Texas prison officers sacked for illegally accessing emails from Ghislaine Maxwell, which were released publicly, lawyer claims
Convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell’s lawyer claims the leaked emails, released by Democrat Jamie Raskin, were illegally obtained. See what they said. FOLLOW THE UPDATES.
Prison officers have been sacked after allegedly leaking emails convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell sent to her lawyers, her legal team has claimed.
Maxwell is serving a 20-year sentence after her 2021 conviction for helping the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein allegedly abuse and traffic minors.
Maxwell was moved last year to the minimum-security Bryan prison camp – a decision that infuriated her victims.
According to The Times, Democrats on the House judiciary committee released Maxwell’s private correspondence to the media, which they said had been shared with them by a whistleblower.
In one letter shared by the committee’s ranking Democrat Jamie Raskin, Maxwell appeared to tell family:
“The food is legions better, the place is clean, the staff responsive and polite, I have not seen a single fight, drug deal, passed-out person or naked inmate running around or several of them congregating in a shower! In other words I feel like I have dropped through Alice in Wonderland’s looking glass. I am much much happier here and more importantly safe.”
Mr Raskin said that the emails showed that Maxwell was preparing an application to reduce her sentence that she planned to put before US President Donald Trump for consideration.
In a statement yesterday released on Friday, Maxwell’s lawyer Leah Saffian, said a number of prison staff had been fired for “improper and unauthorised access to the email system used by the Federal Bureau of Prisons to allow inmates to communicate with the outside world”.
The correspondence was “illegally obtained and put to unconstitutional purpose”, Saffian wrote, suggesting Raskin should face disciplinary action.
“Regrettably this is just the latest example of Ms Maxwell’s human rights being ridden roughshod over,” said Ms Saffian.
She said Maxwell, 63, had not formally requested a commutation of her sentence and said that she was preparing another appeal, this time a motion of habeas corpus in the southern district of New York, after the US Supreme Court declined to hear her petition.
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TRUMP SLAMS ‘EPSTEIN HOAX’, DEMANDS CLINTON PROBE
President Donald Trump said he wants the Justice Department and FBI to investigate links between the late alleged sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein and former Democratic president Bill Clinton.
Mr Trump said he was demanding a probe into “Jeffrey Epstein’s involvement and relationship with Bill Clinton, Larry Summers, Reid Hoffman, J.P. Morgan, Chase, and many other people and institutions.”
The Republican president’s announcement on social media came amid mounting questions over his own relationship with his former friend Epstein.
It comes as Mr Trump claimed that pressure to release details of Jeffrey Epstein’s alleged sex abuse network is a “hoax” pushed by Democratic opponents.
“The Democrats are doing everything in their withering power to push the Epstein Hoax again,” the Republican wrote on his Truth Social platform, adding that lawmakers in his party joining the effort to force publication of the Epstein files are “soft and foolish.”
Mr Trump’s angry message came as the Epstein scandal escalated, with growing questions over the 79-year-old president’s long, close relationship with the disgraced late financier.
Epstein died in prison in 2019 – by suicide, authorities ruled – before he could face trial on federal sex charges.
But questions over his alleged masterminding of a sex ring where powerful men were provided with underaged girls only grew.
Mr Trump and some of his close allies had in the past promised to their right-wing base they would seek the release of all the evidence against Epstein, including details of his alleged clients.
However, since entering the White House in January, President Trump has fought hard to put a lid on the issue.
The scandal peaked again with release of emails subpoenaed by Congress from Epstein’s estate.
The email traffic between Epstein and friends, as well as other materials, confirm that Mr Trump had close relations with the financier, although he has not been accused of any wrongdoing.
Now the House of Representatives will vote as early as next week on demanding release by the Justice Department of its materials on Epstein.
Those materials could include far more damning evidence than has been previously seen on the links between Epstein and his circle, which over the years ranged from Mr Trump to Britain’s ex-prince Andrew.
If a US House majority votes for the release, the Republican-controlled Senate would still have to give its approval and Trump would then also need to sign the bill.
Mr Trump made clear he does not want the effort to proceed.
“Epstein was a Democrat, and he is the Democrat’s problem, not the Republican’s problem!” he wrote.
“Don’t waste your time with Trump. I have a Country to run!”
EPSTEIN QUESTIONED TRUMP’S MENTAL STATE
Months after Donald Trump announced his 2016 presidential bid, Jeffrey Epstein offered a journalist private photos “of Donald and girls in bikinis in my kitchen”, bombshell emails from 2015 have revealed.
One exchange between Epstein and then-New York Times reporter Landon Thomas Jr in December 2015, Landon messaged the financier about a 2002 New York magazine article he had written in which Mr Trump was quoted calling Epstein a “terrific guy” who “likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side”.
