WASHINGTON (AP) — Ghislaine Maxwell, the imprisoned former girlfriend of disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, is open to answering questions from Congress — but only if she is granted immunity from future prosecution for her testimony, her lawyers said Tuesday.
A spokeswoman for the committee that wants to interview her responded with a terse statement saying it would not consider offering her immunity.
Maxwell’s lawyers also asked that they be provided with any questions in advance and that any interview with her be scheduled after her petition to the U.S. Supreme Court to take up her case has been resolved.
The conditions were laid out in a letter sent by Maxwell’s attorneys to Rep. James Comer, the Republican chair of the House Oversight Committee who last week issued a subpoena for her deposition at the Florida prison where she is serving a 20-year-prison sentence on a conviction of conspiring with Epstein to sexually abuse underage girls.
The request to interview her is part of a frenzied, renewed interest in the Epstein saga following the Justice Department’s July statement that it would not be releasing any additional records from the investigation, an abrupt announcement that stunned online sleuths, conspiracy theorists and elements of President Donald Trump’s base who had been hoping to find proof of a government coverup.
Since then, the Trump administration has sought to present itself as promoting transparency, with the department urging courts to unseal grand jury transcripts from the sex-trafficking investigation and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche interviewing Maxwell over the course of two days at a Florida courthouse last week.
In a letter Tuesday, Maxwell’s attorneys said that though their initial instinct was for Maxwell to invoke her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, they are open to having her cooperate provided that lawmakers satisfy their request for immunity and other conditions.
But the Oversight Committee seemed to reject that offer outright.
“The Oversight Committee will respond to Ms. Maxwell’s attorney soon, but it will not consider granting congressional immunity for her testimony,” a spokesperson said.
Separately, Maxwell’s attorneys have urged the Supreme Court to review her conviction, saying she dd not receive a fair trial. They also say that one way she would testify “openly and honestly, in public,” is in the event of a pardon by Donald Trump, who has told reporters that such a move is within his rights but that he has not been not asked to make it.
“She welcomes the opportunity to share the truth and to dispel the many misconceptions and misstatements that have plagued this case from the beginning,” he said.
