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Lawmakers tried to interview Ghislaine Maxwell on Monday, but Jeffrey Epstein’s ex-girlfriend and confidant invoked her Fifth Amendment rights to avoid answering self-incriminating questions.
Maxwell was to be questioned during a video call to the federal prison camp in Texas where she is serving a 20-year sentence for sex trafficking. She has come under new scrutiny as lawmakers try to investigate how Epstein, a well-connected financier, was able to sexually abuse minors for years.
Amid a crackdown over Epstein’s abuse that has spread to nations around the world, lawmakers are looking for anyone who was associated with Epstein and may have facilitated his abuse.
Also Monday, lawmakers were able to begin reviewing unredacted versions of the Epstein file released by the Justice Department under a law passed by Congress last year.
Maxwell asked to have her conviction overturned, claiming she was wrongfully convicted. The Supreme Court rejected her appeal last year, but in December asked a federal judge in New York to consider what her lawyers describe as “significant new evidence” that her trial was tainted by unconstitutional violations.
Front burner31:06Epstein’s Orbit: Will Justice Come?
Jeffrey Epstein’s vast connections with the rich and powerful around the world are fully on display in over 3 million files and documents released late last week by the US Department of Justice. There is mounting evidence of Epstein’s ties to the likes of President Trump’s former chief strategist Steve Bannon, former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak and tech titan Peter Thiel, as well as behind-the-scenes deals with global power brokers. Today, we’re getting down to the biggest revelations with Politico’s senior legal reporter Kyle Cheney. We also discuss why so few are held accountable. For Front Burner transcripts, visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts (https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts)
Bipartisan disappointment
Maxwell’s lawyer cited that petition and also told lawmakers that she would be willing to testify that neither President Donald Trump nor former President Bill Clinton were guilty of wrongdoing in their dealings with Epstein, according to Democratic and Republican lawmakers who left the closed-door meeting.
Democrats argued that Maxwell’s claim was an attempt to ask Trump for a presidential pardon.
“It’s clear he’s campaigning for clemency,” said Rep. Melanie Stansbury, D-New Mexico.
The committee’s Republican chairman, Rep. James Comer of Kentucky, said it was “very disappointing” that Maxwell declined to participate in the deposition.
Comer subpoenaed her last year, but her lawyers kept telling the committee she wouldn’t answer questions.
Comer was under pressure to withhold testimony as he pressed the committee to pursue subpoenas against Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. After Comer threatened them with contempt of Congress charges, both agreed to testify later this month.
Comer has sparred with the Clintons over whether the testimony should be held in public, but Comer reiterated Monday that he would insist on giving the testimony behind closed doors and later releasing the transcripts and video.
Maxwell, who was once accused of perjury, was soon transferred to a prison camp in Texas from a maximum-security facility in Florida after she was interviewed last summer by Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche of the Trump administration to extract any new information about Epstein’s crimes.
Despite the seriousness and troubling nature of the charges against Maxwell, on which a jury voted to convict, Trump has not decisively closed the door on the possibility of a pardon or commutation.
“I wouldn’t consider it or I wouldn’t consider it,” Trump said in October.
He calls on Lutnick to resign
Meanwhile, Republican Rep. Thomas Massie on Sunday called on Trump’s Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick to resign for misrepresenting his communications with Epstein. Massie was joined in that regard a day later by Robert Garcia, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee.
“It is now clear that Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick lied about his relationship with Epstein. He said he had no interaction with Epstein after 2005, and now we know they did business together,” Garcia said in a post to X.
Files recently released by the Justice Department show that Lutnick may have visited Epstein’s private island for lunch in 2012 and invited Epstein to a 2015 fundraiser for Hillary Clinton.
That would contradict Lutnick’s claim that he vowed never to “be in the room” with Epstein after a 2005 incident in which the financier showed Lutnick, his Manhattan neighbor, a massage table in his townhouse and made a sexually suggestive comment.
Epstein was convicted of soliciting prostitution from a minor in a plea bargain in Florida in 2008 that received no national media attention at the time but was seen as a lenient sentence with unclear circumstances. Over time, allegations emerged that Epstein trafficked some of his victims. A new federal indictment was filed in 2019, but the 66-year-old died by suicide in his jail cell before he could stand trial.
Massie, speaking on CNN on Sunday, drew a contrast with the situation in Britain, where ties to Epstein have led to negative consequences “for less than what we’ve seen Howard Lutnick lie about.”
In Britain, former Prince Andrew was stripped of numerous royal privileges, while former US ambassador Peter Mandelson resigned for lying about his relationship with Epstein. Prime Minister Keir Starmer saw the departure of two key aides in the circumstances surrounding Mandelson’s appointment.
