Ghislaine Maxwell: I Will Testify Before Congress But Only If I'm Granted Immunity

I assume she means immunity for anything she tells Congress, not immunity for the crimes she's already been convicted and sentenced for.

But who knows.

Ghislaine Maxwell will plead the Fifth Amendment in response to a congressional subpoena to testify about deceased sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein -- unless several demands are met, according to a Tuesday letter from her attorney obtained by The Post.

Defense lawyer David Oscar Markus told the Republican-led House Oversight Committee that his client's statements under oath "could compromise her constitutional rights, prejudice her legal claims, and potentially taint a future jury pool."

"Accordingly, our initial reaction was that Ms. Maxwell would invoke her Fifth Amendment rights and decline to testify at this time," Markus wrote to Oversight Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.).

"However, after further reflection, we would like to find a way to cooperate with Congress if a fair and safe path forward can be established."

The demands listed in the letter include two items that Markus deemed non-negotiable: a grant of immunity for Maxwell, and testifying outside the Florida federal prison where she's been serving a 20-year sentence since 2022 for conspiring with Epstein to abuse young girls.

Before that, she had spent nearly two years in a Brooklyn detention facility, which her attorney called "one of the worst" prisons in the US.

The committee should also provide copies of its questions in advance, Markus said, "to identify the relevant documentation from millions of pages that could corroborate her responses."

The media is suddenly interested in the Epstein story after years of burying it -- and, in George Stephanopolous's and Katie Couric's cases, actually partying with the pervert billionaire at his New York apartment.

And attacking anyone who discussed the case as a PizzaGate Conspiracy Theorist.

J.D. Vance noted this abrupt shift in position.

Vice President JD Vance was adamant Monday that President Trump "has nothing to hide" with respect to notorious sex predator Jeffrey Epstein, while ripping into the George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations for their handling of the case.

"The president has been very clear. We're not shielding anything," Vance told reporters at an event in Canton, Ohio meant to promote the newly-enacted One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

"The president has directed the attorney general to release all credible information and, frankly, to go and find additional credible information related to the Jeffrey Epstein case," added the Ohio native. "He's been incredibly transparent about that stuff. But some of that stuff takes time."

Vance echoed other top officials in stressing the need to safeguard the names of victims in any additional disclosures about Epstein, who was found dead in his Manhattan jail cell Aug. 10, 2019, while awaiting federal trial on sex trafficking charges.

Before ascending to public office, Vance suggested the government was not being transparent about the late pedophile or his purported network of associates.

Mb<"For 20 years, you had Obama and George W. Bush's Department of Justice go easy on this guy. They didn't fully investigate the case," the 40-year-old charged Monday. "They didn't show any curiosity about the case, and now Donald J. Trump is asking his Department of Justice to show full transparency."

"If you want to criticize the people who aren't showing full transparency, you ought to go after the administrations that went easy on Jeffrey Epstein, the administrations that concealed this case for 20 years, and the administrations that failed to show full transparency."

In 2007, then-Miami US Attorney Alex Acosta cut a deal with Epstein allowing him to plead guilty to Florida state charges of solicitation of prostitution and procuring a minor for prostitution. Under the plea agreement, Epstein was only confined for 13 months, spending much of that period on work release.

Acosta was named Labor Secretary by Trump at the beginning of the president's first term, but resigned in July 2019, days after Epstein's arrest by federal investigators, amid an outcry over the plea deal.

"Donald J. Trump, I'm telling you, he's got nothing to hide," Vance insisted. "His administration has got nothing to hide, and that's why he's been an advocate for full transparency in this case."

In Scotland, Trump also snapped back against the suddenly-QAnon-curious media.

Trump made the point that everyone with a functioning brain has made for years: Given that the US Department of Justice actively framed Trump for being an agent of Vladimir Putin, clearly the DOJ under Biden would have released any derogatory information about Trump contained in the Epstein files.

When a reporter pressed Trump on whether he'd been briefed on his alleged inclusion in the Epstein files, he didn't hold back. He slammed former FBI Director James Comey, Attorney General Merrick Garland, and Joe Biden himself as individuals responsible for running the files. "Those files were run for four years by those people," he emphasized. "If they had anything, I assume they would've released it. Those files were run by these people; they were run by my enemy. If there was anything in there, they would've used them for the election."

Trump made clear that the files were handled by partisan operatives out to get him. "Those files were run by the worst scum on earth. They were run by Comey. They were run by Garland. They were run by Biden, and all of the people that actually ran the government, including the autopen," he said. "If they had anything, I assume they would have released it."

Pointing to the 2024 election as proof, Trump noted, "I was running against somebody that ran the files. If they had something, they would have released it."

...

Trump went on to warn about the potential for manipulated evidence, drawing a parallel to the now-debunked Steele dossier: "They can easily put something in the files that's a phony--like, as an example, Christopher Steele... wrote a... dossier. We call it the fake news dossier. And the whole thing was a fake."

Trump blasted the DOJ and other officials who controlled the Epstein records, calling them "bad, sick people," and questioned why, if damaging material existed, no one used it earlier. "Why didn't they use it when I was killing Joe? And then he gave out because he was 25 points down."

posted by Ace at 04:03 PM

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