CNN reporter Kaitlan Collins has been left stunned by Donald Trump after he said that he would consider pardoning Ghislaine Maxwell.

The President was questioned regarding the notorious Jeffrey Epstein associate during his time in the Oval Office, just hours after the Supreme Court dismissed her appeal on Monday.

Trump seemed taken aback by the inquiry despite the recent Supreme Court ruling and the ongoing buzz surrounding the so-called Epstein files.

“It’s been quite a while since I heard that name,” Trump told Collins. “I’d have to look into it… I’ll discuss it with the DOJ.”

The reporter shot back: ‘But she was convicted of child sex trafficking.’ 

He continued, “I’m not sure, I’ll need to investigate. Many people request pardons from me. I nickname him ‘Puff Daddy,’ who also asked for one. I’ll consult with the DOJ. I was unaware of the rejection, and frankly, I didn’t even know she had requested it.”

Maxwell is currently serving a 20-year prison term after being found guilty of procuring girls as young as 14 for her companion Epstein, the late financier and former Trump associate.

The Supreme Court dismissed her appeal on Monday after her attorneys argued that an agreement Epstein had made with federal prosecutors in Florida should have prevented her from facing charges in New York.

Donald Trump speaks to reporters before signing an executive order in the Oval Office at the White House on Monday

CNN reporter Kaitlan Collins was left stunned after the President said that he would consider pardoning Ghislaine Maxwell 

The decision by the high court avoids a highly sensitive political case amid claims that Trump is covering up the ‘Epstein files’ because they would incriminate him.

The Trump administration had urged the court to stay out of the case in July — specifically to avoid releasing any additional files — when the Justice Department moved to unseal grand jury transcripts amid a surge of controversy.

Maxwell was moved from a low-security federal prison in Florida to a minimum-security prison camp in Texas after she was interviewed in July by Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche.

That interview came after intense scrutiny on Attorney General Pam Bondi after she had promised to release the ‘Epstein files.’ Bondi is set to testify before the senate on Tuesday morning.

Maxwell’s lawyers contended that a non-prosecution agreement reached in 2007 by federal prosecutors in Miami and Epstein’s lawyers also protected his ‘potential co-conspirators’ from federal charges anywhere in the country. 

She was tried in Manhattan, and the federal appeals court there ruled that the prosecution was proper. A jury found her guilty of sex trafficking a teenage girl, among other charges. 

Maxwell’s trial featured accounts of the sexual exploitation of girls by four women who described being abused as teens in the 1990s and early 2000s at Epstein’s homes.

Neither Maxwell’s lawyers nor the federal Bureau of Prisons has explained the reason for her transfer, but one of her lawyers, David Oscar Markus, has said she is ‘innocent and never should have been tried, much less convicted.’ Markus also was the lead lawyer on her Supreme Court case.

Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein in a picture she gave him on his 50th birthday

Trump speaks to reporters in the Oval Office Monday

Maxwell was interviewed by Blanche at a Florida courthouse. She was given limited immunity, allowing her to speak freely without fear of prosecution for anything she said except for in the event of a false statement.

She repeatedly denied witnessing any sexually inappropriate interactions involving Trump, according to records released in August meant to distance the president from the disgraced financier.

Epstein was arrested in 2019 on sex trafficking charges and was accused of sexually abusing dozens of teenage girls. A month later he was found dead in a New York jail cell in what investigators described as a suicide, which conspiracy theorists had contested. 

In July this year, the FBI and the Justice Department announced that that Epstein had killed himself, that a ‘client list’ that Attorney General Pam Bondi had intimated was on her desk did not actually exist, and that no additional documents from the high-profile investigation were suitable to be released.

Trump and his then-girlfriend Melania Knauss, Epstein and Maxwell at Mar-a-Lago in 2000

The announcement led to outrage from conspiracy theorists and Trump supporters who had been hoping to see proof of a government cover-up.

That expectation was driven in part by comments from officials, including FBI Director Kash Patel and Deputy Director Dan Bongino, who, before taking their current positions, had repeatedly promoted the idea that damaging details about prominent people were being withheld. 

Patel, for instance, said in at least one podcast interview that Epstein’s ‘black book’ was under the ‘direct control of the director of the FBI.’

But the Justice Department said its review of evidence in the government´s possession determined that no ‘further disclosure would be appropriate or warranted.’

The department noted that much of the material was placed under seal by a court to protect victims and ‘only a fraction’ of it ‘would have been aired publicly had Epstein gone to trial.’

Faced with fury from his base, Trump sought to quickly turn the page, shutting down questioning of Bondi about Epstein at a White House Cabinet meeting and deriding as ‘weaklings’ supporters he said were falling for the ‘Jeffrey Epstein Hoax.’