MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
The Trump administration's handling of the Epstein files raises some key legal questions, so we called Elie Honig to help us with those. He's a former federal and state prosecutor, where he led organized crime prosecutions among other matters, and he's with us now. Good morning, Elie. Thanks for joining us.
ELIE HONIG: Happy to be with you, Michel. Plenty to discuss.
MARTIN: So Attorney General Pam Bondi reportedly told Trump back in May that he was named in the Epstein files. I'm going to note again here that NPR has not independently confirmed that. But if true, is it normal for the attorney general to share that kind of information with the president?
HONIG: Not at all. And the question that this begs to me is why? Why would the attorney general go and tip off the president, hey, you're named in these criminal, closed criminal investigative files, whatever named may mean? That is highly abnormal. And if we look back at the history of attorneys general through both parties, that would be seen as a breach of the attorney general's independence. I mean, we can think back through history, whether it was - Bill Clinton was certainly under investigation by DOJ and the FBI. Joe Biden was during his term by Robert Hur. And there's no recent history of AGs tipping off the president, hey, there's something in our files that you may need to know about.
MARTIN: So let's go to the question of Ghislaine Maxwell. A House subcommittee voted to subpoena her, this longtime Epstein associate and convicted sex trafficker. So can I first ask you, as a matter of law, is she compelled to appear?
HONIG: So congressional subpoenas are binding. People do have to obey them, but two big things that need to be noted here. One, she can resist the subpoena. You can fight a congressional subpoena in court. And judges typically will give a congressional subpoena less credence, less power than a criminal subpoena. So congressional subpoenas sort of get lesser consideration by the courts. The other thing is the move here for Ghislaine Maxwell, the traditional move - and she has solid legal counsel - is to take the fifth because even though she's already been tried and convicted and sentenced, she still could at least theoretically have other exposure to additional crime.
So if she wanted to avoid testifying, if I was her defense lawyer, I would say you're taking the fifth. Congress, however, then has a counter-countermove available where they can immunize her if they want. Meaning, you have to testify, but we're not going to use your testimony against you, and prosecutors generally will not be able to use your testimony against you. So that's how the chess game could play out here.
MARTIN: So if she does appear, do you think her testimony will be as illuminating as some people seem to think that it will be? I mean, House Speaker Mike Johnson, as we heard, questions her credibility. Does he have a point?
HONIG: Well, yes, he does. I mean, there are very serious questions about Ghislaine Maxwell's credibility. And this goes both to her potential congressional testimony and to her potential cooperation, which has now spilled into public view, the back-and-forth between the Justice Department and her attorney. And they seem to be working towards some type of meeting. Let's remember who Ghislaine Maxwell is. I mean, she is a longtime vicious criminal.
She was convicted of what DOJ itself termed the worst type of crime, of facilitating the sexual abuse of children. She's been prosecuted for the last five years. She's never made any move towards coming clean or telling the truth. She's, in fact, when she's been questioned about this under oath in a 2016 civil deposition, she lied. She was asked, what do you know about Jeffrey Epstein and child sex trafficking? And she said, I don't know anything about that.
MARTIN: Yeah.
HONIG: So I would not bank on Ghislaine Maxwell suddenly seeing the light, suddenly coming forward and telling everything she knows about everyone, which is what she'd be required to do.
MARTIN: So as briefly as you can here, look, many of the victims are known to investigators. And their privacy is one reason the Justice Department says it has not released more files. But all these years, the outstanding question remains, who were these women and girls trafficked to? Is that a compelling enough question that you think will lead at some point to the release of these files?
HONIG: So I do think it's inevitable that some of the files get released somehow. The excuse of we have to protect victims' identities is invalid because, of course, you can still release the records but redact and protect victim information. But, yeah, look, I mean, that is the big question. Only two people have ever been prosecuted for all of this. Jeffrey Epstein, he's gone, and Ghislaine Maxwell, who is about to, you know, have her 20-year sentence confirmed by the appeals courts. And I think that's really the bottom line here that people want to know. Who are other powerful men who were involved in this ring, who had sex with underaged women and girls? And who facilitated that?
MARTIN: That is former federal prosecutor Elie Honig. Elie, thank you.
HONIG: Thanks very much. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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