Ghislaine Maxwell, a colleague and ex-girlfriend of the late Jeffrey Epstein, has refused to answer questions before a U.S. House of Representatives committee, but has indicated she may testify in exchange for a pardon.
Maxwell, who was convicted in 2021 for her role in helping Epstein sexually abuse teenage girls, invoked the Fifth Amendment’s privilege against self-incrimination, members of the House Oversight Committee said Monday.
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“This is obviously very disappointing,” Republican Rep. James Comer, the committee’s chairman, told reporters.
“We had a lot of questions we wanted to ask about the crimes she and Epstein committed and questions about potential co-conspirators.”
Maxwell, who is serving a 20-year sentence for sex trafficking at a federal camp in Texas, has been subpoenaed to appear before a committee to discuss her relationship with Epstein, but her lawyers said she would testify only if President Donald Trump grants her clemency.
Video of the closed-door deposition showed Maxwell, sitting at a conference table wearing a prison-issued brown shirt and holding a water bottle, repeatedly saying he was exercising his “Fifth Amendment right to remain silent.”
“If granted clemency by President Trump, Ms. Maxwell is prepared to speak fully and honestly,” Maxwell’s attorney, David Oscar Marcus, said in a statement to the committee.
He added that President Trump and former President Bill Clinton are “not guilty of any wrongdoing,” but that “only Mr. Maxwell can explain why, and the public has a right to that explanation.”
The deposition came after the Justice Department released millions of internal documents related to Epstein. These files show that Mr. Trump and Mr. Clinton spent time with sex offenders in the 1990s and early 2000s, but that they have not been reliably accused of wrongdoing.
Both Mr. Clinton and his wife, former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, are scheduled to appear in depositions later this month.
“I didn’t get anything.”
Al Jazeera’s Alan Fisher, reporting from Washington, D.C., said “people were waiting to hear answers to important questions” during the deposition, but “we didn’t get any.”
“What she said, quite simply, was that she had never seen any evidence that Trump or Clinton engaged in any illegal activity,” Fisher said. “Many think this was a deliberate ploy on her part to say, ‘You’ve bought my silence, but I want leniency.’ Here she’s appealing to both sides: ‘I’m going to get rid of the people you care about most.’
In response to questions about Maxwell’s appeal, the White House on Monday pointed to past statements by the president indicating that the possibility of a pardon was not in mind.
Meanwhile, Democratic Representative Ro Khanna expressed frustration with Maxwell’s refusal to testify, noting that he had previously spoken to Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, who served as Trump’s personal attorney.
“This position appears to be inconsistent with Ms. Maxwell’s prior conduct, as she did not invoke the Fifth Amendment when previously discussing substantially similar subject matter with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche,” Khanna said.
After meeting with Blanche twice last year, Maxwell was transferred to a minimum security prison in Texas. The deputy attorney general cited “numerous threats against her life” but did not provide details.
The move prompted questions from Democratic lawmakers, who asked whether Mr. Maxwell “was receiving special treatment in exchange for political favors,” as Mr. Trump’s own ties to Mr. Epstein come under increasing scrutiny.
President Trump has called the Epstein scandal a “hoax” and denied any wrongdoing, saying he ended their relationship in the early 2000s before Epstein pleaded guilty to prostitution charges in 2008.
Maxwell is the only person to be convicted of Epstein-related crimes, and his connections to powerful people around the world are revealed in Epstein’s files.
The release of the document has sparked a political crisis in several countries, including the UK. In Britain, Prime Minister Keir Starmer is clinging to his job after it was revealed that the former ambassador to the US maintained close ties to Mr Epstein.
But Democratic lawmakers lamented that so far American politicians appear to have escaped unscathed.
“I’m concerned that the overall deterioration and deterioration of American life has somehow conditioned people to not take this issue as seriously as we should be taking it,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Maryland.
unedited file
Separately, several Democratic and Republican lawmakers also visited the Justice Department’s offices in Washington, D.C., on Monday to look through unredacted versions of the Epstein files. As part of the deal with the Justice Department, lawmakers were given access to more than 3 million publicly released files in a viewing room with four computers.
Lawmakers can only make handwritten notes and are not allowed to be accompanied by staff members.
At a news conference after the visit, Khanna and Republican Representative Thomas Massie, who sponsored the forced file release bill, expressed concern that some names had been removed from the records released.
The law allows redactions to protect the identity of victims, but says records cannot be withheld “based on embarrassment, reputational damage, or political considerations, including from government officials, public figures, or foreign dignitaries.”
Massey told reporters he had identified six people who “could have been found guilty by being included in these files” but whose names were redacted.
Khanna said there was “no explanation” why these people’s names were withheld.
The two senators did not name the six people, but Massey said one was “in a significant position” in a foreign government and Khanna said the other was a “prominent person.”
Massey also called on the Justice Department to hold the men accountable, but said he may name them in a speech on the House floor, in which case his actions would be constitutionally protected from lawsuits.
In a subsequent social media post, Massey shared an image of a redacted document about a “co-conspirator” and said the person was a “well-known retired CEO” and that the redactions should be removed.
The Justice Department previously said no new charges were planned in the Epstein case.
Mr. Trump fought for months to prevent the release of vast documents relating to Mr. Epstein, but a revolt within the Republican Party forced him to sign a law requiring the release of all records.
The move reflected intense political pressure to address what many Americans, including Trump supporters, had long suspected was a cover-up to protect the rich and powerful under Epstein’s control.
