WASHINGTON — Ghislaine Maxwell will plead the Fifth Amendment in response to a congressional subpoena to testify about deceased sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein — unless several demands are met, according to a Tuesday letter from her attorney obtained by The Post.
Defense lawyer David Oscar Markus told the Republican-led House Oversight Committee that his client’s statements under oath “could compromise her constitutional rights, prejudice her legal claims, and potentially taint a future jury pool.”
“Accordingly, our initial reaction was that Ms. Maxwell would invoke her Fifth Amendment rights and decline to testify at this time,” Markus wrote to Oversight Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.).
“However, after further reflection, we would like to find a way to cooperate with Congress if a fair and safe path forward can be established.”
The demands listed in the letter include two items that Markus deemed non-negotiable: a grant of immunity for Maxwell, and testifying outside the Florida federal prison where she’s been serving a 20-year sentence since 2022 for conspiring with Epstein to abuse young girls.
Before that, she had spent nearly two years in a Brooklyn detention facility, which her attorney called “one of the worst” prisons in the US.
The committee should also provide copies of its questions in advance, Markus said, “to identify the relevant documentation from millions of pages that could corroborate her responses.”
And Oversight lawmakers were asked to meet with Maxwell only “after the resolution of her Supreme Court petition and her forthcoming habeas petition.”
“Of course, in the alternative, if Ms. Maxwell were to receive clemency,” Markus hinted, “she would be willing — and eager — to testify openly and honestly, in public, before Congress in Washington, D.C.”
“The Oversight Committee will respond to Ms. Maxwell’s attorney soon, but it will not consider granting congressional immunity for her testimony,” a committee spokeswoman said in a statement to The Post.
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