US Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche is reportedly meeting with Jeffrey Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell at a federal courthouse in Florida.
CNN reports that Maxwell’s lawyer, David Oscar Markus, was seen arriving at the federal courthouse in Tallahassee on Friday morning (AEST).
A source said Maxwell and her lawyer were meeting Blanche.
Commentators said it was a highly unusual move for the Justice Department’s second in charge to meet a convicted criminal serving a 20-year sentence for sex trafficking.
Blanche was also Trump’s former lead defence lawyer in his hush money criminal trial.
The decision to request a meeting with Maxwell came amid a growing Epstein cover-up scandal that US President Donald Trump has been trying to quell.
Earlier this week Blanche said that if Maxwell “has information about anyone who has committed crimes against victims, the FBI and the DOJ will hear what she has to say”.
Maxwell’s lawyer said this week: “I can confirm that we are in discussions with the government and that Ghislaine will always testify truthfully.
“We are grateful to President Trump for his commitment to uncovering the truth in this case.”
US Attorney General Pam Bondi told Trump in May that his name appeared in investigative files related to Epstein, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal.
The White House has sent mixed signals following the story — first dismissing it as “fake news”, while an official later said the administration did not deny Trump’s name appears in some files.
The official noted that Trump was already included in materials Bondi assembled in February for conservative influencers.
In another development, a subcommittee of the US House Oversight Committee has approved a subpoena seeking all Justice Department files on Epstein.
Three Republicans joined five Democrats to back the effort, in a sign that Trump’s party is not ready to move on from the issue.
Trump, who was friendly with Epstein up to the early 2000s, appears multiple times on flight logs for Epstein’s private plane in the 1990s.
Trump and members of his family also appear in an Epstein contact book, alongside hundreds of others.
Much of that material had been publicly released in the criminal case against Epstein’s former associate Maxwell.
Epstein’s long-time pilot testified that Trump flew on Epstein’s private plane multiple times. Trump has denied being on the plane.
Trump has not been accused of wrongdoing related to Epstein and has said their friendship ended before Epstein’s legal troubles began two decades ago.
Trump has faced intense criticism from his supporters after his administration said it would not release the Epstein files, reversing a campaign promise.
Under political pressure last week, Trump directed the Justice Department to seek the release of sealed grand jury transcripts related to Epstein.
US District Judge Robin Rosenberg has denied one of those requests, finding that it did not fall into any of the exceptions to rules requiring grand jury material be kept secret.
Last week, the Journal reported that Trump had sent Epstein a bawdy birthday note in 2003 that ended, “Happy Birthday — and may every day be another wonderful secret.”
Trump has sued the Journal and its owners, including billionaire Rupert Murdoch, asserting the birthday note was fake.
Epstein died by suicide in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges, to which he had pleaded not guilty. In a separate case, he pleaded guilty in 2008 to a prostitution charge in Florida and received a 13-month sentence in what is now widely regarded as too lenient a deal with prosecutors.
Epstein’s connections with wealthy and powerful individuals prompted speculation his death was not a suicide. The Justice Department said in its memo this month that it had concluded he died by his own hand.
In a sign of how the issue has bedevilled Trump and divided his fellow Republicans, US House Speaker Mike Johnson on Tuesday abruptly said he would send lawmakers home for the summer a day early to avoid a floor fight over a vote on the Epstein files.
Trump, stung and frustrated by the continued focus on the story, has sought to divert attention to other topics, including unfounded accusations that former president Barack Obama undermined his successful 2016 presidential campaign. Obama’s office denounced the allegations as “ridiculous.”
Some of Trump’s staunchest supporters have called on Bondi to resign after she back-tracked on a promise from earlier this year to release additional materials including “a lot of names” and “a lot of flight logs” in connection with Epstein’s clients.
After releasing only select records that failed to shed new light on the case, the Justice Department and the FBI released a joint memo earlier this month that poured cold water on long-running conspiracy theories about Epstein by saying there was “no incriminating client list” or any evidence of blackmail.
Since then, at Trump’s direction, Bondi and Blanche have asked a federal court for permission to unseal grand jury transcripts in the cases of Epstein and Maxwell, who was convicted in 2021 of five federal charges related to her role in Epstein’s alleged sexual abuse of underage girls.
However, legal experts including one of Epstein’s former laywers, Alan Dershowitz, have said that those transcripts will not likely contain the types of materials sought by Trump’s supporters.
A judge could also deny the request.
In an interview on Fox News last Sunday, Dershowitz called on the department to release other materials such as FBI reports of interviews with Epstein’s victims.
He also urged the government to grant Maxwell immunity so that she could potentially testify before Congress about Epstein’s crimes.
-with AAP
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