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NDTV
5 days ago
- Politics
- NDTV
Why Ghislaine Maxwell May Finally Reveal Jeffrey Epstein's Secrets: Report
Ghislaine Maxwell, serving a 20-year sentence in a Florida prison for sex trafficking minors on behalf of Jeffrey Epstein, may finally be ready to talk. Deputy attorney general Todd Blanche is expected to meet her in prison, raising speculation about a potential breakthrough in the Epstein investigation. "She's going to make a deal," said Alan Dershowitz, a legal scholar and former lawyer to Epstein, according to a report in The New York Post. "That's the way things are done. They make deals with the mafia, so I'm certain they are going to try to make a deal with her." Blanche, who confirmed on July 22 his intentions to meet Maxwell, could be opening the door to negotiations that might see the former British socialite offer detailed information in exchange for a reduced sentence. Legal experts believe such a meeting may allow Maxwell to put forward evidence only she possesses about her years alongside Epstein. Maxwell, now 63, has long been viewed as a key figure in unlocking the full scale of Epstein's criminal enterprise. Dershowitz referred to her as the "Rosetta stone" of the scandal, stating: "She knows everything, not just about the perpetrators but the victims. And she knows about the victims who became perpetrators." Court documents and investigations have revealed that some of Epstein's more than 1,000 victims were themselves manipulated into recruiting other young girls. Maxwell is believed to have facilitated Epstein's access to high society and powerful circles across the globe, including the British royal family. The New York Post report said that she has indicated, through her brother Ian, a willingness to testify before a Congressional Committee regarding her ties to Epstein. If this potential deal with Blanche materialises, it will be the first time federal prosecutors hear Maxwell's account of her involvement. Her lawyers had previously insisted she was innocent and saw no need to negotiate. After Epstein died in federal custody in 2019, a death that was officially ruled as suicide, conspiracy theories flourished, particularly around a suspected "client list" of influential people who may have engaged in sex acts with underage girls. A joint memo by the Department of Justice and FBI dismissed the existence of such a list, declaring that Epstein acted alone. With the government unlikely to release further details, Maxwell's version becomes very important. US President Donald Trump has repeatedly dismissed the Epstein affair as a "hoax", though he recently voiced support for authorities engaging with Maxwell. "I think it would be something, sounds appropriate to do, yeah," he told Politico. As anticipation builds, the focus is now on whether Maxwell will reveal new details about Epstein's criminal network.
Sky News AU
5 days ago
- Politics
- Sky News AU
What Ghislaine Maxwell really knows - and why she could finally spill all on Jeffrey Epstein: sources
Ex-socialite Ghislaine Maxwell will try to cut a deal with federal authorities during a jailhouse meeting with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, sources told The Post. Blanche said Tuesday he plans to meet with the convicted madam, currently serving a 20- year sentence in Florida for sex trafficking young women for her former boss, notorious pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. 'She's going to make a deal,' said Alan Dershowitz, a lawyer and law professor who was pals with, and previously represented, Epstein, who died in federal custody in August 2019. 'That's the way things are done. They make deals with the mafia, so I'm certain they are going to try to make a deal with her.' A separate legal expert explained meeting with Blanche presents an opportunity for Maxwell to potentially lessen her sentence or get out of prison in exchange for spiling secrets about her and Epstein's life, which she has closely guarded since his death. Dershowitz has referred to Maxwell, 63, as the 'Rosetta stone' of information about Epstein, and told The Post Tuesday 'she knows everything — not just about the perpetrators but the victims. And she knows about the victims who became perpetrators.' Some of Epstein's victims – which number over 1,000 in total according to the Department of Justice – were groomed to recruit other young women, according to court papers. Maxwell has been closely associated with Epstein since the death of her publishing magnate father Robert Maxwell in 1991. The pair were inseparable at high society parties across New York and the world spanning the next two decades. Maxwell benefitted from Epstein's mysteriously accumulated fortune, while she was seen as his social fixer, able to gain the somewhat unrefined character access to rarefied society circles. Maxwell – who was, at one point, Epstein's girlfriend – got him access even to the UK royal family and facilitated his friendship with Prince Andrew. The British prince shelled out more than $16 million to Virginia Giuffre, one of the young women recruited by Maxwell and Epstein. Giuffre, who took her own life in April, also alleged she had been passed around as a sex slave to others, although their identities have never properly been established. Maxwell said through her brother she would be willing to testify before a Congressional Committee on her relationship with Epstein. It could be the first time federal prosecutors hear her version of events, as both her defense lawyers