Congress
Maxwell’s
lawyer says she’s undecided on appearing for congressional testimony
The House
Oversight Committee has been preparing to send attorneys to the prison where
the Epstein associate is incarcerated in order to take testimony.
By Kyle
Cheney and Meredith Lee Hill
07/25/2025
03:39 PM EDT
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.
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