Ghislaine Maxwell appeals for clemency from Trump
WASHINGTON—Ghislaine Maxwell, the former girlfriend of Jeffrey Epstein, declined to answer questions from House lawmakers in a deposition on Monday, but indicated that if President Donald Trump ended her prison sentence, she was willing to testify that neither he nor former President Bill Clinton had done anything wrong in their connections with Epstein.
The House oversight committee had wanted Maxwell to answer questions during a video call to the federal prison camp in Texas where she’s serving a 20-year sentence for sex trafficking, but she invoked her Fifth Amendment rights to avoid answering questions that would be self-incriminating. She’s come under new scrutiny as lawmakers try to investigate how Epstein, a well-connected financier, was able to sexually abuse underage girls for years.
Amid a reckoning over Epstein’s abuse that has spilled into the highest levels of businesses and governments around the globe, lawmakers are searching for anyone who was connected to Epstein and may have facilitated his abuse. So far, the revelations have shown how both Trump and Clinton spent time with Epstein in the 1990s and early 2000s, but they have not been credibly accused of wrongdoing.
‘Right to silence’
Dressed in a brown, prison-issued shirt and sitting at a conference table with a bottle of water, Maxwell repeatedly said she was invoking “my Fifth Amendment right to silence,” video later released by the committee showed.
During the closed-door deposition, Maxwell’s attorney David Oscar Markus said in a statement to the committee that “Maxwell is prepared to speak fully and honestly if granted clemency by President Trump.”
He added that both Trump and Clinton “are innocent of any wrongdoing,” but that “Ms. Maxwell alone can explain why, and the public is entitled to that explanation.”
Pushback
Democrats said that was a brazen effort by Maxwell to have Trump end her prison sentence.
“It’s very clear she’s campaigning for clemency,” said Rep. Melanie Stansbury, a New Mexico Democrat.
The president had indicated that the prospect of a pardon was not on his radar.