and prosecutors said they had not engaged in plea negotiations which would require such an interview before her trial. Her lawyers at the time said she did not need to negotiate as she was innocent. The case has been thrust back into the spotlight by the justice department's promise to release all the information gathered by the FBI from raiding Epstein's properties earlier this year, only to then walk it back. A Justice Department-FBI joint memo concluded the 66-year-old financier killed himself in a federal lockup and did not have a 'client list' of powerful friends who allegedly took part in sexual encounters with underage women. With no more information expected to be released by the federal government, Maxwell's version of events once again becomes of prime importance. She is believed to have kept silent while her appeals process played out for fear of jeopardizing her chances in the case. However, with most of her possibilities of appeal recently exhausted – apart from one petition to the Supreme Court – she may now feel compelled to give her side of the story. Her brother, Ian Maxwell, speaks to his sister frequently and has, alongside other members of his family, fought her corner since her initial arrest in 2020. He also denied the existence of a client list of powerful people girls had been trafficked to. 'Let's not try and big it up for more than it is. I think it was a high-quality address book. I don't think it constitutes 'a list', let alone a list of alleged people to whom young minor girls were trafficked,' Ian told 'Piers Morgan Uncensored'. 'Ghislaine's position on this, for what it's worth, has been, she doesn't ever believe that such a list existed.' Ian Maxwell has also said he believes his sister should never have been prosecuted due to a deal Epstein cut with Florida federal prosecutors when he was first convicted of sex offenses in 2007. In exchange for pleading guilty to lesser charges of soliciting a prostitute, the deal Epstein signed said he and any co-conspirators would be immune from further federal prosecution. New York prosecutors later argued successfully in court that the deal's jurisdiction ended in Florida. Maxwell was then convicted after a trial in New York in 2021, and has been serving her sentence at the Federal Correctional Institution in Tallahassee, a low security prison, since July 2022. Her family has long claimed the prison is unsafe and Maxwell is subject to poor living conditions, and frequently placed in solitary confinement. They also say they fear for her life. 'Prisons are very dangerous places and we know from Ghislaine that there are serious staff shortages and more dangerous higher-risk-category prisoners now being admitted to … Tallahassee,' said Ian Maxwell. With questions about the circumstances of Epstein's death in federal prison in 2019 still raging, some fear for Ghislaine's wellbeing and vulnerability while in prison. President Trump has blasted the Epstein saga as a 'hoax' and ripped a faction of his supporters who have fixated on the scandal, which involved allegations of orgies and sexual encounters on Epstein's private plane, his homes in Palm Beach and Manhattan as well as Little St. James, his former private island in the Caribbean. However, he approved of the outreach to Maxwell on Tuesday, saying: 'I think it would be something — sounds appropriate to do, yeah,' according to Politico. Originally published as What Ghislaine Maxwell really knows - and why she could finally spill all on Jeffrey Epstein: sources
Yahoo
08-07-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Former Biden doctor asks to delay testimony to House committee investigating mental fitness
Former White House physician Kevin O'Connor, who served as doctor to former President Joe Biden, requested a delay to his upcoming testimony before the House Oversight Committee this week. O'Connor was scheduled to testify on Wednesday, but is now in a disagreement with the committee over the scope of the questions he will be expected to answer during his testimony. The committee, led by Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., is interviewing the doctor as part of its investigation into Biden's mental fitness and his administration's use of an autopen. A lawyer for O'Connor requested the testimony be delayed to July 28 or August 4 in a letter to Comer. "Dr. O'Connor has legal and ethical obligations that he must satisfy and for which violations carry serious consequences to him professionally and personally," the letter says. Biden Insists 'I Made The Decisions' As Republicans Investigate White House Autopen Use "We are unaware of any prior occasion on which a Congressional Committee has subpoenaed a physician to testify about the treatment of an individual patient. And the notion that a Congressional Committee would do so without any regard whatsoever for the confidentiality of the physician-patient relationship is alarming." Read On The Fox News App A spokesman for the Oversight Committee replied in a statement that O'Connor and his legal team were merely trying to "stonewall" the process. The committee is planning to move forward with Wednesday's testimony, which O'Connor faces a subpoena to attend. The committee said O'Connor is welcome to object to individual questions during his testimony. But O'Connor is not allowed, in the committee's view, to delay or decline a congressional subpoena due to concerns over questions about potentially privileged information. Who Is Neera Tanden? The Controversial Dem Operative Who Testified On Biden's Mental