Ghislaine Maxwell breaks silence with bombshell claim after Trump closes Epstein case
President Donald Trump and his Attorney General Pam Bondi ar e facing MAGA mutiny amid claims they botched an investigation into Epstein's laundry list of crimes.
Epstein's right-hand woman is serving 20 years in prison for sex trafficking offenses tied to the billionaire financier's crimes.
But Bondi maintains that after years of rampant speculation, there is no evidence Epstein ever held a 'client list' implicating high-profile associates.
Maxwell was convicted in 2021, two years after Epstein was found dead in his cell while awaiting trial for child sex offenses.
Her family now maintain 'our sister Ghislaine did not receive a fair trial', claiming prosecutors stopped at nothing to convict her due to the public's appetite for her to face justice on Epstein's behalf after his death.
According to the family's statement, Maxwell is prepared to 'file a writ of habeas corpus' which would 'allow her to challenge her imprisonment.'
This challenge would be 'on the basis of new evidence such as government misconduct that would have likely changed the trial's outcome.'
The family argue that Maxwell should have been protected under an agreement Epstein entered with the Department of Justice in 2007, in which they vowed not to prosecute any of his co-conspirators after he 'paid fines, paid "victims" millions of dollars and served 13 months in Prison.'
Counsel representing Maxwell, David Oscar Marcus, said: 'I'd be surprised if President Trump knew his lawyers were asking the Supreme Court to let the government break a deal.
'He's the ultimate dealmaker - and I'm sure he'd agree that when the United States gives its word, it should keep it.
'With all the talk about who's being prosecuted and who isn't, it's especially unfair that Ghislaine Maxwell remains in prison based on a promise the US government made and broke.'
The family said they 'profoundly concur' with Marcus' comments.
The controversial deal stated if 'Epstein successfully fulfills all of the terms and conditions of this agreement, the United States also agrees that it will not institute any criminal charges against any potential co-conspirators of Epstein, including but not limited to' four of Epstein's assistants.' This did not name Maxwell specifically.
But the 2007 deal applied only to the US Attorney's Office in the Southern District of Florida.
Prosecutors found a loophole in which they were able to target Maxwell in New York, which treats such agreements differently to the vast majority of American states.
'Ghislaine Maxwell's lawyers are asking the Court to resolve this difference between the Districts,' a filing seen by DailyMail.com states.
The family wants Maxwell's sentence to be vacated and for her to be referred for resentencing, accusing the court of also 'applying an incorrect guideline range and offense level.'
The Maxwell family's comments come at a time of hightened interest in the case after Bondi's memo shut down long-held theories of an Epstein client list.
But Maxwell's brother Ian told The Spectator that she has always denied any such list existed, saying his family was not surprised by Bondi's admission.
'My sister has always maintained there was never such a thing. It never existed,' he said.
'If you prick a conspiracy the balloon goes down and people wonder why they've been fooled.'
He called out Elon Musk and other high-profile social media influencers for giving 'tremendous currency' to conspiracy theories about the list, ultimately giving it 'a life of its own' that was always going to become a thorn in Trump's side.
'They've reached the end of the road, it's finished, for what it's worth I think the President would be pleased they've concluded that,' he said.
MAGA loyalists had long theorized that Epstein did not kill himself in his cell, but this was also rubbished by Bondi's memo, in which she ruled out any foul play.
Maxwell (pictured with Prince Andrew and accuser Virginia Giuffre) was convicted in 2021 , two years after Epstein was found dead in his cell while awaiting trial for child sex offense
Ian Maxwell said he statement has not changed his sister's opinion. She has long believed he was murdered.
'I think there is more substance to different and opposing views, that he was murdered,' Ian said.
'That is, and remains, my sister's view for what it's worth.'
Ian said while 'people seem to think this involves som James Bond figure slipping into the prison' he suggested a separate theory entirely.
