Trump says he didn't know about Ghislaine Maxwell's prison transfer beforehand

President Trump said Tuesday that he didn’t know about Jeffrey Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell’s recent prison transfer beforehand.

“Were you aware of and did you personally approve the prison transfer for Ghislaine Maxwell that your Justice Department —” Trump was asked by CNN’s Kaitlan Collins.

“I didn't know about it at all, nope. I read about it just like you did,” the president cut in, adding later that the transfer was “not a very uncommon thing.”

Maxwell was quietly moved from a federal prison in Florida to one in Texas, a Bureau of Prisons official told The Hill last week.

“Ghislaine Maxwell is in the custody of the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) at the Federal Prison Camp (FPC) Bryan in Bryan, Texas,” BOP official Benjamin O’Cone said in an email to The Hill.

In recent weeks, the Trump administration has been facing intense backlash over how it has handled information related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The backlash has come from both MAGA faithful and left-wing progressives.

Maxwell, who was convicted of sex trafficking and is currently behind bars for a 20-year prison sentence, has recently been appealing her case to the Supreme Court. 

Victims of Epstein questioned the Trump administration’s motives for looking to unseal grand jury testimony in letters to the court unveiled on Monday.

The victims wrote to U.S. District Judge Richard Berman to speak up for themselves as well as other victims and implied were not being sufficiently considered in the government’s effort to make the papers public.