Posted by US Justice Dept asks Epstein associate Maxwell to speak to prosecutors
Updated / Tuesday, 22 Jul 2025 13:50
The Justice Department has asked Jeffrey Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell if she would be willing to speak with US prosecutors.
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said he expected to meet with her in the coming days.
In the 2022, the British socialite was sentenced to 20 years in prison for helping Epstein sexually abuse teenage girls.
The term, handed down in the Manhattan federal court, meant the then 60-year-old will spend much of the rest of her life in jail.
Earlier, the White House said has barred The Wall Street Journal from travelling with US President Donald Trump during his upcoming visit to Scotland, after the newspaper reported that he wrote a 50th birthday greeting to Epstein in 2003.
The Trump administration’s handling of the Epstein case has threatened to split the Republican’s far-right Make America Great Again (MAGA) base, with some of his supporters calling for a full release of the so-called ‘Epstein Files’.
The barring of the Wall Street Journal marks at least the second time the Trump administration has moved to exclude a major news outlet from the press pool over its reporting, having barred Associated Press journalists from multiple key events since February.
“As the appeals court confirmed, The Wall Street Journal or any other news outlet are not guaranteed special access to cover President Trump in the Oval Office, aboard Air Force One, and in his private workspaces,” said Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt.
“Due to The Wall Street Journal’s fake and defamatory conduct, they will not be one of the 13 outlets on board (Air Force One).”
Mr Trump departs this weekend for Scotland, where he owns two golf resorts and will meet British Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
Earlier this month, the US Department of Justice, under Attorney General Pam Bondi, said there was no evidence suggesting disgraced financier Epstein had kept a “client list” or was blackmailing powerful figures before his death in 2019.
In its story on Thursday, the WSJ reported that Mr Trump had written a suggestive birthday letter to Epstein, illustrated with a naked woman and alluding to a shared “secret”.
Epstein, a long time friend of Mr Trump and multiple other high-profile men, was found dead in a New York prison cell in 2019 while awaiting trial on charges that he sexually exploited dozens of underage girls at his homes in New York and Florida.
The case sparked conspiracy theories, especially among Mr Trump’s far-right voters, about an alleged international cabal of wealthy paedophiles.
Epstein’s death, which was declared a suicide, before he could face trial, supercharged that narrative.
Since returning to office in January, Mr Trump has moved to increase control over the press covering the White House.
In February, the Oval Office stripped the White House Correspondents’ Association (WHCA) of its nearly century-old authority to oversee which outlets have access to certain restricted presidential events, with Mr Trump saying that he was now “calling the shots” on media access.
In a statement, the WHCA president urged the White House to “restore” the WSJ to the pool.
“This attempt by the White House to punish a media outlet whose coverage it does not like is deeply troubling, and it defies the First Amendment,” said WHCA President Weijia Jiang.
“Government retaliation against news outlets based on the content of their reporting should concern all who value free speech and an independent media”.
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