'It seems to preclude another way in which that may have happened - him actually paying someone in prison to kill him. Suicide by internal killing.'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Scotsman
3 minutes ago
- Scotsman
How McAllan can tackle our housing emergency
The new Housing Secretary needs to put in place a ten-year plan to sort problems Sign up to our Scotsman Money newsletter, covering all you need to know to help manage your money. Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to The Scotsman, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... New Housing Secretary Mairi McAllan has had a busy first month and has announced she is working on a plan to address Scotland's housing emergency which she will announce when Holyrood returns in the autumn. Given that housing charity Shelter Scotland recently named John Swinney's legislative agenda a 'Programme for Homelessness' it is clear that the Scottish Government must produce some positive and effective policies. More housebuilding is required, easier and quicker planning regulations, a long-term focus on addressing social housing shortages, and a much closer working relationship with the private rented sector (PRS) to both maintain existing stock and encourage greater investment. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Ms McAllan said she would act on stalled developments, which she calls an 'untapped area,' and said the Scottish Government is 'brokering' those issues with developers to 'unlock tens of thousands of houses'. David J Alexander is an expert in Scotland's rental sector These developments are stalled due to continued uncertainty over the Scottish Government's direction on the private rented sector. Proposals in the Scottish Housing Bill to introduce rent controls don't help despite proof from the Governments' own data showing this policy results in greater costs for tenants. The most recent statistics reveal that the Scottish Government's intervention in the PRS – through its Cost of Living (Tenant Protection) Scotland Act 2022 which introduced temporary rent controls – resulted in rents rising at a faster rate in two years than they had in the preceding 12. Between 2010 and 2022 average rent rises across Scotland for one, two, three and four-bedroom properties were up £138; £182; £232; and £523 respectively. In the following two years between 2022 and 2024 average rents increased by £130; £157; £230; and £333 for one, two, three and four-bedroom properties. In cash terms rents rose in two years at almost the same level that they did over the previous 12 years. These figures highlight just how destructive the Scottish Government's intervention into the PRS was between 2022 and 2024. A major outcome of this policy has been the freezing of property investment, falling housebuilding levels, with money intended to be invested in Scotland to build more properties being transferred to other parts of the UK. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad If Ms McAllan is to make an impact on the staggering levels of housing need in Scotland, then she must embrace the private rented sector. She should not interfere in the market with rent controls and should be encouraging greater investment through policies which encourage growth over the long-term through support of the PRS. Mairi McAllan 'must embrace the private rented sector' (Picture: Jeff) The new Housing Secretary needs to put in place a ten-year plan which addresses Scotland's enormous housing problems. More housebuilding, more involvement and encouragement of the PRS, more social housing and a plan that ensures there are substantially more homes available in all markets in the future. With 250,000 people on the social housing waiting list, 10,000 children in temporary housing and a private rented sector which has been experiencing unprecedented demand there is an immediate need for clarity and action. Housing policy needs the involvement of all interested parties, and a strategy that looks beyond a single electoral cycle if the housing emergency is to be tackled.
Reuters
3 minutes ago
- Reuters
Whatever happened to tax simplification?
NEW YORK, July 17 (Reuters) - Once upon a time, the idea of simplifying the federal tax code enjoyed widespread bipartisan political support. Times have changed in this regard, and not for the better. That's bad news, and not just because of the headaches it causes taxpayers each April. Conservatives and liberals in the U.S. argue about many aspects of the tax code, but reducing complexity usually is not one of them. According to the Brookings Institution, 'The notion that taxes should be simpler is one of the very few propositions in tax policy that generates universal agreement.' The center-left think tank lists several benefits of simpler taxes, including reducing the expense, time, and mental anguish involved in complying with the U.S. tax system. To help quantify that, the Tax Foundation estimates that U.S. taxpayers in 2024 will spend more than 7.9 billion hours filing their taxes at an estimated annual cost of $413 billion, based on average hourly compensation, using projections by the Internal Revenue Service and Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. For context, total U.S. consumer expenditures on medicine, including prescription drugs, were roughly $450 billion in 2023, according to the National Health Expenditure Accounts of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. All those hours and dollars represent significant deadweight loss, or reduced economic efficiency resulting from a suboptimal use of resources, a drag on America's potential growth. Former Republican President Ronald Reagan made tax simplification the central focus of his second presidential term's domestic policy agenda. At the time, discussions of tax reform were influenced by the concept of a flat tax, i.e., a single rate that would replace the existing system involving several income-based brackets. The legislation that eventually emerged from Reagan's efforts, the Tax Reform Act of 1986, did not go that far, but it did reduce the number of brackets. The law, which was passed with the vital support of Democratic