Ghislaine Maxwell pleads Fifth Amendment, dodges questions in House Oversight Epstein probe

Disgraced socialite, Ghislaine Maxwell on Monday, February 9 refused to answer questions from the House Oversight Committee, invoking her Fifth Amendment right during a closed-door deposition linked to the federal government’s handling of the late Jeffrey Epstein’s case.
 

The deposition ended less than an hour after it began, shortly after Maxwell appeared virtually before lawmakers. She is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence in Texas following her conviction as an accomplice in Epstein’s sex trafficking operation.
 

The House Oversight Committee Chairman, James Comer, and committee member Ro Khanna had both indicated ahead of the session that they expected Maxwell to decline answering questions.
 

The former British socialite was found guilty in December 2021 for her role in Epstein’s scheme to sexually exploit and traffic underage girls. At the time of her sentencing, the Department of Justice said Maxwell “enticed and groomed minor girls to be abused in multiple ways.”
 

Comer had announced plans to depose Maxwell late last month while discussing efforts to hold former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in contempt of Congress for declining to appear before the committee.
 

“We’ve been trying to get her in for a deposition. Our lawyers have been saying that she’s going to plead the Fifth, but we have nailed down a date, Feb. 9, where Ghislaine Maxwell will be deposed by this committee,” Comer said.
 

However, contempt proceedings against the Clintons stalled after they agreed through their attorneys to testify in person on Capitol Hill, just days before the House was expected to vote on referring them to the Department of Justice for possible criminal charges.
 

Comer’s office had been in prolonged negotiations with Maxwell’s legal team to secure her appearance. A previous deposition scheduled for August was postponed at her lawyer’s request, pending a Supreme Court decision on whether it would hear her appeal. The Supreme Court declined to take up the case in October.
 

Maxwell’s deposition, alongside the planned testimonies of the Clintons, forms part of the committee’s ongoing investigation into how authorities handled Epstein’s case.