WASHINGTON — Legal professional Normal Pam Bondi falsely claimed in her sworn testimony to Congress Wednesday that Jeffrey Epstein’s companion in little one intercourse trafficking was not transferred to a “lower-level” jail, though her Justice Division moved Ghislaine Maxwell to a “Membership Fed”-type facility final summer season.
Days after assembly with Bondi’s deputy and former Donald Trump protection lawyer Todd Blanche, Maxwell was transferred from Tallahassee, Florida, to the Federal Jail Camp in Bryan, Texas. Tallahassee is a low-security jail, however FPC Bryan is an much more relaxed “minimum-security” facility and is usually meant for nonviolent, white-collar criminals of their ultimate months of captivity.
Bondi, like all witnesses who seem earlier than Congress, started her testimony by agreeing to reply questions in truth “underneath penalty of perjury” in the beginning of her look earlier than the Home Judiciary Committee.
Division of Justice officers didn’t reply to HuffPost queries about Bondi’s false assertion, which got here amid offended testimony that featured assaults in opposition to questioners and a declare that questions in regards to the now-dead Epstein had been inappropriate given the sturdy efficiency of the inventory market.
Bondi’s reply got here in response to a query from Deborah Ross, a Democratic committee member from North Carolina, who requested her: “Does a convicted intercourse offender like Ghislaine Maxwell deserve particular therapy in jail and particular privileges in jail?”
Bondi answered: “I didn’t know she was being transferred, and she or he was not transferred to a lower-level facility.”
Later, she repeated twice, falsely, that Maxwell was transferred to a “identical stage” jail.
It’s unclear how Bondi couldn’t know in regards to the switch, on condition that the Bureau of Prisons comes underneath her company’s purview, and her “identical stage” assertion is demonstrably false. Even in a low-security jail like Tallahassee Federal Correctional Establishment, inmates sleep in jail cells behind tall, razor-topped fencing. There’s a part at Bryan with no fence in any respect, and inmates there sleep in dormitories.
One former inmate told HuffPost that Maxwell was afforded particular privileges there past what the opposite inmates obtain, akin to entry to her favourite beverage, grapefruit juice, the chance to play with puppies and help from the warden in serving to fill out paperwork for her attraction.
Maxwell herself advised a relative after her middle-of-the-night switch that she was overjoyed along with her new residence.
“The meals is legions higher, the place is clear, the employees responsive and well mannered — I haven’t seen or heard the same old foul language or screaming accompanied by threats leveled at inmates by anybody,” she wrote every week after her arrival. “I really feel like I’ve dropped via Alice in Wonderlands wanting glass. I’m a lot, a lot happier right here and extra importantly secure.”
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Bondi tried to prosecute former FBI director James Comey as a part of the president’s persevering with retribution marketing campaign in opposition to his critics and political opponents for allegedly mendacity to Congress. That indictment, nonetheless, was dismissed as a result of a federal choose discovered that the prosecutor Trump had handpicked for the task was illegally appointed.
It’s unclear whether or not Bondi will ever face a consequence for Wednesday’s falsehood. The conventional course of for Congress to carry witnesses who deceive them accountable is to refer them to the Division of Justice, which Bondi runs, for prosecution.
Epstein, a longtime pal of Trump, died by obvious suicide in 2019 a month after he was arrested on little one intercourse trafficking costs. Maxwell was arrested the next 12 months, convicted at trial in late 2021, and in 2022 was sentenced to twenty years in federal jail.
On Monday, she invoked her Fifth Modification proper to not incriminate herself throughout a video-conference look earlier than the Home Oversight Committee. Her lawyer stated she can be keen to actually reply all their questions if Trump gave her clemency.
Trump has repeatedly refused to rule out pardoning Maxwell when requested over the course of a 12 months.
