Ghislaine Maxwell will plead the Fifth if called to testify before the House Oversight Committee, which is conducting an investigation on Jeffrey Epstein, according to a lawmaker.
Rep. James Comer, the Kentucky Republican who chairs the committee, told Politico that Maxwell — Epstein’s longtime associate who is currently in prison on sex trafficking charges — refuses to provide new information.
“Her lawyers have replied that she’s not going to answer any questions,” Comer said.
“She’s only going to plead the Fifth,” he added. “I mean, I could spend a bunch of taxpayer dollars to send staff and members down there, and if she’s going to plead the Fifth, I don’t know that that’s a good investment.”
Comer subpoenaed Maxwell in July, compelling the former socialite to testify before Congress, which is looking at the handling of the case involving convicted pedophile Epstein. At the time, her attorneys indicated she would provide answers as long as certain conditions were met. Her requests included that she be given immunity from future criminal proceedings and be provided with the committee’s questions before her interview.
The congressman’s comments come two days after President Donald Trump signed the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which compels the Department of Justice to release its files on Epstein. Earlier in November, the House Oversight Committee published a trove of 20,000 documents from Epstein’s private estate, including emails in which Epstein wrote that Trump “knew about the girls” and “spent hours” with a victim. Trump has maintained he did nothing wrong and that the controversy surrounding the disgraced financier is a “hoax” perpetuated by Democrats.
An attorney for Maxwell did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Independent.
Maxwell, the daughter of a British media magnate, dated Epstein during the 1990s and went on to become one of his closest associates.
In 2020, she was arrested for her role in recruiting underage girls for Epstein. The following year, she was convicted on federal charges of sex trafficking of a minor, transportation of a minor with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity, and three counts of conspiracy to commit felonies. She was sentenced to 20 years in prison.
Maxwell, who maintains her innocence, began serving out her sentence at a prison in Tallahassee, Florida, in 2022.
During a lengthy interview in July, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche questioned her extensively about Epstein’s network. During the sit-down, Maxwell said she never saw Trump behave inappropriately. The interview came after the Trump team said no more information would be released in the Epstein case and sparked MAGA fury.
That eventually led to Blanche meeting with her to see if she could provide new information on the case or possible connections to well-known people.
“She was asked about maybe about 100 different people. She answered questions about everybody and she didn't hold anything back,” her attorney David Oskar Markus said at the time. “She never invoked a privilege. She never refused to answer a question.”
Around the same time, Maxwell was transferred to a less restrictive, minimum-security prison in Bryan, Texas.
When asked by a reporter if he personally approved Maxwell’s transfer, Trump said, “I didn’t know about it at all. I read about it just like you did.”
Last month, the Supreme Court denied an appeal from Maxwell after she asked the court to review whether prosecutors fairly brought a case against her.
She is now reportedly seeking a commutation from Trump. The president has not ruled out pardoning Maxwell, but, when asked about it in July, he said he had not given the matter much thought.
