DOJ Questions Ghislaine Maxwell; Officials Warned Trump That His Name Is In Epstein’s Files
Federal prosecutors seeking new information in the Jeffrey Epstein case spoke Thursday with his former girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell, who is serving a 20-year prison sentence for aiding Epstein’s sex trafficking operation.
The day before, the House Oversight Committee issued a subpoena to depose Maxwell on August 11.
There is no telling whether the public will ever hear what Maxwell shares with Justice Department officials, or if what she says will be credible.
The Wall Street Journal also reported that a senior DOJ official told President Trump in May that his name appears multiple times in the Epstein files.
WHAT’S INSIDE THE FILES?
The files reportedly include unverified hearsay about hundreds of people, including Trump, who had socialized with Epstein in the past. Being mentioned in the records is not necessarily an indication of wrongdoing.
The DOJ official who informed Trump said they do not plan to release any more documents related to the investigation of the convicted sex offender, as the files contain child pornography and victims’ personal information. Trump said he would defer to the Justice Department’s decisions.
After blowback from the joint statement by the DOJ and FBI earlier this month — which said that Epstein died by suicide in a New York jail cell in 2019 and that there was no “client list” — and last week’s Wall Street Journal report accusing Trump of writing Epstein a provocative 50th birthday card, Trump instructed Attorney General Pam Bondi to ask a judge to release grand jury transcripts from an investigation into Epstein. On Wednesday, the federal judge denied the DOJ’s request.