Ghislaine Maxwell, serving a 20-year sentence for sex trafficking, invoked her Fifth Amendment rights Monday and declined to answer questions during a House committee deposition conducted via video call to the federal prison camp in Texas where she remains incarcerated.
The closed-door session amounted to a dead end — at least for now. Lawmakers from both parties left the meeting with little to show for it beyond one curious detail: Maxwell's attorney told the committee that his client would be willing to testify that neither President Donald Trump nor former President Bill Clinton was culpable for wrongdoing in their relationships with Jeffrey Epstein, the well-connected financier who sexually abused underage girls for years.
As reported by Breitbart, Rep. James Comer, the Republican chair of the committee that subpoenaed Maxwell last year, said the result was "very disappointing."
The assertion from Maxwell's legal team — that she'd clear both Trump and Clinton — raised immediate suspicion among Democrats in the room. Rep. Melanie Stansbury, a New Mexico Democrat, didn't mince words:
"It's very clear she's campaigning for clemency."
It's a fair read on its face. Maxwell has been fighting her conviction from every available angle. The Supreme Court rejected her appeal last year. In December, her attorneys went back to a federal judge in New York and requested that the court consider what they describe as "substantial new evidence" that her trial was spoiled by constitutional violations. No specifics about that evidence have been made public.
So Maxwell won't answer questions under oath — but she will, through counsel, volunteer exculpatory statements about two of the most powerful men ever linked to Epstein. One of those men happens to be the sitting president with the power to grant clemency.
That's not testimony. That's an audition.
The more consequential development may be what comes next. Comer had pressed to enforce subpoenas on both Bill and Hillary Clinton, going so far as to threaten contempt of Congress charges. That pressure worked. Both Clintons have agreed to sit for depositions later this month.
Comer reiterated Monday that he would insist on closed-door depositions, with transcripts and video released afterward — a format that prioritizes substance over spectacle. It's the kind of approach that strips away the grandstanding that typically poisons congressional hearings and forces witnesses to answer in full rather than hide behind five-minute sound bites.
Whether the Clintons offer anything of value remains to be seen. Their decades-long association with Epstein has generated enormous public interest and remarkably little accountability. Bill Clinton's documented visits to Epstein's properties and his use of Epstein's private jet have been subjects of scrutiny for years. The depositions later this month will test whether congressional subpoena power can extract anything the public doesn't already know — or suspect.
Monday's session wasn't solely about Maxwell. Lawmakers also planned to review unredacted Epstein files released by the Department of Justice to comply with a law Congress passed last year. The release of those documents has been a long-sought priority for members on both sides of the aisle, though the details of what they contain — and what they reveal about the broader network around Epstein — remain tightly held for now.
Maxwell's decision to invoke the Fifth is her legal right. No one disputes that. But the juxtaposition is worth noting: a convicted sex trafficker refuses to answer questions under oath while simultaneously positioning herself — through her attorney — as a cooperative witness who can exonerate the powerful. She wants credit for what she's willing to say without bearing the legal risk of actually saying it under penalty of perjury.
That's not cooperation. That's leverage.
The Epstein saga has tested public patience for the better part of a decade. The victims — underage girls who were trafficked and abused — have watched as the powerful figures who orbited Epstein faced almost no consequences. Epstein himself died in federal custody under circumstances that remain, charitably, unexplained. Maxwell was convicted and sentenced to 20 years, but the broader network that enabled the abuse has largely escaped scrutiny.
Comer's committee has the subpoena power. It has the Clintons scheduled. It has the DOJ files. What it doesn't have — yet — is a single moment of genuine accountability from anyone in Epstein's orbit who held real power.
Maxwell had a chance to change that Monday. She chose the Fifth instead — and a press strategy through her lawyer. The Clintons will sit in those chairs later this month. The question is whether they'll do anything more than she did.
