Justice Department officials meet with Epstein accomplice Maxwell

Ghislaine Maxwell, long-time assistant to Jeffrey Epstein, is meeting with a senior Justice Department official as pressure from the Trump administration increases release of documents related to the shameful financiers’ sexual trafficking network.

CBS News, a BBC partner, reported that the conference will be held in Tallahassee, Florida, where Maxwell was sentenced to 20 years in prison for sex trafficking.

Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche has said he plans to talk to Maxwell about her message about Epstein who might help other people who sexually abuse girls.

Maxwell’s lawyer told the BBC that she is “looking forward to her meeting” which could help determine whether she will testify before Congress.

The latest developments are due to the transfer of interest back to Ghislaine Maxwell, 63, a sex trafficker convicted of helping Epstein abuse young girls.

Public appeals (including loyal supporters of President Donald Trump) and Justice Department lawmakers have published documents related to the Epstein case.

“If Ghislaine Maxwell has information about anyone committing crimes against victims, the FBI and the Justice Department will hear what she is going to say,” Blanche wrote in an article on X earlier this week.

On Wednesday, the Wall Street Journal reported that Attorney General Pam Bondi told Trump in a May briefing that his name appeared in Justice Department documents related to the Epstein case.

The White House delayed viewing the story as “fake news.”

The naming in the document is not evidence of any criminal activity and has not been charged with wrongdoing in connection with the Epstein case.

During his campaign in the presidency last year, Trump had promised to release such archives about solid sex offenders.

But since then, his supporters are frustrated by the administration’s handling of the issue, including failing to provide rumored “customer lists” of Epstein. In a memo earlier this month, the Justice Department and the FBI said there was no such list.

Epstein died in a New York prison cell in 2019 while awaiting sex trafficking charges, after seeking convictions for prostitution against minors. His death was ruled to be suicide.

Conspiracy theories about the nature of his crimes and death itself have surged in the years since.

A subcommittee in the U.S. House voted to pass the committee chair signed a subpoena from the Justice Department.

Republicans on the House Oversight Committee also called Maxwell to testify from remotely below the prison on August 11.

House Speaker Mike Johnson warned that Maxwell has helped Epstein Groom and sexually abused girls for years – unable to trust to provide accurate testimony.

Her lawyer David Oscar Markus told the BBC that the concerns were “unfounded” if she chose to testify rather than invoke her constitutional right to remain silent, “she would testify truthfully, as she kept saying she would.

Last week, the Justice Department asked a federal judge to release years of grand jury testimony related to the 2006 Florida investigation into Epstein, but a federal judge in the state refused to make the documents public Wednesday.