CNN’s Elie Honig says possible release of Ghislaine Maxwell’s testimony would be ‘almost unheard of’ from DOJ

CNN senior legal analyst Elie Honig said on Tuesday that the potential release of Ghislaine Maxwell’s testimony by the Department of Justice (DOJ) would be “almost unheard of.”

CNN reported the DOJ is considering releasing the transcript of Maxwell’s interview with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, which occurred on July 24 and July 25, to discuss her association with sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and his sex trafficking network. Honig said on CNN’s “The Situation Room” that it is “extremely uncommon” for prosecutors to publicly release any testimony from witnesses they interviewed.

“It’s extremely uncommon, almost unheard of,” Honig said. “If we’re talking about prosecutors going into a prison to speak with somebody who’s a defendant, who’s a potential cooperating witness, you would never publicize and put out and disclose publicly the interview that you had with that person. That would be an investigative file, that would be something you would keep in-house. You would never put it out. But of course, a lot of what we’ve seen here is happening outside of the normal track.”

WATCH:

The administration was transcribing recordings with digital devices, which Honig said is standard procedure in order to avoid fallible transcribing. As the debate on whether to release the transcript was ongoing, an official in the White House told CNN the administration worried that the release would bring the Epstein case back into the media spotlight.

The potential release of the transcript could happen in the next several weeks, two administration officials told CNN.

Maxwell is serving a 20-year sentence after her 2021 conviction relating to Epstein’s sex trafficking network. Her attorneys petitioned the Supreme Court on July 28 to overturn her sentencing based on the 2008 non-prosecution agreement (NPA) involving Epstein in the Southern District of Florida, and are currently awaiting a ruling from the justices.

One week following her interview, Maxwell was relocated to a minimum-security prison camp in Bryan, Texas, after previously being held in the Federal Correctional Institution in Tallahassee, Florida. Maxwell’s attorney, David Oscar Markus, told reporters on July 25 that his client answered questions about nearly 100 people who were allegedly connected to Epstein.

In July, House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer subpoenaed Maxwell to participate in an August 11 deposition. He indefinitely postponed the sit-down on Friday after Markus threatened that his client would plead the Fifth if she did not receive congressional immunity or obtain the questions in advance.

President Donald Trump did not commit to the possibility of pardoning Maxwell during a July 28 press conference in Scotland.

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