(AFP) – Ghislaine Maxwell, the convicted accomplice of Jeffrey Epstein, asked a judge on Tuesday to reject a US Justice Department request to unseal the grand jury transcripts in her criminal case and that of the late notorious sex offender.
“Jeffrey Epstein is dead. Ghislaine Maxwell is not,” Maxwell’s lawyers said in a filing with the federal judge in New York who is considering the government request. “Whatever interest the public may have in Epstein, that interest cannot justify a broad intrusion into grand jury secrecy in a case where the defendant is alive, her legal options are viable, and her due process rights remain,” the attorneys said.
Maxwell, 63, is serving a 20-year sentence after being convicted in 2021 of recruiting underage girls for Epstein, who died in a New York jail in 2019 while awaiting trial for sex trafficking. President Donald Trump’s supporters have been obsessed with the Epstein case for years and have been up in arms since the FBI and Justice Department said last month that the wealthy financier had committed suicide while in jail, did not blackmail any prominent figures, and did not keep a “client list.”
In a bid to calm the furor, the Justice Department is seeking the release of the grand jury transcripts from the cases against Epstein and Maxwell. US Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, President Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer, also met recently with Maxwell but has not revealed what was discussed. Trump was asked on Tuesday about the meeting and said it was “not an uncommon thing” and was “totally above board.”
“I think (Blanche) probably wants to make sure that, you know, people that should not be involved, or aren’t involved, are not hurt by something that would be very, very unfortunate, very unfair to a lot of people,” he said. Trump also told reporters that he was not aware of Maxwell’s recent move from a prison in Florida to a minimum security facility in Texas until after it happened.
– ‘Firestorm of false reporting’ – Trump, 79, was once a close friend of Epstein, and The Wall Street Journal reported last month that the president’s name was among hundreds found during a Justice Department review of the so-called “Epstein files,” though there has not been evidence of wrongdoing. Trump filed a $10 billion defamation suit against the newspaper after it reported that he had penned a sexually suggestive letter to Epstein for his 50th birthday in 2003.
Maxwell is the only former Epstein associate convicted in connection with his activities, which right-wing conspiracy theorists allege included trafficking young girls for VIPs and other elites. In their filing with Judge Paul Engelmayer, Maxwell’s lawyers said she was “convicted in a media firestorm of false reporting” and noted that she has appealed her conviction to the Supreme Court.
“The government seeks to unseal the grand jury transcripts, citing ‘historical interest’ without regard for how that release will affect Maxwell’s privacy interests, her pending (Supreme Court) Petition, and any future litigation,” they said. Her lawyers also said Maxwell has not been allowed to review the transcripts even though the government has not opposed her request to do so.
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