DonaldTrump’s deputy attorney general last week about Jeffrey Epstein’s crimes, but three days later, her lawyer decided it was a good time to let Trump know the ball is now in his court.

“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,” David Markus wrote in a statement released shortly after filing a Supreme Court brief appealing Maxwell’s conviction on Monday. “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.”

The filing and the very personal appeal to Trump came shortly after the president said for the second time in a matter of days that he is “allowed to” grant Maxwell a pardon if he so chooses, even though he hasn’t “thought about” it. It also comes just days after Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche met with Maxwell personally, ostensibly to see if she has any information about other Epstein accomplices who have never been charged. That meeting was not mentioned in Maxwell’s filing with the Supreme Court.

Maxwell, serving 20 years in a federal prison for grooming underage girls to be abused by Epstein, has repeatedly sought to overturn her conviction, and her latest bid centers on a controversial 2007 plea agreement between Epstein and the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Southern District of Florida. That agreement stated that no criminal charges would be brought against the late sex predator’s co-conspirators, and although Maxwell was not named as a suspected co-conspirator in the document, her lawyer maintains that she didn’t need to be explicitly named to be covered by the deal.

Even as Blanche sat down with Maxwell for several hours last week, the Justice Department has come out against her appeal before the Supreme Court, arguing that her conviction should be upheld.

Epstein’s former right-hand woman, who was accused of repeatedly lying under oath during a 2016 deposition, might well have been left to serve out her sentence quietly — if not for the Trump administration’s need to quickly put out a fire it itself started months ago with promises of Epstein-related bombshells that never came. With many of Trump’s own supporters now convinced of a cover-up, and not satisfied with the administration’s promises of “full transparency” at some unspecified time in the future, Maxwell is now seen by some as key to providing potential revelations — or at least as key to creating the appearance of doing so.

Her meeting with Blanche, Trump’s former defense attorney, was touted by the White House as proof the administration wants transparency as questions rage over why the Justice Department found no evidence of an Epstein “client list” after Trump’s own officials had spent months hyping one. But critics have raised concerns that the meeting may ultimately be used to help Trump, whose name was reportedly listed among many others in case documents related to the disgraced financier.

In a letter to Blanche, Senator Richard Durbin on Monday demanded that all recordings and transcripts from the interview with Maxwell be handed over. The top-ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee also called on the Justice Department to commit to not offering Maxwell a pardon or commuted sentence as part of any “corrupt bargain” with Trump.

Pressure’s On for Trump to Make a Call on Ghislaine Maxwell

Pressure’s On for Trump to Make a Call on Ghislaine Maxwell