Speaker of the House Tip O'Neill, also eliminated several itemized deductions while increasing the standard deduction. Based on economic theory, this should have reduced deadweight loss, as taxpayers who elect the standard deduction spend much less time filing their returns, or, in the case of those hiring professionals, much less money, compared to those who itemize. Another positive effect of this tax reform was curtailing the use of abusive tax shelters that steered capital away from its most productive uses within the economy. The law reduced the abusive tax shelters' appeal by limiting several deductions, credits, and exclusions. Tax simplification remained part of the political discussion in the following decades. Flat tax proposals were put forth by presidential contenders Jerry Brown, a Democrat, in 1992, and Steve Forbes, a Republican, in 1996. In fact, simplification was a prominent part of the agenda as recently as 2017, when Congress enacted, and President Donald Trump signed, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. The Tax Foundation reports that this legislation's near doubling of the standard deduction caused the percentage of tax returns claiming itemized deductions to plummet from 30.6% in 2017 to 11.4% in 2018. This brings us to the recently enacted One Big Beautiful Bill Act. The legislation's ungainly name should be a signal that it was not designed with simplification in mind. Consider, for example, the new law's elimination of tax on tips and overtime. A worker deriving income from either of those sources will now pay less tax than someone earning the equivalent amount solely in the form of salary. In effect, OBBBA has created new tax brackets. To be fair, OBBBA did further increase the standard deduction. It also made permanent the termination of most miscellaneous itemized deductions and established a new limit on all itemized deductions. At the same time, however, the legislation created many new wrinkles in the tax code. For instance, it granted one particular exemption to fishers from villages in western Alaska. The act also increased the previous $10,000 deduction for certain Alaskan whaling captains to $50,000. Those features, likely included in the bill to win the support of Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski, were by no means OBBBA's only special-interest provisions. Farmers, who notoriously enjoy overrepresentation in Congress thanks to the Constitution's allocation of two senators to both the most populous and least populous states, won the unique right to pay capital gains taxes on the sale of farmland on an installment plan. That's not all. Interest on loans secured by agricultural real estate will now be partly excluded from taxation. OBBBA also increased the existing rebate on rum produced in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. If tax simplification can reduce economic inefficiency and potentially garner bipartisan support, then why is it no longer a prominent objective of tax reform? This may partly be because certain tax preferences aimed at achieving social objectives – such as those associated with Social Security – enjoy voter support across a broad ideological spectrum. The rise of economic populism on both sides of the aisle has also likely made anything as extreme as a flat tax a nonstarter. However, tax complexity could be reduced substantially without something as dramatic as eliminating progressive taxation or doing away with the most popular exemptions. For starters, this could include consolidating related tax incentives and eliminating sunset provisions, or expiration dates, for some OBBBA innovations. While we cannot know when or if politicians will resume the fight for tax simplification, what we can assume with some certainty is that groups from all political persuasions will keep pushing for special preferences, making the economy less efficient along the way. (The views expressed here are those of Marty Fridson, the publisher of Income Securities Advisor., opens new tab He is a past governor of the CFA Institute, consultant to the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, and Special Assistant to the Director for Deferred Compensation, Office of Management and the Budget, The City of New York). Enjoying this column? Check out Reuters Open Interest (ROI),, opens new tab your essential new source for global financial commentary. ROI delivers thought-provoking, data-driven analysis of everything from swap rates to soybeans. Markets are moving faster than ever. ROI,, opens new tab can help you keep up. Follow ROI on LinkedIn,, opens new tab and X., opens new tab
Telegraph
3 minutes ago
- Telegraph
The extraordinary story of the foreign volunteers fighting for Ukraine
Russia's war against Ukraine is one of the most documented in human history. And yet, often the experience of soldiers on the frontline is the least mentioned aspect of its story, with most books focusing either on broad battle histories or the experience of civilians. Former Telegraph chief foreign correspondent Colin Freeman's excellent new book, The Mad and the Brave, remedies this imbalance from a unique angle: it's a historical account of Russia's invasion, told from the perspective of a rag-tag group of overseas volunteers. Most came to Ukraine following Volodymyr Zelensky 's impassioned call for foreign fighters, three days into the full-scale invasion. In those early weeks and months, thousands of men (and a smaller number of women) – from the UK, the USA, the Baltic States, Australia, South America and everywhere else imaginable – packed their bags and joined the queues of aid trucks loaded with nappies, hand sanitiser and drones, all making their way to Ukraine. Arriving with the intention to fight alongside Ukrainians, this small cast was and is part of a much bigger movement; one on a scale unseen since the Spanish Civil War. Rumour has it, Freeman reveals, that Zelensky issued this call without taking advice from anyone else in his government, not even his military chiefs – who lacked both the capacity to train this concentration of foreign troops; and, frankly, the need for them, given the sheer quantity of Ukrainian