Acuity The debate over O'Connor's testimony comes weeks after a former top aide to Biden, Neera Tanden, told the Oversight Committee that she was authorized to direct autopen signatures but was unaware of who in the president's inner circle was giving her final clearance. During Tanden's interview before Congress last month, which lasted more than five hours, she told lawmakers that, in her role as staff secretary and senior advisor to the former president between 2021 and 2023, she was authorized to direct autopen signatures on behalf of Biden, an Oversight Committee official told Fox News. "Ms. Tanden testified that she had minimal interaction with President Biden, despite wielding tremendous authority," Comer said at the time. "She explained that to obtain approval for autopen signatures, she would send decision memos to members of the President's inner circle and had no visibility of what occurred between sending the memo and receiving it back with approval. Her testimony raises serious questions about who was really calling the shots in the Biden White House amid the President's obvious decline. We will continue to pursue the truth for the American people." Read O'Connor's full letter to the committee below (App users click here) Fox News' Kelly Phares and Madeleine Rivera and the Associated Press contributed to this article source: Former Biden doctor asks to delay testimony to House committee investigating mental fitness
Yahoo
08-07-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Biden's former doctor requests postponement of his testimony to the House Oversight Committee
Kevin O'Connor, who served as President Biden's physician during his term, asked the House Oversight Committee Saturday to postpone scheduled testimony over disagreements on the scope of the questions the Republican-led committee can ask him. O'Connor is scheduled to give a deposition on Wednesday as part of the committee's probe into Biden's mental acuity and his use of an autopen signing device. In a letter to Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), the chair of the committee, David Schertler, a lawyer for O'Connor, asked to postpone the testimony to the week of July 28 or August 4. In the letter, Schertler raised concerns that O'Connor would not be able to protect doctor-patient privilege during the testimony, and said that the committee had declined to rule out any limitations to the scope of the deposition. 'Dr. O'Connor has legal and ethical obligations that he must satisfy and for which violations carry serious consequences to him professionally and personally,' the letter reads. 'We are unaware of any prior occasion on which a Congressional Committee has subpoenaed a physician to testify about the treatment of an individual patient. And the notion that a Congressional Committee would do so without any regard whatsoever for the confidentiality of the physician-patient relationship is alarming.' A spokesperson for the committee told NBC News, which first reported the letter, that O'Connor was attempting to 'stonewall' the investigation. The spokesperson said the doctor was welcome to assert that answers to individual questions were private between the doctor and patient during the deposition. The committee has already interviewed Neera Tanden, the former director of the White House Domestic Policy Council. Top Jill Biden aide Anthony Bernal was previously scheduled to testify but elected not to show, resulting in a subpoena from the committee. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
The Hill
08-07-2025
- Health
- The Hill
Biden's former doctor requests postponement of his testimony to the House Oversight Committee
Kevin O'Connor, who served as President Biden's physician during his term, asked the House Oversight Committee Saturday to postpone scheduled testimony over disagreements on the scope of the questions the Republican-led committee can ask him. O'Connor is scheduled to give a deposition on Wednesday as part of the committee's probe into Biden's mental acuity and his use of an autopen signing device. In a letter to Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), the chair of the committee, David Schertler, a lawyer for O'Connor, asked to postpone the testimony to the week of July 28 or August 4. In the letter, Schertler raised concerns that O'Connor would not be able to protect doctor-patient privilege during the testimony, and said that the committee had declined to rule out any limitations to the scope of the deposition. 'Dr. O'Connor has legal and ethical obligations that he must satisfy and for which violations carry serious consequences to him professionally and personally,' the letter reads. 'We are unaware of any prior occasion on which a Congressional Committee has subpoenaed a physician to testify about the treatment of an individual patient. And the notion that a Congressional Committee would do so without any regard whatsoever for the confidentiality of the physician-patient relationship is alarming.' A spokesperson for the committee told NBC News, which first reported the letter, that O'Connor was attempting to 'stonewall' the investigation. The spokesperson said the doctor was welcome to assert that answers to individual questions were private between the doctor and patient during the deposition. The committee has already interviewed Neera Tanden, the former director of the White House Domestic Policy Council. Top Jill Biden aide Anthony Bernal was previously scheduled to testify but elected not to show, resulting in a subpoena from the committee.
