The top Republican on a House committee investigating Jeffrey Epstein said some GOP members are open to President Donald Trump pardoning convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell in exchange for her cooperation with the probe.
Democrats on the House Oversight Committee are saying “hell no.”
“She is a sexual abuser who facilitated the rape of women and children. This is a shameful way to treat survivors,” said Rep. Robert Garcia, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee. “Oversight Democrats are united in opposing any pardon.”
“Hell no,” added Democratic Rep. James Walkinshaw. “Honestly shocking that this is even being discussed.”
Committee chair James Comer stressed that he opposes the idea but told Politico that “a lot of people” on the panel would consider supporting Trump’s potential pardon in exchange for her testimony.
Maxwell, who is the only convicted accomplice in the Epstein investigation to have talked to the committee, invoked her Fifth Amendment right in declining to answer any of the panel’s questions during her February deposition.
Her lawyer has said that she would only speak to the committee if Trump granted her clemency.
The president has notably not ruled out doing so.
“My committee’s split on that,” Comer told Politico. “I don’t speak for my committee.”
He said he declined to name who, exactly, was open to the idea.
“I think it looks bad,” Comer told the outlet. “Honestly, other than Epstein, the worst person in this whole investigation is Maxwell.”
The 63-year-old is not scheduled to be released from prison until 2040. Her best chance of early release is a presidential pardon. Her attorney David Markus has previously said she would “welcome” one, and the president has publicly acknowledged he has the power to do so.
Annie Farmer, who has said she survived abuse from Epstein and Maxwell, said a pardon would be “detrimental to survivors.”
“Before you consider a pardon of a convicted sex offender and trafficker, imagine explaining it to your wife, sister, or daughter,” she said in a statement Thursday.
“Would you live with knowing that you’ve chosen to put a felon — who recruited, groomed, and threatened underage girls and young women — above survivors?” she said. “We ask the Department of Justice to permanently close the door on any pardon or commutation for Maxwell and instead open the door on a criminal investigation into the enablers of Jeffrey Epstein and Maxwell’s abuse.”
Maxwell is serving a 20-year prison sentence after she was found guilty of recruiting and grooming young women and girls for Epstein, who died by suicide in prison in 2019 while awaiting trial on trafficking charges.
In October, the Supreme Court declined to review whether prosecutors fairly brought a case against her.
“We’re, of course, deeply disappointed that the Supreme Court declined to hear Ghislaine Maxwell’s case,” Markus told The Independent at the time.
“But this fight isn’t over,” he said. “Serious legal and factual issues remain, and we will continue to pursue every avenue available to ensure that justice is done.”
Meanwhile, Maxwell is once again asking a federal judge to toss her conviction and release her from prison. With all her appeals exhausted, Maxwell filed a petition for her release from prison in December, claiming that “substantial new evidence has emerged” in her case.
She submitted her new request, which she wrote herself, inside a USB drive mailed in a FedEx envelope postmarked April 16, according to court documents.
Her new motion “seems to have some overlap” with her original arguments — and the claims inside “appear to be equally meritless,” federal prosecutors wrote this week.
After her jailhouse interview in July 2025 with then-Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, who is now serving as Acting Attorney General, Maxwell was transferred to a minimum-security women’s prison in Texas.
In her interview, Maxwell said she “absolutely never” saw Trump behave inappropriately with anyone in Epstein’s circle and praised the president for his “extraordinary achievement in becoming the president now.” She also said she “liked him.”
She has refused to voluntarily testify to Congress without assurances that she can receive some form of clemency.
In a letter to the House Oversight Committee last year, her legal team asked for immunity protections — and made another appeal to Trump for clemency.
“If Ms. Maxwell were to receive clemency, she would be willing — and eager — to testify openly and honestly, in public, before Congress in Washington, D.C.,” according to the letter, which Maxwell’s attorneys provided to The Independent. “She welcomes the opportunity to share the truth and to dispel the many misconceptions and misstatements that have plagued this case from the beginning.”
The president and his administration have been desperate to wind down public scrutiny into Epstein and federal law enforcement’s handling of the cases against him and Maxwell. Blanche has also sought to close the book on the Justice Department’s Epstein probes, telling Fox News earlier this month that the release of millions of files connected to the sex offender “should not be part of anything going forward” at the department.
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