House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) agreed Friday to a request from Ghislaine Maxwell to delay deposing her until after the Supreme Court considers her petition to overturn her conviction for sex trafficking.
Comer, however, declined requests from an attorney for Maxwell, the longtime associate of Jeffrey Epstein, to grant her immunity or to send her questions in advance.
Pursuant to a motion that garnered bipartisan support in the committee last month, Comer had subpoenaed Maxwell for a deposition to occur at Federal Correctional Institution Tallahassee on Aug. 11 — though she was quietly moved to Federal Prison Camp Bryan in Bryan, Texas, a Bureau of Prisons official confirmed Friday.
“Your testimony is vital to the Committee’s efforts regarding Mr. Jeffrey Epstein, including the 2007 non-prosecution agreement and the circumstances surrounding Mr. Epstein’s Death,” Comer said in a letter to Maxwell on Friday. “These investigative efforts may be used to inform potential legislation to improve federal efforts to combat sex trafficking and reform the use of non-prosecution agreements and/or plea agreements in sex-crime investigations.”
Maxwell’s attorney David Oscar Markus wrote to the committee Monday seeking to delay the interview until after the Supreme Court weighs Maxwell’s petition.
Comer agreed to the delay: “On July 30, the U.S. Supreme Court noticed that your petition for writ of certiorari will be considered at its conference on September 29. In light of this notice, the Committee is willing to delay your deposition until a date following the Court’s certiorari determination,” he wrote.
Comer then rejected the immunity request.
“The Committee is unwilling to grant you congressional immunity pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 6005 at this time. Further, while the Committee is unwilling to send you questions in advance, the Committee will continue its long-standing practice of engaging in forthright and detailed discussions about scoping,” Comer wrote.
In her appeal to the Supreme Court, Maxwell argues her conviction violates a nonprosecution agreement Epstein signed with federal prosecutors in 2007. Lower courts previously ruled the agreement applied only to the Southern District of Florida and not the New York district where Maxwell was sentenced.
Maxwell last week sat for a two-day interview with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche.
Markus, Maxwell’s attorney, said that it was a “thorough, comprehensive interview” and that “no person and no topic were off-limits.” He added, “The truth will come out.”