volunteers. The success of the strategy is still in question: Freeman quotes the Danish Institute for International Studies, who stated, rather diplomatically, that 'it remains unclear if the strategic benefits of such recruitment efforts ever came to outweigh the costs.' Throughout the book, Freeman pulls no punches in describing the various shortcomings of the Ukraine Foreign Legion (a catch-all term here to describe all foreign fighters in Ukraine); even once the least competent of the would-be legionnaires had been weeded out by spring 2022, the group that remained was beset with corruption, in-fighting and incompetence. At least one legionnaire, he tells us, has died at the hand of one of his comrades. Yet, despite this uncertainty, the individual stories of heroism still clearly deserve to be told. This is Freeman's focus, but his overarching tale is not one of conventional heroes: yes, there are a few members who have previously fought alongside the Kurds in Syria against Isis, but there are also adrenaline junkies and depressives fleeing failing marriages. One legionnaire, Stephen Wilson, is described as being 'dressed for the barracks, built for the bar'. Another, Douglas Cartner, made the decision to fight based on a random shuffle of his Spotify playlist – when 'Seven Nation Army' came on, he knew it was a sign. Not all of the legionnaires turned up at the start of the full-scale invasion. British military medic John Harding, for example, moved to Ukraine in 2018 after a stint fighting Isis in Syria. He joined the infamous Azov Battalion, at the time based in a mansion seized from the deposed Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych, in the port city of Mariupol. Given Azov's reputation as far-Right and neo-Nazi, Harding – a bisexual socialist from Sunderland – may have seemed a strange addition to their ranks; but Harding found that, in reality, the extremism was minimal. His reasons for staying in Mariupol – aside from a fear of arrest in the UK, as a result of his time fighting Isis with the Kurds – included a love for the cultural life of the port city, its opera and the ease with which he could access a decent glass of red wine. Nonetheless, by early 2022, aged 60, he decided that it was time to retire back home. On the morning of February 24, his bags were packed when his Ukrainian roommates woke him: the Russians had just crossed the border. What followed was one of the bloodiest and most brutal sieges of the 21st century. Thousands of civilians and soldiers were killed by Russia's indiscriminate flattening of the city. Harding spent months in Azovstal Plant, several storeys underground, and Freeman describes these episodes with blunt honesty: Harding holds his injured comrades down whilst they have limbs removed without anaesthetic ('We're going to cut your leg off, mate, it's going to f------ hurt.') Then, that spring, all the soldiers in the Azovstal plant were ordered to surrender to Russian captivity. Harding subsequently endured months of torture before being exchanged in a prisoner swap, brokered by Saudi Arabia. In his introduction, Freeman notes that since most of us are lucky enough never to experience the horrors described by the legionnaires, the vocabulary to describe them is sparse. This may be true, but Freeman nonetheless succeeds with a careful balance of sensitivity and honesty, as well as a dash of dark humour. This is particularly striking in the case of one of Harding's cellmates, Alex Drueke, a US army veteran who came to serve in Ukraine as a 'kill-or-cure' for the PTSD he'd suffered in Iraq. While held in a Russian-run prison, he's told 'We are going to kill you' by an official; later, it transpires that said official is his defence lawyer. And then there's Drueke's friend, the prison handyman Artyom, in whom, 'if one overlooked his cadaverous face, faded Nazi tattoos, and rotten, curiously misshapen teeth, there were positive qualities to be found.' These positive qualities – mostly the fact that Artyom was not directly involved in the prisoners' torture – are somewhat undermined when Drueke finds out that, several years previously, Artyom murdered and ate three people. There are more conventionally heroic stories, though, and one of the most powerful is that of the Briton Christopher Perryman. After having joined the army at 16, Perryman went on to serve in Iraq, Somalia and Bosnia. By 2022, however, he was working as a security guard for an HS2 building site. After watching the tanks roll into Kyiv on the news that February, Perryman took a week to consider his next steps. With a young son at home, the decision to go and fight in somebody else's war was not an easy one. But, he reasoned, with so many Ukrainian fathers having to make the same decision, most of them without a shred of the military experience he had accrued, Perryman decided that he really had no choice but to put that experience to good use. Once in Ukraine, he served in several different units, amassing a large social media following thanks to his running commentary on the war, posted directly from the frontlines. In the autumn of 2023, he was sent on a mission to Snake Island, a small patch of rocky land off the coast of Odesa, which became famous early in the war when Ukrainians stationed there refused to surrender to Russian troops, telling them to 'go f---' themselves. Perryman was killed by an artillery strike not long afterwards. Several of these men were killed, others returned home and began the process of dealing with their PTSD, and some remain in Ukraine. In 2021, few of this book's heroes would have been worthy of the title. Freeman's work here, however, proves that they undoubtedly now are. And yet ultimately – as Freeman himself notes – whether these heroes came to escape failing marriages or to seek one last adrenaline hit, 'the war didn't really care why people came to fight, only that they did so.' Ada Wordsworth is director of KHARPP, a charity providing aid in Ukraine. The Mad and the Brave: The Extraordinary Story of Ukraine's Volunteer Fighting Force is published by Mudlark at £22.00. To order your copy for £18.99, call 0330 173 0523 or visit Telegraph Books
