WASHINGTON

US President Donald Trump said Monday that he would have to speak to the Department of Justice (DOJ) about a pardon for convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell.

"I'll take a look at it. I'll speak to the DOJ. I wouldn't consider it or not consider it...I don't know anything about it, so, but I'll speak to the DOJ," he told reporters in the Oval Office.

Trump said "a lot of people" have asked him for pardons.

His remarks came after the US Supreme Court on Monday rejected Maxwell's bid to dismiss her conviction on charges related to grooming young girls for Jeffrey Epstein, a convicted sex offender who was found dead in his jail cell in New York City in August 2019 while awaiting trial on federal sex trafficking charges.

The top court's denial of what is known as a writ of certiorari leaves in place Maxwell's conviction and her 20-year prison sentence. The Supreme Court's brief one-line order did not specify which judges, if any, dissented.

Maxwell was convicted in 2021 on charges related to procuring girls, some as young as 14 years old, for Epstein. Her attorneys attempted to argue that what is known as a non-prosecution agreement that Epstein struck with prosecutors in Florida in which the US attorney agreed not to prosecute him or co-conspirators should apply to one of the charges on which Maxwell was convicted in New York.

Justice Department attorneys argued that the agreement did not bind federal prosecutors in New York, because the US attorney in New York did not have the power to extend the agreement beyond his jurisdiction.

US Solicitor General John Sauer wrote in a court filing that in order for the pact to extend beyond the state of Florida, permission had to have been sought from superiors, but no evidence of that was found.