Ghislaine Maxwell Just Told Congress She’ll Talk — If Trump Frees Her

February 9, 2026 — Ghislaine Maxwell tried to bargain with Congress from a prison video call.

Maxwell, the woman convicted of helping Jeffrey Epstein traffic underage girls, appeared virtually before the House Oversight Committee today and refused to answer a single question. She invoked her Fifth Amendment right against self‑incrimination on every substantive topic, including Epstein’s network, his associates, and any powerful figures who moved through his orbit.

Maxwell is serving a 20‑year federal sentence at a prison camp in Texas after being found guilty in 2021 of sex‑trafficking, conspiracy, and related charges. Her trial exposed a pattern of recruiting and grooming minors for Epstein’s abuse, and her conviction has been upheld on appeal. Despite that legal reality, her appearance today was less about accountability and more about negotiation.

Her lawyer, David Markus, told lawmakers that Maxwell would be willing to “speak fully and honestly” about Epstein and his world — but only if President Donald Trump grants her clemency or a pardon. Markus also claimed she could clear both Trump and Bill Clinton of wrongdoing related to Epstein, a statement critics immediately dismissed as a political play rather than a genuine bid for truth.

Republican Chair James Comer has already said he does not support clemency for Maxwell, and several Democrats accused her of trying to leverage her potential knowledge of powerful people as a way to escape prison. To many survivors’ advocates, the spectacle reinforced the sense that the system is more sympathetic to the powerful than to the victims.

At the same time, Congress is now reviewing roughly 3.5 million pages of Epstein‑related documents that the Justice Department has made available under tight restrictions. Lawmakers must view them on secure computers at the DOJ, with no phones allowed and no copies permitted. Early reports suggest that at least six male individuals, including one high‑ranking foreign official, had their names and images redacted without clear legal justification.

Those unredacted files are supposed to answer questions about who knew what, and when. The problem is that Maxwell is signaling she may never answer any of them — unless she is set free. As of February 9, 2026, the story is still this: a convicted trafficker is using her silence as leverage, Congress is sifting through a wall of redacted files, and the public is still waiting to see who really stood behind Epstein’s power.