Ghislaine Maxwell appeals for clemency from Trump as she declines to
answer questions from lawmakers
[February 10, 2026]
By STEPHEN GROVES
WASHINGTON (AP) — Ghislaine Maxwell, the former girlfriend of Jeffrey
Epstein, declined to answer questions from House lawmakers in a
deposition Monday, but indicated that if President Donald Trump ended
her prison sentence, she was willing to testify that neither he nor
former President Bill Clinton had done anything wrong in their
connections with Epstein.
The House Oversight Committee had wanted Maxwell to answer questions
during a video call to the federal prison camp in Texas where she’s
serving a 20-year sentence for sex trafficking, but she invoked her
Fifth Amendment rights to avoid answering questions that would be
self-incriminating. She’s come under new scrutiny as lawmakers try to
investigate how Epstein, a well-connected financier, was able to
sexually abuse underage girls for years.
Amid a reckoning over Epstein's abuse that has spilled into the highest
levels of businesses and governments around the globe, lawmakers are
searching for anyone who was connected to Epstein and may have
facilitated his abuse. So far, the revelations have shown how both Trump
and Clinton spent time with Epstein in the 1990s and early 2000s, but
they have not been credibly accused of wrongdoing.
Dressed in a brown, prison-issued shirt and sitting at a conference
table with a bottle of water, Maxwell repeatedly said she was invoking
“my Fifth Amendment right to silence,” video later released by the
committee showed.
During the closed-door deposition, Maxwell's attorney David Oscar Markus
said in a statement to the committee that “Maxwell is prepared to speak
fully and honestly if granted clemency by President Trump.”
He added that both Trump and Clinton “are innocent of any wrongdoing,"
but that ”Ms. Maxwell alone can explain why, and the public is entitled
to that explanation."
Maxwell's appeal hits pushback
Democrats said that was a brazen effort by Maxwell to have Trump end her
prison sentence.
“It’s very clear she’s campaigning for clemency,” said Rep. Melanie
Stansbury, a New Mexico Democrat.
Asked Monday about Maxwell's appeal, the White House pointed to previous
remarks from the president that indicated the prospect of a pardon was
not on his radar.
And other Republicans push backed to the notion quickly after Maxwell
made the appeal.
“NO CLEMENCY. You comply or face punishment,” Republican Rep. Anna
Paulina Luna, wrote on social media. “You deserve JUSTICE for what you
did you monster.”
Maxwell has also been seeking to have her conviction overturned, arguing
that she was wrongfully convicted. The Supreme Court rejected her appeal
last year, but in December she requested that a federal judge in New
York consider what her attorneys describe as “substantial new evidence”
that her trial was spoiled by constitutional violations.
Maxwell's attorney cited that petition as he told lawmakers she would
invoke her Fifth Amendment rights.
Family members of the late Virginia Giuffre, one of the most outspoken
victims of Epstein, also released a letter to Maxwell making it clear
they did not consider her “a bystander” to Epstein's abuse.
“You were a central, deliberate actor in a system built to find
children, isolate them, groom them, and deliver them to abuse,” Sky and
Amanda Roberts wrote in the letter addressed to Maxwell.
Maxwell was moved from a federal prison in Florida to a low-security
prison camp in Texas last summer after she participated in two-days of
interviews with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche.
The Republican chair of the committee, Rep. James Comer of Kentucky, had
also subpoenaed her at the time, but her attorneys have consistently
told the committee that she wouldn't answer questions. However, Comer
came under pressure to hold the deposition as he pressed for the
committee to enforce subpoenas on Bill Clinton and former Secretary of
State Hillary Clinton. After Comer threatened them with contempt of
Congress charges, they both agreed to sit for depositions later this
month.
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Rep. Jaime Raskin, D Md., speaks to reporters on Capitol Hill after
reviewing unredacted Jeffrey Epstein files at the Department of
Justice, Monday Feb. 9, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo Nathan
Ellgren)
Comer has been haggling with the Clintons over whether that
testimony should be held in a public hearing, but Comer reiterated
Monday that he would insist on holding closed-door depositions and
later releasing transcripts and video.
Lawmakers review unredacted files
Meanwhile, several lawmakers visited a Justice Department office in
Washington Monday to look through unredacted versions of the files
on Epstein that the department has released to comply with a law
passed by Congress last year. As part of an arrangement with the
Justice Department, lawmakers were given access to the over 3
million released files in a reading room with four computers.
Lawmakers can only make handwritten notes, and their staff are not
allowed in with them.
Rep. Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary
Committee, spent several hours in the reading room Monday morning.
He told reporters as he returned to the Capitol that even if all the
House members who triggered the vote on releasing the files “spent
every waking hour over at the Department of Justice, it would still
take us months to get through all of those documents.”
Democrats on Raskin's committee are looking ahead to a Wednesday
hearing with Attorney General Pam Bondi, where they are expected to
sharply question her on the publication of the Epstein files. The
Justice Department failed to redact the personal information of many
victims, including inadvertently releasing nude photos of them.
“Over and over we begged them, please be careful, please be more
careful,” said Jennifer Freeman, an attorney representing survivors.
“The damage has already been done. It feels incompetent, it feels
intimidating and it feels intentional.”
Democrats also say the Justice Department redacted information that
should have been made public, including information that could lead
to scrutiny of Epstein’s associates.
Rep. Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican who sponsored the
legislation to force the release of the files, said that after
reviewing the unredacted versions for several hours, he had found
the names of six men “that are likely incriminated by their
inclusion.” He called on the Justice Department to pursue
accountability for the men, but said he could potentially name them
in a House floor speech, where his actions would be constitutionally
protected from lawsuits.
Massie, along with California Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna, said they
also came across a number of files that still had redactions. They
said that was likely because the FBI had turned over redacted
versions of the files to the Justice Department.
Khanna said “it wasn't just Epstein and Maxwell” who were involved
in sexually abusing underage girls.
Release of the files has set in motion multiple political crises
around the world, including in the United Kingdom, where Prime
Minister Keir Starmer is clinging to his job after it was revealed
his former ambassador to the U.S. had maintained close ties to
Epstein. But Democratic lawmakers bemoaned that so far U.S.
political figures seem to be escaping unscathed.
“I’m just afraid that the general worsening and degradation of
American life has somehow conditioned people not to take this as
seriously as we should be taking it,” Raskin said.
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