Jeffrey Epstein accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell grilled by top US Justice Department official
Warning: This story contains references to sexual abuse and suicide.
David Markus, Maxwell's attorney, said the former British socialite answered every question she was asked during a day-long meeting with Deputy Attorney-General Todd Blanche at a courthouse in Tallahassee, Florida.
"She never invoked a privilege. She never declined to answer," Mr Markus said.
Mr Markus said he was not going to comment on the "substance" of the meeting with Mr Blanche, Mr Trump's former personal lawyer for his hush money trial and two federal criminal cases, or whether there would be further discussions.
Maxwell, 63, is serving a 20-year sentence after being convicted in 2021 of recruiting underage girls for Epstein, who died in a New York jail in 2019 while awaiting trial in his own sex trafficking case.
Earlier this week, Mr Blanche said if Maxwell had "information about anyone who has committed crimes against victims, the FBI and the DOJ will hear what she has to say".
"No one is above the law — and no lead is off-limits," he said.
Mr Trump, 79, was once a close friend of Epstein and The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday that the president's name was among hundreds found during a DOJ review of the so-called "Epstein files", though there has not been evidence of wrongdoing.
Mr Trump filed a $US10 billion ($15 billion) defamation suit against the Journal last week after it reported that he had penned a sexually suggestive letter to Epstein for his 50th birthday in 2003.
Maxwell is the only former Epstein associate convicted in connection with his activities, which right-wing conspiracy theorists allege had included trafficking young models for VIPs.
The meeting with Maxwell marks another attempt by the Trump administration to defuse anger among the Republican president's own supporters over what they have long seen as a cover-up of sex crimes by Epstein, who was a wealthy financier with high-level connections.
Democratic Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer said the meeting between Maxwell and a Justice Department official who used to be Mr Trump's own lawyer smacked of a "corrupt deal so that [Attorney-General Pam Bondi] can exonerate Donald Trump".
Democratic Senator Sheldon Whitehouse said it raised some troubling questions.
"Is he really going as [deputy attorney-general] or is he going de facto as Trump's personal criminal attorney, Tom Hagen style?" the senator said in a reference to the Corleone family lawyer in The Godfather.
"Will he promise her a pardon for silence, or for a Trump-friendly tale?" Senator Whitehouse asked.
Many of the president's core supporters want more transparency on the Epstein case, and Mr Trump had promised to deliver that on retaking the White House in January.
But he has since dismissed the controversy as a "hoax" and a "witch hunt", and the DOJ and FBI released a memo this month claiming the Epstein files did not contain evidence that would justify further investigation.
Epstein committed suicide while in jail and was not murdered, did not blackmail any prominent figures, and did not keep a "client list", according to the July 7 FBI-DOJ memo.
Epstein was found hanging dead in his New York prison cell while awaiting trial on charges that he sexually exploited hundreds of victims at his homes in New York and Florida.
AFP
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