Last Friday — and then again this Tuesday — the Justice Department released the Epstein files. The documents were incomplete and heavily redacted, angering the Congress members who’d pushed for the release for months. Among the thousands of documents were the grand jury records from the trial of Ghislaine Maxwell. Maxwell is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence for aiding Jeffrey Epstein’s abuse of hundreds of girls over the course of years.

Barry Levine, the author of The Spider: Inside the Tangled Web of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, traced Maxwell’s path into Epstein’s orbit — from favored daughter of a media tycoon to the accomplice to hundreds of crimes. Levine spoke with Today, Explained host Noel King about Maxwell’s life story and what her relationship with President Donald Trump might mean for her in the coming years. The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

There’s much more in the full podcast, so listen to Today, Explained wherever you get podcasts, including Apple Podcasts, Pandora, and

© Vox