Ghislaine Maxwell moved to prison camp, Trump says no plea for pardon
Maxwell's move from FCI Tallahassee, a low-security prison, to the Federal Prison Camp in Bryan, Texas, comes a week after she met with Deputy U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche, who said he wanted to speak with her about anyone else who may have been involved in Epstein's crimes.
Maxwell's lawyer, David Markus, confirmed she was moved but said he had no other comment. Spokespeople for the U.S. Department of Justice did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Asked during a White House interview with Newsmax on Friday about the possibility of pardoning Maxwell, President Donald Trump said, "I'm allowed to do it, but nobody's asked me to do it." He added, "I know nothing about the case."
Asked about what was discussed between Maxwell and the deputy attorney general last week, Trump said he believed Blanche "just wants to make sure that innocent people aren't hurt" should documents in the Epstein probe be released.
The BOP classifies prison camps such as Bryan as minimum-security institutions, the lowest of five security levels in the federal system. Such facilities have limited or no perimeter fencing. Low-security facilities such as FCI Tallahassee have double-fenced perimeters and higher staff-to-inmate ratios than prison camps, according to the bureau.
Asked why Maxwell was transferred, BOP spokesperson Donald Murphy said he could not comment on the specifics of any incarcerated individual's prison assignment, but that the BOP determines where inmates are sent based on such factors as "the level of security and supervision the inmate requires."
Blanche's meeting with Maxwell came as Trump faces pressure from both his base of conservative supporters and congressional Democrats to release more information from the Justice Department's investigations of Maxwell and Epstein.
The department is seeking court approval to release transcripts of law enforcement officers' testimony before the grand juries that indicted Maxwell and Epstein. Such transcripts are usually kept secret. Two federal judges in Manhattan are weighing the government's requests.
Lawyers for Maxwell, Epstein, and their alleged victims are due to share their positions on the potential unsealing with the judges in filings on Tuesday.
Epstein died by suicide in a Manhattan jail cell in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges. He had pleaded not guilty.
Neither Markus nor Blanche has provided detailed accounts of what they discussed. Markus has said Maxwell would welcome relief from Trump.
Maxwell was found guilty at a 2021 trial of recruiting and grooming girls for Epstein to abuse. She had pleaded not guilty and is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn her conviction.
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The Independent
2 minutes ago
- The Independent
Exclusive: Registered sex offender banned from Spirit Airlines after arrest for groping teenage seatmate
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Daily Mail
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Trump knifed by fellow Republicans over recent firing as he plans revenge on 'rigged' jobs data
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The Independent
32 minutes ago
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Suri was released after spending eight weeks in detention amid an ongoing legal battle. open image in gallery Georgetown University scholar Badar Khani Suri is among hundreds of people who have been detained at the facility in Alexandria, which functions as a central hub for the Trump administration's deportation agenda by temporarily detaining deportees before sending them to other detention centers ( AP ) Louisiana locks up more people per capita than any other U.S. state, in a country with one of the highest incarceration rates on the planet. Most incarcerated people in Louisiana are in local jails, and the state pays sheriffs a daily rate per inmate, creating what civil rights groups fear is a cruel pay-to-play system that incentivizes locking people up. In 2017, the state's Democratic Governor John Bel Edwards advanced legislation to reduce the state's prison population, which ultimately fell by more than 8,000 over the next five years. But at the same time, the first Trump administration was ramping up immigration arrests and expanding capacity to hold immigrants in detention. Following Trump's 2016 victory, ICE expanded the nation's immigration detention system by more than 50 percent, with contracts for private companies to operate at least 40 new detention facilities. Companies including GEO Group, CoreCivic and LaSalle Corrections own or operate facilities that jail the majority of immigrants. All but one of Louisiana's nine facilities are run by private prison firms. The 400-bed detention center in Alexandria is run by GEO Group, whose stock is valued at roughly $4 billion. Inside, dorm-style units hold up to 80 people each, and each includes an expansive 'processing area' with rows of benches and walls lined with hundreds of shackles. People who are processed at the facility from arriving flights are placed in five-point restraints and forced to sit on the benches, according to immigration attorneys. Before it opened in 2014, ICE transported people by bus from different jails to a local commercial airport or Alexandria International Airport, a converted military base that has emerged as what human rights groups called a 'national nerve center' for ICE Air, the group of charter airlines contracted with the agency to operate deportation flights. 'Alexandria allows the concentrated detention and staging of hundreds of people at a time, optimizing efficiency of ICE's deportation machine,' according to a 2024 report from a coalition of human rights groups. In August 2017, the Department of Homeland Security's Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties found that the Alexandria facility 'is not properly screening for and identifying detainees at risk for suicide' and 'does not provide mental health treatment and programming,' the report found. That civil rights office was among bureaus within Homeland Security that have been abruptly shuttered under Trump's second administration. open image in gallery Geo Group is among several for-profit prison companies that operate a majority of ICE detention centers. All but one of Louisiana's nine facilities are run by contractors ( AFP via Getty Images ) Alexandria is a two-hour drive from Baton Rouge and more than three hours away from New Orleans, where most of the state's immigration attorneys live and practice. That distance has made access to legal counsel for the nearly 8,000 people in Louisiana's detention facilities enormously difficult. There is little if any access to the internet or law libraries and few chances to privately speak with family or attorneys. To visit detainees at another facility, the Pine Prairie ICE Processing Center, roughly 200 miles from New Orleans, Tulane University law professor Mary Yanik and students with the Immigrants' Rights Law Clinic said they leave by 5:30 a.m. and return as late as 10 p.m., in order to speak with as many people as possible. 'That is a grueling schedule, if you think about the number of hours for a single visit with a client for a single court hearing,' she told The Independent earlier this year. 'They feel forgotten. They feel like they're screaming into a void.' The most common question among them is 'why am I here?' 'They're so disoriented by what was happening to them, and so confused. At least one person thought they were in Texas,' she said. ''What is going on? Can't I just go home?''
