The Justice Department on Friday released transcripts of interviews with Jeffrey Epstein’s former girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell, in which she repeatedly denied seeing Donald Trump behave in any sexually inappropriate manner.“I actually never saw the President in any type of massage setting… I never witnessed the President in any inappropriate setting in any way,” Maxwell was noted as saying. The transcripts, from interviews conducted last month by Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, were made public as the Trump administration faced backlash over its earlier refusal to disclose key records in the Epstein case.“In the times that I was with him, he was a gentleman in all respects,” she added.Maxwell recalled first meeting Trump in the 1990s through her father, Robert Maxwell, then the owner of the New York Daily News. She said she had visited Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida multiple times but had not seen him since the mid-2000s. Asked whether she had ever heard Epstein or others suggest inappropriate behavior by Trump, she replied, “Absolutely never, in any context.”Maxwell’s conviction and prison transferMaxwell is currently serving a 20-year sentence for her 2021 conviction for helping Epstein recruit and groom underage girls. Her trial featured testimony from four women who said they were abused as teenagers in the 1990s and early 2000s.Following her interview with Blanche, Maxwell was moved from a low-security prison in Florida to a minimum-security camp in Texas. The Bureau of Prisons has not explained the reason, but one of her attorneys, David Oscar Marcus, claimed on social media that she was “innocent and never should have been tried, much less convicted.”Epstein’s circle included high-profile figures such as Prince Andrew, former President Bill Clinton, and Trump, who has said he ended his friendship with Epstein years before the financier came under investigation.Story continues below this adAlso Read: | The life of Ghislaine Maxwell: ‘Troubled’ childhood to Epstein aide to trafficking convictMaxwell told Blanche that Clinton was originally her friend, not Epstein’s, and insisted she never saw him receive a massage. The only times she and Clinton were together, she said, were during the multiple trips they took on Epstein’s private plane. “And he didn’t [receive a massage], because I was there,” she added.She also defended Prince Andrew, dismissing Virginia Giuffre’s allegations against him as “rubbish.”Attempts to manage falloutThe release comes as the Trump administration struggles to manage fallout from the Epstein case. Earlier, Attorney General Pam Bondi and other officials had fueled expectations of damaging revelations, including talk of an Epstein “client list.” But the Justice Department later said such a list did not exist and determined that most sealed records could not be released to protect victims.The announcement frustrated Trump supporters and conspiracy theorists who had expected proof of a government cover-up. In response to mounting anger, the Justice Department began sending records to the House Oversight Committee, which has pledged to release them publicly after removing victims’ information.Story continues below this adEpstein was arrested in 2019 on federal sex-trafficking charges and accused of abusing dozens of teenage girls. A month later, he was found dead in a New York jail cell, in what investigators ruled a suicide.(With inputs from AP)