Ghislaine Maxwell’s legal team moved forward with appealing her case to the Supreme Court on Monday, three days after the accomplice of Jeffrey Epstein met with a top Justice Department official.
The convicted child sex trafficker’s team filed a new brief with the Supreme Court urging it to overturn her conviction.
Maxwell’s team has argued that the government failed to live up to its obligation to honor a plea and non-prosecution agreement.
The partner of the late convicted sex offender and disgraced financier is serving 20 years in prison after being convicted in December 2021.
But in the brief, her lawyer argued that “this case is about what the government promised, not what Epstein did.”
In a statement to the Daily Beast, Maxwell’s lawyer David Oscar Markus argued the government promised immunity in Florida but violated that agreement when it moved in New York to prosecute her.
He also made a direct appeal to President Donald Trump, who has not ruled out pardoning Maxwell.
“We are appealing not only to the Supreme Court but to the President himself to recognize how profoundly unjust it is to scapegoat Ghislaine Maxwell for Epstein’s crimes, especially when the government promised she would not be prosecuted,” Markus said.
Maxwell’s appeal effort comes amid ongoing fallout over the Justice Department’s failure to release the Epstein files despite Trump’s campaign promise.
The president has been furiously trying to distance himself from both Epstein and Maxwell, who he was known to have a relationship before he ever ran for office.
Last week, it was revealed in a bombshell Wall Street Journal report that Trump was informed this spring by the Justice Department that his name appeared in the Epstein files multiple times.
As Attorney General Pam Bondi struggled to respond to outrage over the botched release of documents, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche met with Maxwell over two days last week for about nine hours to question her over the Epstein case.
It was a highly irregular move for the deputy attorney general of the United States. Blanche also previously served as Trump’s personal defense attorney, raising further questions as the president pushes back on a series of damaging Epstein reports.
During their lengthy sitdown, Maxwell answered all of Blanche’s questions and provided information on about 100 different people, according to her lawyer.
When asked about potentially pardoning Maxwell on Friday, Trump claimed he had not thought about it, but he did not rule it out, telling reporters that he was “allowed” to do it.
Hours later, Maxwell’s lawyer indicated they could seek a pardon. Markus, speaking to reporters, noted Trump’s comments about it and said the president should do what is “just.”
Trump on Monday reiterated that he is “allowed” to pardon Epstein’s co-conspirator when asked about it again during his visit to Scotland, but he insisted no one had asked him to issue one.
“Nobody’s asked me about it. It’s in the news about that, that aspect of it, but right now, it would be inappropriate to talk about it,” Trump said.
In the briefing to the Supreme Court on Monday, Maxwell’s lawyer argued that the lower courts were split over whether the government broke its promise on plea and non-prosecution agreements.
Epstein pleaded guilty in 2008 to state prostitution charges. He was indicted on federal sex trafficking charges in July 2019 but died by suicide in prison a month later.
The Supreme Court will likely decide whether to grant the case this fall when it returns.
