Early one afternoon in April 2016, Ghislaine Maxwell got so angry that she struck a table.
Maxwell, who was facing a defamation lawsuit from the late Jeffrey Epstein accuser Virginia Giuffre Roberts, was being deposed by attorneys and seemed to grow incensed during questioning.
“I am going to put on the record, Ms Maxwell very inappropriately and very harshly pounded our law firm table in an inappropriate manner,” said Roberts’s attorney Sigrid McCawley. “I ask she take a deep breath, and calm down. I know this is a difficult position, but physical assault or threats is not appropriate – so no pounding, no stomping, no, that’s not appropriate.”
“Can we be clear, I didn’t threaten anybody,” retorted the British socialite, who in 2021 was convicted of sex trafficking in relation to Epstein. Maxwell’s attorney, Jeffrey Pagliuca, came to her defense: “Stop, you made your record, there is no dent in the table. I don’t see any chips.”
The heated deposition would ultimately prove damaging for Maxwell. When she was charged in 2020 for inviting unsuspecting teen girls into Epstein’s predatory orbit, she also faced two perjury counts for allegedly providing false information “under oath” during litigation.
Although prosecutors said they would drop these perjury counts if she didn’t get a retrial in her sex-trafficking case, Maxwell’s statements about Epstein – and whether they can be trusted – are once again at the forefront of national news.
Twice this week, Maxwell met with the deputy US attorney general, Todd Blanche, as Donald Trump continues to contend with the political uproar over his justice department’s handling of files related to Epstein, who died in jail six years ago as he awaited trial on sex-trafficking charges. Epstein, whom prosecutors said abused girls as young as 14, had for years counted numerous powerful men among his associates – including Trump and Prince Andrew, whom Roberts accused of sexual misconduct in relation to Epstein and who has denied any wrongdoing.
Trump for weeks has faced political fallout over a justice department memo claiming there was no Epstein client list, and its decision not to release extensive case documents despite Trump’s campaign promise to do so. Meanwhile, Congress – specifically the House’s oversight committee – has also subpoenaed Maxwell to testify.
As the controversy continues to swirl, report after report has shed light on Trump’s friendship with Epstein, which reportedly ended several years before the financier was arrested on prostitution charges in Florida.
But it is Maxwell – again – who finds herself at the center of a political and media firestorm, as Trump seeks to assure his Maga base that he is telling the truth when he says he had little contact with Epstein and was unaware of his crimes.
What exactly Maxwell’s meeting with the Department of Justice, or her testifying to Congress, will uncover remains unclear. It’s also unknown whether Maxwell’s sit-down will do anything to help her: she is serving a 20-year sentence for enabling Epstein’s abuse.
After the second meeting with Blanche on Friday, Maxwell’s lawyer, David Oscar Markus, told reporters: “Ghislaine answered every single question asked of her over the last day and a half. She answered those questions honestly, truthfully, to the best of her ability. She never invoked a privilege. She never refused to answer a question.”
The attorney Alan Dershowitz, who represented Epstein in Florida criminal proceedings where he pleaded guilty to state charges including soliciting a minor for prostitution, said Maxwell was still key to understanding what exactly transpired.
“Maxwell knew Epstein intimately for many, many years. She was his girlfriend, she was his chief assistant,” said Dershowitz, speaking before Maxwell’s meeting with the justice department.
“She would be the one who arranged the travel for people when I had to come down to argue cases for him or appear in front of the state attorney or the US attorney.
“She knows where all the bodies are buried.”
He noted that prosecutors often exchange time in prison for information, including in organized crime cases. “If they really want to get to the bottom of all this, they should make a deal with her – and the deal is an obvious one,” he said, describing it as a “win-win for everybody” if she was freed, granted immunity and testified to Congress.
While Maxwell does have intimate knowledge of Epstein, Dershowitz said this did not mean any meeting or testimony would implicate others. She could, for example, tell Blanche there were other accusers but that she believes them to be liars. Whether her evidence implicates people or appears to clear them, neither might be trustworthy by itself, he said. “Whatever the inculpatory material is has to be checked and has to be verified. You can’t just put out accusations.”
Roberts and Dershowitz sued each other over Epstein-related allegations; in 2022, she dropped her suit, and both agreed not to sue again. Dershowitz has denied all allegations of wrongdoing in relation to Epstein.
There are various ways Maxwell could receive a reprieve. Prosecutors could ask the judge to reduce her sentence for assisting with the prosecution of others, or Trump could commute her sentence or grant a pardon.
“I suspect it’s really just window dressing or distraction to try to avoid having to release any significant Epstein-related documents,” said the defense attorney Jeffrey Lichtman.
“Maxwell had the opportunity to speak with the feds when she was under indictment and apparently chose not to because she claimed she was innocent.
“What is she going to be providing now, at this point?”
Indeed, it remains unclear what Maxwell might tell authorities that could lift the veil on Epstein. Before her trial, her attorneys said so much time had passed that key witnesses had died and key evidence was inaccessible. Prosecutors also said in court that they had not offered Maxwell a plea deal – and that her team did not request one.
Kevin Faga, a veteran defense attorney, said that if Maxwell wound up signing a cooperation agreement, then prosecutors could request a resentencing. While it’s up to the judge, Faga said, “in my experience, judges pay a lot of attention to these types of requests from the government” because they believe there’s a public interest in providing assistance “so that other wrongdoers can be prosecuted and punished”.
In other words, if Maxwell were to simply tell authorities that prosecutors got the case wrong, that would probably not help her.
“Cooperation doesn’t work that way,” Faga said. “That’s not providing substantial assistance to the government.”
There’s also the matter of Maxwell’s problematic deposition – striking that table. “If the government previously charged her with perjury, then it makes her a very questionable witness,” Faga said, “and a witness that the government may deem just too unreliable to accept cooperation from.”
