On Tuesday, Washington time, Trump said he didn’t know anything about Blanche’s proposed interview with Maxwell, but “it sounds like something that would be appropriate to do”.
“I don’t really follow that too much, it’s sort of a witch hunt,” he said, before attempting to turn attention to newly declassified documents that he claims implicate former president Barack Obama in an act of treason.
President Donald Trump said it seemed appropriate for his deputy attorney-general to meet with Ghislaine Maxwell.Credit: AP
Blanche said the July 6 statement from the Justice Department and FBI remained accurate: despite a review of the material in the Epstein case, there was no evidence that could lead to an investigation of third parties who have not yet been charged.
However, he said the department did not shy away from uncomfortable truths, “nor from the responsibility to pursue justice wherever the facts may lead”.
“If Ghislane [sic] Maxwell has information about anyone who has committed crimes against victims, the FBI and the DOJ will hear what she has to say,” Blanche wrote on X.
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Maxwell’s lawyer, David Oscar Markus, said on Tuesday in a statement: “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.”
Meanwhile, the Republican leadership in the House of Representatives opted to send lawmakers home to their summer break early to ward off potentially embarrassing votes on the Epstein affair, with Democrats – and some Republicans – trying to use procedural matters to call for the files’ release.
Lawmakers will finish on Wednesday and won’t return until September. Speaker Mike Johnson, who supports releasing the records, repeated his call for “maximum transparency” but said the victims had to be protected.
“When the Epstein records are turned over to the public – which we must do as quickly as possible – we have to also be very judicious and careful about protecting the innocent,” he said.
“The Democrats are trying to play gotcha politics right now. They don’t have any moral high ground on this at all. They controlled the Department of Justice for the last four years. They had all these files the entire time.
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson said lawmakers would leave Washington early to avoid the Democrats’ “political games”.Credit: AP
“We’re done being lectured on transparency by the same party that orchestrated one of the most shameless, dangerous political cover-ups in the history of this country or any government on the face of planet Earth.”
Johnson was referring to an alleged cover-up of former president Joe Biden’s cognitive decline while in office.
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The House Oversight Committee also voted to subpoena Maxwell from jail for a deposition, in a push led by Republican congressman Tim Burchett of Tennessee.
“She’s the last one standing,” he told reporters, according to Axios.
“There’s nobody else alive that can tell us anything … I’d like to get her there before she’s allowed to commit suicide as well. I’m just tired of it.”
Elon Musk, the world’s richest man who led a government efficiency unit for the White House in the first few months of Trump’s presidency, alleged Trump was named in the Epstein files after the pair had a spectacular falling out in June. He later deleted the post.
Trump has also initiated legal proceedings against the Murdoch-owned The Wall Street Journal newspaper over a story it published last week reporting Trump wrote a cryptic letter to Epstein for his 50th birthday in 2003.
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According to the Journal’s story, the note appeared inside the drawing of a naked woman, in a leather-bound book organised by Maxwell.
Trump says he never wrote the letter or drew the picture and is suing for $US10 billion ($15 billion) in damages.
with AP
