On Monday, Ghislaine Maxwell asserted her constitutional right under the Fifth Amendment to decline to answer Congress’ questions about what she knows about sexual abuse by herself, Jeffrey Epstein, and others. But that need not be the end of the road.
It is not too late for Congress to afford the victims of Maxwell and Epstein the accountability they deserve. Although the Department of Justice continues to violate the Epstein File Transparency Act—by withholding millions of documents, and maintaining improper redactions and assertions of inapplicable privileges—Congress has the tools to investigate further. That investigation should include requiring Maxwell to testify under oath publicly, which can be accomplished without giving in to her demand that she receive a pardon for her egregious crimes.
Maxwell’s “Pivotal” Role
In 2021, Maxwell was convicted by a jury and, in 2022, sentenced to 20 years in prison. Federal Judge Alison Nathan rejected Maxwell’s contention that she was just a stand-in for Epstein, who died in jail before Maxwell’s trial. Judge Nathan found that Maxwell had participated “directly and repeatedly” in trafficking young girls. In her words, “Maxwell was instrumental in the abuse of several underage girls” and she showed no remorse for playing a “pivotal” role in facilitating the abuse of numerous victims.
Since President Donald Trump’s return to office, the Department of Justice has done much to cushion Maxwell’s court-authorized punishment and obfuscate what she could tell the public about who may have known about and participated in these horrific crimes. As is well known, Maxwell was interviewed in July by none other than Todd Blanche, DOJ’s second most senior official and Trump’s former criminal defense counsel. But none of the obvious questions any prosecutor seeking the truth were asked of Maxwell. Blanche did not ask her directly who knew about the sexual abuse. He did not ask her to describe everything she saw first-hand and everything she learned from others. She was not confronted with any pertinent documents, including photos of Epstein with Trump, Maxwell with Trump, or statements by Trump that revealed he knew at the time about Epstein’s penchant for women “many of them on the younger side.” A telltale sign that Blanche was engaged in a far different exercise than that of a normal investigator was his failure at the very outset of the meeting to give Maxwell the warning that she could face prosecution if she lied, a standard warning that Blanche surely knew from his years working criminal investigations.
As an apparent reward for her efforts, and with no reported notice to the victims, the Department of Justice had Maxwell moved to a camp (the lowest security level prison in the federal system). Notably, prisoners who receive 20-year sentences are typically ineligible to be placed in a camp, unless someone at the top of the government intervenes. The Bureau of Prisons, which makes such assignments, is under the control of Attorney General Pam Bondi.
Blanche suggested the move was for her protection, but surely there are ways to do that without moving her to a lower security facility. To add insult to injury, it has been reported that in her new digs Maxwell is receiving even more lenient treatment than other inmates, including being given a puppy to keep her company. To make matters worse, Maxwell is said to be preparing her pardon application for potential signing by Trump, who has already wielded the pardon power beyond all recognition.
After speaking for two days with Blanche in July and easily responding to his softball questions, she took a different approach this week when it came to answering the questions of elected representatives. She asserted her perfectly valid Fifth amendment privilege in response to all of their questions, but noted that she will testify if afforded clemency from the president.
Congress need not give into that blatant stratagem.
Compelling Maxwell To Testify
All of this obfuscation by DOJ and Maxwell’s assertions of constitutional privilege come at the expense of the women who survived these crimes. But Congress can take action to bring them a modicum of justice. It has the power to provide a true airing of what Maxwell knows, subjecting her to the questioning that was so absent from her meeting with Blanche.
To do so, Congress can grant her immunity. That would mean that she has to testify under oath, but her testimony cannot be used to prosecute her further, with one important exception. Since Maxwell is already serving 20 years, immunity will not reduce her current sentence. In fact, it could increase it. If Maxwell lies to Congress, immunity does not apply to any subsequent prosecution for perjury or obstruction of Congress. And such charges could be brought any time during the next five years, meaning after this administration’s term expires. If Maxwell elects to disobey the order to testify, after being immunized by Congress, she would subject herself to yet another prosecution, for criminal contempt, which also could be charged within five years of its commission. The penalty for criminal contempt would likely be consecutive to her current 20-year sentence.
There are even more tools at Congress’ disposal to expose the full truth. Congress can and must subpoena relevant records. One of the more dumb-founding revelations from Blanche came in connection with his ham-handed attempt to justify why he did not confront Maxwell with recently revealed Epstein emails, notably the one in which Epstein remarked to Maxwell that Trump has not spilled what he knows. “The dog that has not barked is Trump,” Epstein said. Maxwell replied that she “had been thinking about that.” Any good prosecutor can see that this exchange raises numerous questions since Maxwell did not reply in the way an innocent person might: “I do not know what you are talking about. Why would Mr. Trump know about that.” Instead, she said she had been thinking the same.
Blanche explained his failure to ask Maxwell about this email exchange by posting on social media that the Department of Justice did not have these documents. He claimed they had been hidden by the Epstein estate. Let’s leave aside that the estate readily produced the documents pursuant to a recent congressional subpoena. Let’s leave aside that there is no evidence that the estate had hidden them. And let’s leave aside that Blanche, even if he did not have these emails, fails to explain why he did not confront Maxwell with myriad other documents to test her story.
What is most astounding is Blanche’s admission that the Department of Justice did not have these emails, when a mere subpoena to the estate or a warrant to Google would have unearthed them. Having been a prosecutor at DOJ for over 20 years, I know it is prosecution 101 to ferret out all the possible email accounts of the subjects and targets of an investigation. The email account used by Epstein that Congress revealed was hiding in plain sight: it was widely known to numerous people with whom Epstein was communicating. Why had it not been subpoenaed? What other email accounts, and investigative steps, have not been pursued? Virginia Giuffre, one of Epstein’s victims, alleged in her civil litigation against Maxwell that there were suspicious gaps in email productions, necessitating repeated orders from the federal judge overseeing that matter to intervene. And we still do not know if all email accounts of Maxwell, Epstein, and the myriad staff who worked for them were obtained by the government. To be clear, that inquiry is one that could implicate the inaction and ineptitude of Democratic and Republican administrations.
This is where Congress needs to step in, in much the way it did in the January 6th investigation, when DOJ was similarly dragging its feet. Congress can use its subpoena power to track down all known email accounts of Epstein, Maxwell and their staff, for starters. It can then turn to the numerous people who enabled his crimes, wittingly or unwittingly. That investigation may reveal wrongdoing or complicity by Democrats and Republicans. That is what apolitical investigations do.
In that regard, it is worth noting that Bondi tasked federal prosecutor Jay Clayton with carrying out Trump’s directive to investigate only Democrats implicated in the Epstein scandal. That is not how investigations work. When law enforcement obtains the contents of an email account, the emails won’t discriminate by party affiliation, unless the participants did. And we know with Epstein, he didn’t. Steve Bannon and Larry Summers, for instance, were both in his orbit. The DOJ investigation may be intended to be partisan, but it could result in revelation of bipartisan incrimination.
What we now know for sure is that 1) Maxwell can be required to give answers and not be able to use the Fifth amendment as a shield and 2) the DOJ investigation was sloppy at best, and deliberately blindfolded at worst. Congress has the tools to provide more answers, if it only has the will to do so. It must continue, as it has done before when the Justice Department has failed, to seek justice for the victims.
FEATURED IMAGE: House Oversight and Government Reform Committee ranking member Rep. Robert Garcia (center top row) (D-CA) speaks during a hearing with committee Chairman Rep. James Comer (top right) (R-KY) at the U.S. Capitol January 21, 2026 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)
Great Job Andrew Weissmann & the Team @ Just Security for sharing this story.
