|
 |
It’s another long Sunday Night Version of the newsletter, but there’s a lot going on. Stick it out to the bottom so you can read about what our Olympic athletes are doing and feel proud. Here’s what you need to know, heading into the week:
Monday morning, Ghislaine Maxwell is scheduled to appear virtually before the House Oversight Committee, chaired by Kentucky Republican James Comer, as part of the Committee’s investigation into Jeffrey Epstein. Her lawyers have send she will assert her Fifth Amendment rights and decline to testify.
 |
Maxwell is housed in Federal Prison Camp (FPC) Bryan in Texas, after a controversial transfer that conflicted with longstanding rules regarding treatment of convicted sex offenders. It’s a minimum security facility that houses 621 female inmates. Following a report last August that she would not be permitted to participate in a service dog training program at Bryan—“We do not allow anyone whose crime involves abuse towards minors or animals — including any crime of a sexual nature,” to participate, the program’s CEO said—there was reporting she had a puppy with her after all, along with special meals and other perks. The transfer and privileges unfolded after Maxwell’s most unusual interview with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, Donald Trump’s former criminal defense lawyer, in which Maxwell didn’t have a negative thing to say about the President.
Maxwell’s attorney advised the Committee she intends to “invoke her privilege against self-incrimination and decline to answer questions” tomorrow. There is also reporting that her lawyer says she will read a statement at the outset of her testimony, claiming a blanket invocation of the Fifth Amendment. Although technically, she should have to assert it in answer to each question, Congressional Committees have accepted this sort of move in other depositions. Her lawyer claims that invoking the privilege isn’t a tactic, but rather a “legal necessity,” because her appeals are not yet over.
Maxwell’s direct appeal was terminated when the Supreme Court declined to hear it last year. But she still has a habeas corpus petition, often referred to as a collateral appeal, that is pending. She filed it pro se—on her own, without a lawyer—which happens because there is no right to assistance of a lawyer for habeas, so the courts don’t foot the bill. Most issues get resolved on direct appeal, and it’s very rare for a habeas to succeed, but when a defendant has a solid issue, the appellate court will often ask a lawyer to take the case. That does not appear to have happened here.
Maxwell’s brief, filed in December, argues that “substantial new evidence has emerged from related civil actions, Government disclosures, investigative reports, and documents demonstrating constitutional violations that undermined the fairness of her proceedings.” Although I have not read every document in the Epstein files, I’ve seen nothing new suggesting her conviction was invalid, nor have I seen any reporting to that effect, which you’d expect would have happened if that were the case. Instead, document after document seems to confirm the jury’s verdict in her case.
Maxwell makes arguments about things like pretrial delay and juror misconduct, which have mostly been litigated and aren’t going to get any traction here. Any claims that could have been raised on the direct appeal but weren’t are waived at this stage, which means that Maxwell’s arguments have either been previously raised and rejected or she can no longer make them. So yes, technically she can take the Fifth. But it’s an awfully weak assertion.
California Democrat Ro Khanna, who is also on the Oversight committee, wrote a letter to Comer on Sunday pointing out that Maxwell’s position now “appears inconsistent with Ms. Maxwell’s prior conduct, as she did not invoke the Fifth Amendment when she previously met with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche to discuss substantially similar subject matter.” Khanna included a series of questions he wrote that he intends to ask Maxwell and asked for specific confirmation that she intended to assert the privilege as to each of them.
 |
Khanna’s letter establishes how much information Maxwell has to offer, and should have had to offer the Deputy Attorney General, although he did not push her on any of these points, including co-conspirators who were not indicted, Trump’s relationship with Epstein, Epstein client lists, Epstein’s possible involvement with foreign governments, and her own negotiations for a pardon with her former friend who is now the President of the United States.
Although a series of 2019 emails between DOJ prosecutors working on the case, released by the Justice Department previously, reveal that 10 unnamed “co-conspirators” of Epstein and Maxwell were under investigation, none of them were ever charged. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche told CNN there was no evidence in the Epstein Files that supported additional charges.
 |
That’s Monday. On Tuesday, the House Homeland Security Committee has an oversight hearing set for ICE, Customs and Border Protection (CBP), and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS). The three-hour hearing will involve testimony from Todd Lyons, the acting Director of ICE, Rodney Scott, the CBP Commissioner, and Joseph Edlow, the Director of USCIS. All of the agencies are a part of DHS, but Secretary Noem is not slated to testify along with the witnesses.