Ghislaine Maxwell, the imprisoned former girlfriend of disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, is open to answering questions from Congress — however provided that she is granted immunity from future prosecution for her testimony, her legal professionals mentioned Tuesday.
A spokeswoman for the committee that desires to interview her responded with a terse assertion saying it will not contemplate providing her immunity.
Maxwell’s legal professionals additionally requested that they be supplied with any questions upfront and that any interview together with her be scheduled after her petition to the U.S. Supreme Court docket to take up her case has been resolved.
The circumstances have been specified by a letter despatched by Maxwell’s attorneys to Rep. James Comer, the Republican chair of the Home Oversight Committee who final week issued a subpoena for her deposition on the Florida jail the place she is serving a 20-year-prison sentence on a conviction of conspiring with Epstein to sexually abuse underage women.
The request to interview her is a part of a frenzied, renewed curiosity within the Epstein saga following the Justice Division’s July assertion that it will not be releasing any further information from the investigation, an abrupt announcement that surprised on-line sleuths, conspiracy theorists and components of President Donald Trump’s base who had been hoping to search out proof of a authorities coverup.
Since then, the Trump administration has sought to current itself as selling transparency, with the division urging courts to unseal grand jury transcripts from the sex-trafficking investigation and Deputy Legal professional Basic Todd Blanche interviewing Maxwell over the course of two days at a Florida courthouse final week.
In a letter Tuesday, Maxwell’s attorneys mentioned that although their preliminary intuition was for Maxwell to invoke her Fifth Modification proper towards self-incrimination, they’re open to having her cooperate offered that lawmakers fulfill their request for immunity and different circumstances.
However the Oversight Committee appeared to reject that supply outright.
“The Oversight Committee will reply to Ms. Maxwell’s lawyer quickly, however it won’t contemplate granting congressional immunity for her testimony,” a spokesperson mentioned.
Individually, Maxwell’s attorneys have urged the Supreme Court docket to evaluate her conviction, saying she dd not obtain a good trial. Additionally they say that a method she would testify “overtly and truthfully, in public,” is within the occasion of a pardon by Trump, who has informed reporters that such a transfer is inside his rights however that he has not been not requested to make it.
“She welcomes the chance to share the reality and to dispel the various misconceptions and misstatements which have plagued this case from the start,” he mentioned.
