Ghislaine Maxwell Moves Forward With Appeal Days After Trump DOJ Meeting
The convicted child sex trafficker's team filed a new brief with the Supreme Court urging it to overturn her conviction.
Maxwell's team has argued that the government failed to live up to its obligation to honor a plea and non-prosecution agreement.
The partner of the late convicted sex offender and disgraced financier is serving 20 years in prison after being convicted in December 2021.
But in the brief, her lawyer argued that 'this case is about what the government promised, not what Epstein did.'
In a statement to the Daily Beast, Maxwell's lawyer David Oscar Markus argued the government promised immunity in Florida but violated that agreement when it moved in New York to prosecute her.
He also made a direct appeal to President Donald Trump, who has not ruled out pardoning Maxwell.
'We are appealing not only to the Supreme Court but to the President himself to recognize how profoundly unjust it is to scapegoat Ghislaine Maxwell for Epstein's crimes, especially when the government promised she would not be prosecuted,' Markus said.
Maxwell's appeal effort comes amid ongoing fallout over the Justice Department's failure to release the Epstein files despite Trump's campaign promise.
The president has been furiously trying to distance himself from both Epstein and Maxwell, who he was known to have a relationship before he ever ran for office.
Last week, it was revealed in a bombshell Wall Street Journal report that Trump was informed this spring by the Justice Department that his name appeared in the Epstein files multiple times.
As Attorney General Pam Bondi struggled to respond to outrage over the botched release of documents, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche met with Maxwell over two days last week for about nine hours to question her over the Epstein case.
It was a highly irregular move for the deputy attorney general of the United States. Blanche also previously served as Trump's personal defense attorney, raising further questions as the president pushes back on a series of damaging Epstein reports.
During their lengthy sitdown, Maxwell answered all of Blanche's questions and provided information on about 100 different people, according to her lawyer.
When asked about potentially pardoning Maxwell on Friday, Trump claimed he had not thought about it, but he did not rule it out, telling reporters that he was 'allowed' to do it.
Hours later, Maxwell's lawyer indicated they could seek a pardon. Markus, speaking to reporters, noted Trump's comments about it and said the president should do what is 'just.'
Trump on Monday reiterated that he is 'allowed' to pardon Epstein's co-conspirator when asked about it again during his visit to Scotland, but he insisted no one had asked him to issue one.
'Nobody's asked me about it. It's in the news about that, that aspect of it, but right now, it would be inappropriate to talk about it,' Trump said.
In the briefing to the Supreme Court on Monday, Maxwell's lawyer argued that the lower courts were split over whether the government broke its promise on plea and non-prosecution agreements.
Epstein pleaded guilty in 2008 to state prostitution charges. He was indicted on federal sex trafficking charges in July 2019 but died by suicide in prison a month later.
The Supreme Court will likely decide whether to grant the case this fall when it returns.
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Not long after it was first reported that Ghislaine Maxwell was moved to one of the cushiest federal detention facilities in the country, a private Facebook group dedicated to current and former federal prison staffers erupted in shock and outrage. The federal prison camp in Bryan, Texas, is one of seven minimum security, dormitory-style federal security facilities that do not typically hold inmates like Maxwell, 63, who are convicted of sex crimes and serving lengthy sentences. 'As a retired BOP employee, this makes me sick,' wrote one person on the 'Bureau of Prisons staff and retirees' Facebook page. 'Since when are sex offenders allowed at the camp?' another wrote. 'I don't care who she snitched on, she's a damn human trafficker." NBC News reviewed screenshots of the page, which were provided by one of the group's members. The Facebook group is open only to those who pass an extensive vetting process to ensure they are, in fact, current or former BOP staffers, according to the member who has knowledge of how it is administered. Vito Maraviglia, a retired federal prison special investigative agent, said in an interview that in his 27 years on the job he doesn't recall an instance in which a sex offender was moved to a prison camp. Placing Maxwell there meant it would be easier for her to escape or for someone on the outside to target her on the camp's grounds, Maraviglia said. 'The logic to me is not there,' he added. 'It doesn't pass the smell test.' Robert Hood, a former Bureau of Prisons chief of internal affairs, said in an email to NBC News that Maxwell's transfer to the camp in Bryan is a 'travesty of justice.' 'To relocate a sex offender serving 20 years to a country club setting is offensive to victims and others serving similar crimes,' wroteHood, who also served as warden at the ADX Florence 'supermax' prison in Colorado. Maxwell is serving a 20-year prison sentence for recruiting and grooming teenage girls to be sexually abused by her confidant, Jeffrey Epstein. Her case has gained renewed attention in recent weeks as a growing chorus of critics, mainly right-wing influencers and Trump supporters, have criticized the administration's decision not to release all federal files related to Epstein. Maxwell had been locked up in a low-security facility in Tallahassee, Florida, that housed men and women. But she was moved to the all-women, minimum-security federal prison camp in Texas last week after she and her lawyer answered questions from Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche for nine hours over two days. Josh Lepird, regional vice president for the federal prison officers' union that includes Maxwell's new home, said in an interview that any inmate would want to serve their time at the prison camp in Bryan. 'You ever hear of the old 'Club Fed' they used to talk about? This is one of those places,' said Lepird. 'It's really a great place to do your time if you're an inmate.' Inmates held at the facility have more programs available to them, Lepird said, including one that involves training service dogs for people with disabilities. They also have the freedom to roam its grounds, which are surrounded by a small fence and not razor wire or walls. The risk of escape is among the reasons why sex offenders and others who committed violent crimes are not placed at camps like the one in Bryan, according to current and former federal prison staffers. As NBC News has previously reported, Bureau of Prisons rules require sex offenders to be held in at least a low-level security prison like FCI Tallahassee, unless they receive a waiver. Only the administrator of BOP's Designation and Sentence Computation Center can make that decision, according to the waiver policy. Lepird, the union official, said he found it 'very odd' that an inmate like Maxwell was moved there. 'The best I can say is there is some kind of cooperating involved,' he surmised. The Bureau of Prisons has confirmed Maxwell's transfer but has not provided an explanation for it. A spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Maxwell's attorney, David Oscar Markus, has also not responded to questions about the transfer. Epstein, the wealthy financier, died in a New York City jail in 2019 while he was awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges. His death was deemed a suicide. 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