Epstein accomplice Maxwell moved to minimum security Texas prison
No reason was given for Maxwell's transfer but it comes a week after a top Justice Department official met with her to ask questions about Epstein, who died in a New York jail in 2019 while awaiting trial for allegedly sex trafficking underage girls.
"We can confirm Ghislaine Maxwell is in the custody of the Federal Bureau of Prisons at the Federal Prison Camp (FPC) Bryan in Bryan, Texas," a Bureau of Prisons spokesman said.
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, President Donald Trump's former personal lawyer, interviewed Maxwell for two days at a Florida courthouse last week in a highly unusual meeting between a convicted felon and high-ranking Justice official.
Blanche has declined so far to say what was discussed but Maxwell's lawyer, David Markus, said she answered every question she was asked.
Maxwell has offered to testify before Congress about Epstein if given immunity and has also reportedly been seeking a pardon from Trump, a one-time close friend of Epstein.
She had been subpoenaed to give a deposition to the House Oversight Committee on Aug 11, but Politico reported Friday it had been postponed indefinitely.
The former British socialite is serving a 20-year sentence after being convicted in 2021 of recruiting underage girls for Epstein.
Two women who said they were sexually abused by Epstein and Maxwell and the family of another accuser who recently committed suicide condemned the prison transfer.
"It is with horror and outrage that we object to the preferential treatment convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell has received," Annie and Maria Farmer and the family of Virginia Giuffre said in a statement Friday.
"Ghislaine Maxwell is a sexual predator who physically assaulted minor children on multiple occasions, and she should never be shown any leniency," they said.
"Yet, without any notification to the Maxwell victims, the government overnight has moved Maxwell to a minimum security luxury prison in Texas," they said. "This move smacks of a cover-up. The victims deserve better."
Tim Hogan, a senior Democratic National Committee advisor, also denounced what he alleged was a "government cover-up in real time."
"Donald Trump's FBI, run by loyalist Kash Patel, redacted Trump's name from the Epstein files – which have still not been released," Hogan said.
"While Trump and his administration try to cover up the heinous crimes included in those files, they're simultaneously doing favors for convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell."
Trump is facing mounting demands from Democrats and many of his conspiracy-minded Make America Great Again supporters to be more transparent about the case of the wealthy and well-connected Epstein.
Trump's supporters have been obsessed with the Epstein case for years and have been up in arms since the FBI and Justice Department said last month that Epstein had committed suicide while in jail, did not blackmail any prominent figures, and did not keep a "client list."
The president raised further questions this week as he told reporters he fell out with Epstein after the financier "stole" female employees from the spa at Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.
One of those girls was Giuffre, who accused Epstein of using her as a sex slave and committed suicide at her home in Australia in April.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Sun
7 hours ago
- The Sun
Julian Assange joins pro-Palestinian protest on Sydney Harbour Bridge
SYDNEY: Tens of thousands of pro-Palestinian protesters, including WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, marched across the Sydney Harbour Bridge on Sunday, temporarily shutting down the iconic landmark. Assange, who returned to Australia last year after his release from a high-security British prison, was seen alongside family and former Australian foreign minister Bob Carr. The demonstration comes as international pressure mounts on Israel over the Gaza conflict, with France, Britain, and Canada recently signaling potential diplomatic recognition of a Palestinian state. Australia has urged an end to the war but has yet to commit to recognition, though it joined other nations in a joint statement supporting a two-state solution. Protesters endured heavy rain and wind, chanting 'ceasefire now' and 'free Palestine.' New South Wales police deployed additional officers to manage the event. Greens senator Mehreen Faruqi addressed the crowd at Lang Park, calling for sanctions against Israel and criticizing state premier Chris Minns for opposing the protest. Marchers displayed banners listing names of Palestinian children killed in the conflict, while Labor MP Ed Husic urged his party to recognize Palestine. Assange did not speak publicly. The Gaza health ministry reports over 60,000 Palestinian deaths since the war began following Hamas's October 2023 attack, which killed 1,219 people in Israel. Forty-nine hostages remain in Gaza, with 27 presumed dead. The Sydney Harbour Bridge, opened in 1932, is a globally recognized symbol of the city and nation. - Bernama
New Straits Times
8 hours ago
- New Straits Times
Assange joins pro-Palestinian protest on Sydney Harbour Bridge
SYDNEY: Tens of thousands of pro-Palestinian protesters including WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange marched across the Sydney Harbour Bridge on Sunday, closing the world famous landmark. Assange, who returned to Australia last year after his release from a high-security British prison, was pictured surrounded by family and marching alongside former Australian foreign minister and New South Wales premier Bob Carr. France, Britain and Canada have in recent weeks voiced, in some cases qualified, intentions to diplomatically recognise a Palestinian state as international concern and criticism have grown over malnutrition in Gaza. Australia has called for an end to the war in Gaza but has so far stopped short of a decision to recognise a Palestinian state. But in a joint statement with more than a dozen other nations on Tuesday it expressed the "willingness or the positive consideration... to recognise the state of Palestine as an essential step towards the two-State solution". The pro-Palestinian crowd braved heavy winds and rain to march across the bridge, chanting "ceasefire now" and "free Palestine". New South Wales police said it had deployed hundreds of extra staff across Sydney for the march. Mehreen Faruqi, the New South Wales senator for the left-wing Greens party, told the crowd gathered at central Sydney's Lang Park that the march would "make history". She called for the "harshest sanctions on Israel", accusing its forces of "massacring" Gazans, and criticised New South Wales premier Chris Minns for saying the protest should not go ahead. Dozens of marchers held up banners listing the names of thousands of Palestinian children killed since the Gaza war broke out after an October 2023 attack by Palestinian militant group Hamas. Labor backbench MP Ed Husic attended the march and called for his ruling party, led by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, to recognise a Palestinian state. Assange did not address the crowd or talk to the media. Israel is under mounting international pressure to end the bloodshed that has killed more than 60,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza's health ministry. Hamas's 2023 attack resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, mostly civilians, according to a tally based on official figures. Of the 251 hostages taken during the attack, 49 are still being held in Gaza, including 27 the Israeli military says are dead. The Harbour Bridge is over a kilometre long and was opened in 1932.
