Jeffrey Epstein co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell refused to answer questions from the House Oversight Committee on Monday, but her attorney said she is “prepared to speak fully and honestly” if President Donald Trump grants her clemency.
“Only she can provide the complete account” of Epstein’s actions, David Oscar Markus said in a statement after Maxwell's brief virtual appearance before the panel in the morning, where she invoked her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.
“Some may not like what they hear, but the truth matters. For example, both President Trump and President Clinton are innocent of any wrongdoing. Ms. Maxwell alone can explain why, and the public is entitled to that explanation,” Markus said, sharing what he said he told the panel.
Markus said he told committee members his client “would very much like to answer your questions,” but she “must remain silent because Ms. Maxwell has a habeas petition currently pending that demonstrates that her conviction rests on a fundamentally unfair trial.”
That would change if she's granted clemency, the statement said. Trump has not publicly ruled out pardoning Maxwell. "I haven’t thought about it for months. Maybe I haven’t thought about it at all," he told reporters on Air Force One in November. "I don’t talk about that. I don’t rule it in or out," he said then.
Committee Chair James Comer, R-Ky., said after the brief deposition that he does not “think she should be granted any type of immunity or clemency.” House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., added later that “it’s unconscionable that she’s pleading the Fifth or trying to make deals.”
Maxwell was convicted in 2021 of federal sex trafficking charges, including conspiracy to entice minors to travel to engage in illegal sex acts, participation in a sex trafficking conspiracy and sex trafficking of a minor. She is serving a 20-year prison sentence.
Epstein, a convicted sex offender, died in a New York jail in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges. Maxwell is the only other person to be charged and convicted in connection with Epstein.
She tried appealing her conviction to the Supreme Court last year, but the high court in October declined to hear her case. She's since launched a separate action challenging her conviction, which is pending.
Under questioning by Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche in July, Maxwell denied the allegations against her and said she'd never seen Epstein or those around him act inappropriately. That included Trump and Bill Clinton, who each spent time with the politically connected financier before he was first hit with criminal charges in 2006.
A senior administration official told NBC News in July that Maxwell was granted limited immunity by the Justice Department to answer questions about the Epstein case. Maxwell's lawyers asked the House Oversight Committee later in July to grant her immunity in order to answer their questions, but they rejected her request.
Both Trump and Clinton have denied any wrongdoing, and neither has ever been accused by law enforcement of any wrongdoing in connection with Epstein.
After the unusual interview with Blanche, Maxwell was transferred from a prison in Florida to a lower, minimum-security prison camp in Texas.
Reacting to Markus’ statement, Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., posted on social media: “Here is my conclusion after sitting through Maxwell’s deposition with her refusing to answer a single question about the men who raped underage girls, saying she would only do so for clemency.
“She must immediately be sent back to the maximum security prison where she belongs.”
Markus responded on X, saying: "A sitting Congressman wants to punish someone for invoking a constitutional right. Sending someone to harsher confinement because they invoke a constitutional right is something we associate with authoritarian regimes, not the United States Congress. Sad."
The brother and sister-in-law of the late Epstein survivor Virginia Roberts Giuffre blasted Maxwell for not answering questions.
“Ghislaine Maxwell, you were not a bystander. You were not ‘misled.’ You were a central, deliberate actor in a system built to find children, isolate them, groom them, and deliver them to abuse,” they wrote in a letter obtained by NBC News. “You used trust as a weapon. You targeted vulnerability and turned it into access. That is not a mistake. That is not poor judgment. That is predation.”
They also urged the panel to look more deeply into Maxwell’s transfer to a lower-security prison as well as her potential inconsistencies in prior sworn testimony.
“We’ll end this letter with Virginia’s last wishes for you: ‘Ghislaine, you deserve to spend the rest of your life in a jail cell. Trapped in a cage forever just like you trapped your victims,’” they wrote.
