MAJOR Epstein update at Justice Department

MAJOR Epstein update at Justice Department

You’re watching the legal breakdown. Glenn, there is a major deadline that’s occurring today and today is the day that Pam Bondi’s Justice Department can either respond or not to Glain Maxwell’s Supreme Court appeal. They’ve previously extended the deadline twice. And so, can you give a little insight into what that means and what the implications might be for Pam Bonti and the DOJ? Yeah. So, first of all, Brian, procedurally, lots and lots of defendants who are convicted at trial, who have their convictions affirmed on appeal, a lot of them will try to get the Supreme Court to accept their case for review. But it it’s the tiniest fraction of cases that the Supreme Court actually accepts for review. Usually when there’s some big constitutional issue involved or when there’s a dispute between the different federal circuits like a circuit court of appeals in one federal circuit decided an issue differently than a court of appeals in another federal circuit. So there’s now a conflict that has to be addressed by the Supreme Court but it’s a very tiny fraction of the cases. Well, Gileain Maxwell, who was convicted of multiple counts and is serving 20 years for her complicity in Jeffrey Epstein’s conspiracy and sex trafficking of young girls. She’s trying to get the Supreme Court to accept her case for review. Interestingly, as you’ve said, the the Department of Justice has twice said, “You know what, Judge? We need more time to respond to Maxwell’s request to have the Supreme Court accept her case. Now, that could be something or it could be nothing. I if it’s nothing, it’s just because, you know, so many of these petitions come in and they can be pretty burdensome to respond to. So, maybe they just need more time. Maybe they are down staffing given not only the brain drain but the ethics drain that’s like fleeing the Department of Justice rather than work under Donald Trump and Pam Bondi. That may account for it. Um but maybe the Department of Justice under Donald Trump and Pam Bondi are wrestling with what to do with Galain Maxwell’s case. Why might they be wrestling with that? Well, Jeffrey Epstein is all the rage in the news right now, isn’t he? Because, you know, after promising over and over and over again um to disclose all of the Epstein files, including Pam Bondi on TV, when asked, “Are you going to disclose the Epstein client list?” She said, “It’s on my desk right now.” The inference being disclosures are coming. And then of course she did a 180 and recently said, “Um, there’s nothing there, nothing to disclose.” Well, you know what? You believe that? I’ve got a bridge I’d like to sell you in New York. I’ll throw in a couple of tunnels free of charge. So, we don’t know exactly what’s driving the train at the moment with respect to DOJ saying, “We need more time. We need more time. We need more time to respond to Maxwell’s request to have the Supreme Court take a third look at her case, but we should know today because, as you said, today is the deadline. They’ve had two delays granted by the court thus far, and today is the deadline. Put up or shut up. Is there an increased incentive for the DOJ to cooperate with Galain Maxwell? Because at this point, if if she’s coming out and saying that she would love to talk to Congress or that she’s the only person left left alive with all of the information that everybody seems to be seeking right now, she can either, you know, talk to members of Congress who may very well sink this administration or or there the the flip side of that is the administration might have an increased incentive to work with her or to give her something because she’s the only person with all of this information that could come out and sink them. And you know, the other option is uh she can she can disappear in very much the same way that Jeffrey Epstein himself disappeared. But uh I think two deaths in prison from people connected to the same case would probably be uh the only thing that would be even worse for this administration. Yeah, you know, there’s so much to unpack there, Brian. Let me start by talking about how things would proceed if we were living in normal times rather than the legal upside down. One of the things I did in my 30 years as a federal prosecutor is I worked with a ton of cooperating witnesses. That’s a term of art for somebody who is engaged in criminal conduct themselves, but then they decide, you know what, my best shot at sort of getting out of this um with as little jail time as possible is to cooperate with the federal prosecutors and the FBI, provide truthful information about everything I know about the crimes of other people, testify against those other people in the grand jury and at trial, and that will reduce my criminal exposure. It will reduce most likely my sentence. That’s the way things work in a normal world in normal times. But as you say, that would mean Maxwell would have to give up incriminating information about, for example, all of Jeffrey Epstein’s clients, everybody on that client list. And I’ve never seen the list, so I can’t say who is or is not on that list. But here’s the question I’ll pose to our viewers. Brian, do you think the Department of Justice wants Maxwell, who had sort of, you know, a ringside seat and was a participant in Jeffrey Epstein’s crimes to begin telling truthfully uh about all of the folks that were clients of Epstein’s that were on the client list? Well, if DOJ wanted to expose that, I think Pam Bondi would not have done the 180 she did and she would have revealed for all of us to see the Epstein client list. So, it feels to me, now this is sort of a hypothetical because we don’t know what’s in the Epstein files, who’s on the client’s list. We don’t know what DOJ may have been talking to Maxwell and her lawyers about. We have no idea. We are completely in the dark. But um it wouldn’t surprise me if DOJ is maneuvering in any way it can to try to make sure whatever Maxwell knows never comes to light. How might that be accomplished? Well, for example, the Department of Justice could say, “You know what? We’ve taken a look at the the brief that Maxwell filed trying to convince the Supreme Court to take her case, and we have assessed that, you know, I don’t we don’t think she got a fair trial. So, we’re going to file a motion to dismiss her case post verdict, even though she was convicted by a jury, sentenced by the trial court judge, and her conviction was affirmed by the court of appeals.” Now, would that be unusual? Oh, hell yes. It would be unusual. It would feel like they’re trying to cover something up and undo her guilty verdict that a jury had entered an an appeals