Ghislaine Maxwell, the imprisoned former girlfriend of disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, is open to answering questions from the US 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 US Supreme Court to take up her case has been resolved.
The conditions were laid out in a letter sent by Maxwell’s attorneys to representative James Comer, the Republican chairman 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 US 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 on Tuesday, Maxwell’s lawyers said that though their initial instinct was for Maxwell to invoke her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, they are open to having her co-operate provided that legislators 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 lawyers have urged the Supreme Court to review her conviction, saying she did not receive a fair trial.
They also say that one way she would give evidence “openly and honestly, in public”, is in the event of a pardon by Mr 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.
