Jeffrey Epstein's former girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell, is moved to minimum-security women's prison in Texas
Minimum-security federal prison camps house inmates the Bureau of Prisons considers to be the lowest security risk. Some don't even have fences.
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The prison camps were originally designed with low security to make operations easier and to allow inmates tasked with performing work at the prison, like landscaping and maintenance, to avoid repeatedly checking in and out of a main prison facility.
Prosecutors have said Epstein's sex crimes could not have been done without Maxwell, but her lawyers have maintained that she was wrongly prosecuted and denied a fair trial, and have floated the idea of a pardon from President Trump. They have also asked the US Supreme Court to take up her case.
Maxwell's case has been the subject of heightened public focus since an outcry over the Justice Department's statement last month saying that it would not be releasing any additional documents from the Epstein sex trafficking investigation. The decision infuriated online sleuths, conspiracy theorists, and elements of Trump's base who had hoped to see proof of a government coverup.
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Since then, administration officials have tried to cast themselves as promoting transparency in the case, including by requesting from courts the unsealing of grand jury transcripts.
Maxwell, meanwhile, was interviewed at a Florida courthouse over two days last week by Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche and the House Oversight Committee had also said that it wanted to speak with Maxwell. Her lawyers said this week that they would be open to an interview, but only if the panel were to ensure immunity from prosecution.
In a letter Friday to Maxwell's lawyers, US Representative James Comer, the committee chair, wrote that the committee was willing to delay the deposition until after the resolution of Maxwell's appeal to the Supreme Court. That appeal is expected to be resolved in late September.
Comer wrote that while Maxwell's testimony was 'vital' to the Republican-led investigation into Epstein, the committee would not provide immunity or any questions in advance of her testimony, as was requested by her team.
Two women who have accused Epstein and Maxwell of abusing them, Maria and Annie Farmer, and the family members of another, Virginia Giuffre, who died by suicide this spring, reacted angrily to the news of Maxwell's relocation.
'It is with horror and outrage that we object to the preferential treatment convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell has received,' they said in a statement Friday. 'Ghislaine Maxwell is a sexual predator who physically assaulted minor children on multiple occasions, and she should never be shown any leniency.'
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'President Trump has sent a clear message today: Pedophiles deserve preferential treatment and their victims do not matter,' the statement said.
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