“Now everyone is coming to me thinking I have juicy info on you and Trump. Because of this,” the reporter wrote, referring to that article.
Epstein then replied to Thomas in a series of emails over the next two hours – many error-ridden – first suggesting that Thomas look into Mr Trump’s finances before moving on to more personal subjects.
In one email, Epstein writes: “Would you like photso [sic] of donald and girls in bikinis in my kitchen.” Thomas replied, “Yes!!”
It’s unclear whether Epstein possessed such photos or if he ever sent the reporter any photos.
He also alleged to the journalist that in 1993, he “gave” a 20-year-old girlfriend that he dated for two years to Trump.
Mr Trump turned 49 in June 1995, when Epstein alleged that he was dating the then-22-year-old woman.
Shortly after Mr Trump was inaugurated in January 2017, another email exchange between Epstein and a reporter for The New York Times mentioned Mr Trump.
The exchange was in relation to the president’s controversial “Muslim ban” at the time, according to CNN.
“IT helps as he is seen to be keeping his word, it is important [sic] with putin and north korea. as you notice north korea has not fired there [sic] missile that he promised wouldn’t happen. [Former President Barack Obama] was never able to effecturate [sic] that,” he wrote.
“that being said Donald is f***ing crazy I told you that,” he continued.
The following year, Epstein questioned if Trump was displaying signs of “early dementia” while referencing a snippet of Michael Wolff’s book Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House.
In the email exchange, a reporter for The New York Times said to Epstein that the president was “looking/sounding increasingly unhinged,” and Epstein replied, “no questions donalds [sic] statement is goofy. . early dementia?”
The tranche of newly released emails also revealed that Epstein told Ghislaine Maxwell that Mr Trump “spent hours” at his house with one of the disgraced financier’s victims.
Mr Trump did not send or receive any of the emails and has not been accused of any wrongdoing.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said: “These emails prove absolutely nothing other than the fact that President Trump did nothing wrong.”
The emails’ release has renewed pressure on the president to make public all Justice Department files on Epstein.
As the president signed a bill to end the 43-day government shutdown, House Speaker Mike Johnson swore in Arizona Democratic Rep. Adelita Grijalva after a 50-day delay.
She gave the final signature on the discharge petition to compel politicians to vote on the release of the Epstein files. The House will vote on it next week, Johnson said.
CLINTON, OBAMA OFFICIAL SOUGHT LOVE ADVICE FROM EPSTEIN
A top economic official in the Bill Clinton and Barack Obama administrations sought advice from convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein about his relationship with an unidentified woman, bombshell emails released by the House Oversight Committee show.
Lawrence Summers, who served as President Clinton’s final Treasury secretary and director of the National Economic Council under President Obama, routinely picked Epstein’s brains about how to interact with the woman, who apparently lived in London at the time of the exchanges.
On March 16, 2019, fewer than four months before Epstein was arrested on federal sex trafficking charges, Summers wrote that he and the woman had “talked on the phone.”
“I said what are you up to. She said ‘I’m busy’. I said awfully coy u [sic] are,” Summers, the former president of Harvard University, complained.
“And then I said. Did u [sic] really rearrange the weekend we were going to be together because guy number 3 was coming’. She said no his schedule changed after we changed our plans. I said OK I got to go call me when u feel like it.
“Tone was not of good feeling,” the now-70-year-old summed up. “I dint [sic] want to be in a gift giving competition while being the friend without benefits.”
“[S]hes smart,” Epstein told Summers in a responding email 11 minutes later. “[M]aking you pay for past errors. [I]gnore the daddy im [sic] going to go out with the motorcycle guy, you reacted well … annoyed shows caring., no whining showed strentgh [sic].”
Epstein, 66, was found dead in his Manhattan jail cell 147 days later, on Aug. 10, 2019, while awaiting trial.
The March 2019 exchange was not the only time Epstein and the married Summers discussed women.
In November 2018, Summers forwarded Epstein an email from a different woman with the comment: “Think no response for a while probably appropriate.”
“She’s already beginning to sound needy :) nice,” Epstein replied.
The emails shed new light on the closeness of the relationship between Epstein and Summers, who currently serves on the board of directors at OpenAI.
Epstein and Summers also discussed President Trump in their newly revealed correspondence, with the former telling Summers in 2017 that the commander in chief has “[n]ot one decent cell in his body.”
“I have met some very bad people, none as bad as Trump” the disgraced financier added in the same message.
“[Y]our world does not understand how dumb he really is,” Epstein warned Summers in a May 28, 2017, email. “[H]e will blame everyone around him … for bad results.”
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Originally published as Texas prison officers sacked for illegally accessing emails from Ghislaine Maxwell, which were released publicly, lawyer claims
