A lawyer for Ghislaine Maxwell said his client is still deciding whether she will honor a congressional subpoena demanding her testimony next month before House lawmakers.
“We have to make a decision about whether she will do that or not,” said David Oscar Markus, an attorney for Maxwell, the convicted sex trafficker and co-conspirator of the deceased financier Jeffrey Epstein. “That’s been scheduled for the week of August 11th and we haven’t gotten back to them on whether we’ll do that.”
Markus delivered these remarks after Maxwell completed a two-day interview with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche as part of the Trump administration’s continued inquiry into the charges against Epstein’s circle.
The comments suggest Maxwell is weighing whether to assert privileges to resist the House Oversight and Governmental Reform Committee’s effort to compel her testimony. Importantly, Maxwell is still appealing her conviction on the sex trafficking conspiracy that led to a 20-year jail sentence.
If Maxwell asserts her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, there’s little Congress can do to pierce it, except offer her a rarely used form of immunity. It’s unclear if the Justice Department negotiated any sort of immunity agreement with Maxwell for her testimony this week.
But Markus said Maxwell answered every question posed by Blanche, covering about 100 different people. “She didn’t hold back,” he said.
Markus also said there’s been no discussion with the Trump administration about a possible pardon “just yet, ” adding, “We hope [President Donald Trump] exercises that power in the right and just way.”
The Justice Department has long housed deep doubts about Maxwell’s credibility — a sentiment Speaker Mike Johnson echoed this week.
“Could she be counted on to tell the truth? Is she a credible witness? I mean, this is a person who’s been sentenced to many, many years in prison for terrible, unspeakable, conspiratorial acts and acts against innocent young people,” Johnson told reporters. “I mean, can we trust what she’s going to say? … I don’t know, but we’ll have to see.”
GOP leaders so far have pointed to the Justice Department interviewing Maxwell as a positive step, with more questions lingering over the congressional push to get information from the Epstein associate.
A spokesperson for Oversight Committee Republicans had no comment Friday afternoon.
Hailey Fuchs contributed to this report.