Justice Department seeks meeting with Ghislaine Maxwell amid Epstein outrage
Facing sustained backlash over their handling of the Jeffrey Epstein investigation, Justice Department officials said Tuesday that they hope to meet with his imprisoned associate Ghislaine Maxwell to discuss anyone else “who has committed crimes against victims.”
The announcement, from Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, is the latest effort by the administration to quell the growing outrage among some sectors of President Donald Trump’s base after the Justice Department concluded this month that investigators had no additional evidence implicating “any additional third parties to allegations of illegal wrongdoing.”
That finding has ignited a furor among conspiracy theorists and Trump’s supporters, who had been primed for years to expect blockbuster revelations implicating powerful accomplices based on vows from the president and his allies to make public the FBI’s files on Epstein.
Epstein was indicted in 2019 on charges of conspiracy and sex trafficking of minors. His jail cell death shortly after, which has been ruled a suicide, and his past connections to powerful people in politics, including Trump, have fueled speculation about whether anyone else could have been involved in Epstein’s crimes.
Maxwell is serving a 20-year sentence at a federal prison in Florida after being convicted in 2021 for her role in Epstein’s crimes. She is appealing her conviction to the Supreme Court - a push the Justice Department, in court filings last week, said it opposes.
“I can confirm that we are in discussions with the government and that Ghislaine will always testify truthfully,” her attorney David Oscar Markus said in a statement. “We are grateful to President Trump for his commitment to uncovering the truth in this case.”
Blanche said in his statement Tuesday that the department stands by its assessment that the original investigation produced no evidence that would warrant prosecution of others.
But he cited Trump’s directive to Attorney General Pam Bondi last week to release more evidence in the case, a move that prompted the Justice Department to petition courts in Manhattan and Florida to release grand jury transcripts surrounding the prosecutions.
Blanche asserted that the Justice Department under previous administrations had never sought to speak with her.
A spokesperson for the U.S. attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York, where the cases against Epstein and Maxwell were filed, did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the veracity of that claim. The cases against both of them were launched by the Justice Department during Trump’s first administration, though Maxwell was convicted during the early months of President Joe Biden’s term.