The Star
15 hours ago
- The Star
The US can survive tariffs. That doesn't mean they're worth it
ON hearing of the Continental Army's pivotal victory at the Battle of Saratoga in 1777, John Sinclair told Adam Smith, 'The British nation must be ruined'. As Sinclair recalled, the author of The Wealth of Nations (published the year before) urged him to calm down. 'Be assured, my young friend, there is a great deal of ruin in a nation.' Dedicated though he was to the benefits of free trade, Smith would doubtless say the same about today's turn toward mercantilism in the United States. It's a blow, but not the end of the world. That's worth noting: Catastrophism, a popular mode of discourse these days, is usually unhelpful. But champions of President Donald Trump's approach to trade are apt to make the opposite mistake – namely, thinking that if the roof hasn't fallen in, the policy must be succeeding. If it results in slower growth and persistent under-performance, that might not be 'ruin', but it sure isn't victory. Once Trump's new system of tariffs has settled down – if it ever does – what might it cost? What might 'less than ruin' amount to? According to most estimates, the direct economic losses are certainly tolerable, especially for a huge and relatively closed economy like the US. One recent study explores the upper limit on what's at stake by calculating the benefits of liberal trade compared with no trade at all. For the US, the costs of closing the economy altogether would fall in the range of 2% to 8% of GDP. The costs of less trade, as opposed to no trade, would naturally be smaller still. Earlier this month the US Federal Reserve published a research note on the effects of specific tariffs. Its economists modelled an increase of 60 percentage points in the US tariff on imports from China, with and without a 'baseline' tariff of 10% on other trading partners, assuming for one set of scenarios that the trade deficit is unchanged and for another that it shrinks. According to their model, the 60% extra tariff on China, the 10% baseline tariff on everybody else, plus a 25% reduction in the trade deficit would cut US GDP by a little under 3%. (China's losses would be about the same; thanks to shifts in the pattern of trade, the rest of the world would come out about even.) These and other such studies reveal the complexity of the changes caused by trade barriers. For example, surely tariffs would reduce imports and hence shrink the trade deficit. Why assume, as some of the Fed's scenarios do, that the deficit doesn't change? Actually, it's far from obvious that the trade deficit will narrow. You'd expect a smaller trade deficit to make the dollar appreciate – in due course increasing imports, cutting exports, and undoing the initial effect. In any case, the overall external balance is determined by the gap between its saving and investment, which tariffs affect only indirectly. Or consider the surprisingly small estimated cost of closing the economy completely. One of the assumptions behind the estimated losses of 2% to 8% of GDP is that the ease of replacing domestic goods with imports – the so-called elasticity of substitution – can be estimated from current trade data. But as the economy approaches autarky (self-sufficiency), this elasticity might fall abruptly as certain critical foreign products prove difficult or impossible to replace. The costs of abolishing imports might then be much bigger than projected. (Granted, a rational mercantilist would be careful not to press too far: An entirely closed economy isn't the goal.) The list of other complications is endless. What's the effect of trade on competition and innovation? It depends. Up to a point, competition through trade is likely to spur innovation, but if foreign competition is severe enough to shut a domestic industry down, said industry won't be more innovative. The dynamic effects of trade – that is, the effects of trade on growth – are even harder to estimate than the static effects captured in the studies mentioned above. Amid all the uncertainty, two points seem worth emphasising. First, despite the complexities, economists generally agree that trade does deliver net gains – that, on this, Adam Smith was right. If suppressing trade is costly, then exactly how costly is not the most important question. You don't do it. To be sure, the US has a huge domestic market and is richly endowed with natural resources. These advantages mean that trade is likely to deliver smaller gains than it does for other economies. But, to repeat, small gains are better than none. Second, the costs of the new mercantilism aren't confined to the implications for GDP of moving from a settled regime of liberal trade to a settled regime of managed trade. That shift involves massive economic and geopolitical dislocations, which are likely to be costly in themselves. Economic restructuring expends resources; it creates jobs and destroys them. The 'China Shock' was disruptive – but vainly trying to reverse it will be disruptive all over again. In the first case, there were aggregate benefits; in the second, there'll be aggregate losses. Geopolitical dislocation could involve the biggest costs of all. The new mercantilism puts US-led alliances and multilateral institutions under enormous strain. The view that the US has been exploited by these arrangements isn't unwarranted – there's been some free-riding, no doubt – but on balance US global leadership has been an exercise in enlightened self-interest. Dismantling the global trading order, and casting this as overdue retaliation against selfish so-called friends, is to cast away American power. It would be bad policy if undertaken in return for small economic gains. In return for substantial, even if less-than-ruinous, economic losses, it's insane. — Bloomberg Opinion/Tribune News Service Clive Crook is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist and member of the editorial board covering economics.
