Bondi Lies To Congress, Tells Them Maxwell Was Not Transferred To A ‘Lower Level Facility’ | EUROtoday

WASHINGTON — Attorney General Pam Bondi falsely claimed in her sworn testimony to Congress Wednesday that Jeffrey Epstein’s companion in baby intercourse trafficking was not transferred to a “lower-level” jail, despite the fact that her Justice Department moved Ghislaine Maxwell to a “Club 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 Prison Camp in Bryan, Texas. Tallahassee is a low-security jail, however FPC Bryan is an much more relaxed “minimum-security” facility and is often meant for nonviolent, white-collar criminals of their last months of captivity.

Bondi, like all witnesses who seem earlier than Congress, started her testimony by agreeing to reply questions honestly “under penalty of perjury” at the beginning of her look earlier than the House Judiciary Committee.

Department of Justice officers didn’t reply to HuffPost queries about Bondi’s false assertion, which got here amid offended testimony that featured assaults towards questioners and a declare that questions concerning 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 sex offender like Ghislaine Maxwell deserve special treatment in prison and special privileges in prison?”

Bondi answered: “I did not know she was being transferred, and she was not transferred to a lower-level facility.”

Later, she repeated twice, falsely, that Maxwell was transferred to a “same level” jail.

It is unclear how Bondi couldn’t know concerning the switch, on condition that the Bureau of Prisons comes below her company’s purview, and her “same level” assertion is demonstrably false. Even in a low-security jail like Tallahassee Federal Correctional Institution, inmates sleep in jail cells behind tall, razor-topped fencing. There is a bit at Bryan with no fence in any respect, and inmates there sleep in dormitories.

One former inmate advised HuffPost that Maxwell was afforded particular privileges there past what the opposite inmates obtain, comparable 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 enchantment.

Maxwell herself advised a relative after her middle-of-the-night switch that she was overjoyed along with her new residence.

“The food is legions better, the place is clean, the staff responsive and polite — I haven’t seen or heard the usual foul language or screaming accompanied by threats leveled at inmates by anyone,” she wrote per week after her arrival. “I feel like I have dropped through Alice in Wonderlands looking glass. I am much, much happier here and more importantly safe.”

Bondi tried to prosecute former FBI director James Comey as a part of the president’s persevering with retribution marketing campaign towards his critics and political opponents for allegedly mendacity to Congress. That indictment, nonetheless, was dismissed as a result of a federal decide discovered that the prosecutor Trump had handpicked for the task was illegally appointed.

It is unclear whether or not Bondi will ever face a consequence for Wednesday’s falsehood. The regular course of for Congress to carry witnesses who mislead them accountable is to refer them to the Department of Justice, which Bondi runs, for prosecution.

Epstein, a longtime buddy of Trump, died by obvious suicide in 2019 a month after he was arrested on baby intercourse trafficking costs. Maxwell was arrested the next yr, convicted at trial in late 2021, and in 2022 was sentenced to twenty years in federal jail.

On Monday, she invoked her Fifth Amendment proper to not incriminate herself throughout a video-conference look earlier than the House Oversight Committee. Her lawyer stated she could be prepared 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 yr.