court had affirmed. But they’re the Department of Justice. If that’s what they choose to do under Trump and Bondi, they can certainly do it. Of course, you know, we have to talk about the P word, and when I’m talking about Donald Trump, that may conjure up a certain word, but I mean pardons, right? Donald Trump could always say, you know what, I have assessed her trial. I think it was a witch hunt. I don’t think she was treated fairly. I’m pardoning Miss Maxwell. Well, what would that do? that would certainly curry favor with Maxwell and perhaps keep her quiet about, for example, who’s on the Epstein client list. So, all of these things are possibilities, but we’re talking in hypotheticals here. We don’t know what is motivating the Department of Justice. We don’t know if they want to keep everything under wraps or maybe they’re not worried about Maxwell either having her case accepted for review by the Supreme Court. And so Epstein is back in the news for as long as that case is now pending before the Supreme Court and we ultimately get a Supreme Court ruling or a Supreme Court decision that we’re not accepting the case for review. You know, the the possibilities are endless right now, but I do think we’re going to know a lot more by close of business today when we see what position DOJ takes regarding Maxwell’s attempt to have the Supreme Court review the Epstein case. review her case of conviction. Well, you know, it wouldn’t make any political sense for the DOJ to overtly intervene here because if the DOJ says, you know, um uh we’re going to we’re going to vacate the conviction, you know, post-trial, everyone’s going to be like, well, clearly there’s a reason that they’re doing that, and it’s because they’ve struck up some deal with her and want her to shut up. And so, would it be possible for the DOJ to be working with her right now? I mean, they could have been working with her for the last week and basically saying, “Hey, here’s what we’re going to do. You’ve got, you know, you’re going to spend the next 20 years in prison, but in a couple of years, we’re going to uh we’re, you know, President Trump is going to pardon you, or the DOJ is going to vacate vacate this thing. Uh, just just keep quiet now. You’ve got our word. Your your you know, your lawyers are right here. You’ve got our word. We’re going to we’ll make sure that you’re out of prison within a couple of years.” Could they have been striking up that kind of deal so that they get to avoid the the the political nightmare that would be that would be doing this stuff in broad daylight while everybody’s attention is focused on Epste and all of this stuff runs runs red-hot but then also um still get to benefit from her kind of keeping her mouth shut. Yeah, absolutely. One of the heartland reasons for the Department of Justice to tell a court, any court, um we need more time. Can you please extend the deadline in this case for us to respond to Maxwell’s request to the Supreme Court to take her case for review? One of the Heartland reasons we do that, Brian, is because we’re involved in discussions and negotiations with the defendant’s legal team to see if we can reach some satisfactory resolution. So, that could be what has accounted for the last two requests from DOJ that no, no, we need more time. We need more time before we can respond to in theory she has all the information that that could really sink the entire Republican administration right now and so they have every incentive in the world to be going to her and saying like hey let’s let’s engage in some quidd proquo here because if not I mean if somebody is able to go and talk to this woman while she’s in prison and and maybe you can um maybe you can highlight whether that’s even possible but if she’s able to get some information out she’s in theory he got all the information that could sink this administration because clearly they they have they they have a vested interest in not letting any of this stuff go. To your exact point earlier, if they wanted it to get out in the public, Pam Pam Bondi would have told something, but they’re not. And so, in theory, Galain Maxwell represents the biggest threat to this administration of anybody as it relates to this case. Yeah. And you have to believe there are, you know, enterprising investigative reporters and journalists who perhaps have been trying to get an interview with Maxwell. There are a couple of things that factor into whether they can successfully um land an interview. One obviously is Maxwell and her legal team if they’re willing to grant somebody an interview. But the other is the Federal Bureau of Prisons can be very restrictive about um the inmates and who the inmates can have contact with. They can, for example, put her on lockdown and make it all but impossible for folks from the outside to, you know, to reach her for purposes of an interview. Now, I haven’t read any reporting. I can’t say I’ve done a deep dive in the last couple of years since she was convicted to see if there were journalists who have been trying to land an interview with Maxwell or not. But Brian, let me touch on something else you raised. The possibility of a deferred pardon. Maxwell got a 20year prison sentence and she is on the front end of that 20 years right now. So, is it out of the realm of possibilities that the DOJ could be negotiating with Maxwell’s legal team saying, “You know what? On his final days in office, Trump will pardon you.” Or, “Here is a pardon, and it will only take effect on a certain date when he’s about to leave office. So, what does that mean for you?” Yes, it means you have to sit for a while, another few years. Um, but you’re not going to have to spend the entire 20 years in prison. Again, we don’t have evidence of this. These are possibilities that were hypothetically discussing as to ways the Department of Justice, Trump, Bondi, and company could do, you know, the best they can to keep a lid on whatever evidence Maxwell has that if she saw fit to share it with a journalist, for example, we would all know about it. Right. Okay. Well, there is obviously a lot happening. Things are moving pretty quickly right now. So, for those who are watching, if you want an update on this specific instance as well as the broader Epstein case as it continues to play itself out, please make sure to subscribe. The links to both of our channels are right here on the screen. It is completely free to subscribe and it’s the best way to support our work and independent media. I’m Brian Tyler Cohen and I’m Glenn Kersner. You’re watching the Legal Breakdown.

Legal Breakdown episode 557: @GlennKirschner2 discusses the Maxwell deadline at the DOJ.

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