Jeffrey Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell is scheduled to testify before the House Oversight Committee on February 9. She is expected to plead the Fifth.
Maxwell’s lawyers sent a letter to the Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY) this week, writing that Maxwell will “invoke her privilege against self-incrimination and decline to answer questions. That is not a negotiating position or a tactical choice, it is a legal necessity.”
“Put plainly, proceeding under these circumstances would serve no other purpose than pure political theater and a complete waste of taxpayer monies,” the letter added. “The Committee would obtain no testimony, no answers, and no new facts. The only certainty is a public spectacle in which a witness repeatedly invokes the Fifth Amendment.”
Republicans urged Comer to demand that Maxwell testify before Congress in July. “Thank you for your continued leadership on the House Committee on Oversight and Reform. Given the events of the past week, I respectfully request you invite Ms. Ghislaine Maxwell to testify in a public hearing before the Committee,” Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN) wrote in a letter to Comer. “Should Ms. Maxwell refuse the invitation, I encourage you to use subpoena powers. The American people have questions about the case involving Jeffrey Epstein. It is well beyond time those questions are answered.”
This week, a federal judge shut down an Epstein files-related request from Reps. Thomas Massie (R-KY) and Ro Khanna (D-CA), stating that the case in question is “effectively closed.”
U.S. District Judge Paul Engelmayer denied the request. “The only parties to the case are Maxwell and the United States, the latter represented, as is always the case, by DOJ. The Indictment against Maxwell brought charges under six federal criminal statutes,” he wrote. “Those were not brought under the [Epstein Files Transparency Act], which did not exist at the time and is not a criminal statute. And this case is now effectively closed.”
