Ghislaine Maxwell appeals for clemency from Trump as she declines to answer questions from lawmakers

WASHINGTON (AP) — Ghislaine Maxwell, the former girlfriend of Jeffrey Epstein, declined to answer questions from House lawmakers in a deposition Monday, but indicated that if President Donald Trump ended her prison sentence, she was willing to testify that neither he nor former President Bill Clinton had done anything wrong in their relationships with Epstein.

The House Oversight Committee had wanted Maxwell to answer questions during a video call to the federal prison camp in Texas where she’s serving a 20-year sentence for sex trafficking, but she invoked her Fifth Amendment rights to avoid answering questions that would be self-incriminating. She’s come under new scrutiny as lawmakers try to investigate how Epstein, a well-connected financier, was able to sexually abuse underage girls for years.

Amid a reckoning over Epstein's abuse that has spilled into nations around the globe, lawmakers are searching for anyone who was connected to Epstein and may have facilitated his abuse. So far, the revelations have shown how both Trump and Clinton spent time with Epstein in the 1990s and early 2000s, but they have not been credibly accused of wrongdoing.

During the closed-door deposition Monday, an attorney for Maxwell told lawmakers that if Trump granted her clemency, she would be willing to testify that neither Trump nor Clinton were culpable for wrongdoing.

Maxwell's attorney David Oscar Markus released his statement to the committee, saying that “Maxwell is prepared to speak fully and honestly if granted clemency by President Trump.”

He added that both Trump and Clinton “are innocent of any wrongdoing," but that ”Ms. Maxwell alone can explain why, and the public is entitled to that explanation."

Democrats said that was a brazen effort by Maxwell to have Trump end her prison sentence.

“It’s very clear she’s campaigning for clemency,” said Rep. Melanie Stansbury, a New Mexico Democrat.

Another Democratic lawmaker, Rep. Suhas Subramanyam, described Maxwell’s demeanor during the short video call as “robotic” and “unrepentant.”

Trump has not ruled out granting Maxwell clemency, but Republican pushback to that notion quickly rose after Maxwell made the appeal.

“NO CLEMENCY. You comply or face punishment,” Republican Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, wrote on social media. “You deserve JUSTICE for what you did you monster.”

Maxwell has also been seeking to have her conviction overturned, arguing that she was wrongfully convicted. The Supreme Court rejected her appeal last year, but in December she requested that a federal judge in New York consider what her attorneys describe as “substantial new evidence” that her trial was spoiled by constitutional violations.

Maxwell's attorney cited that petition as he told lawmakers she would invoke her Fifth Amendment rights.

The Republican chair of the committee, Rep. James Comer of Kentucky, told reporters that it was “very disappointing” that Maxwell declined to participate in the deposition.

Family members of the late Virginia Giuffre, one of the most outspoken victims of Epstein, also released a letter to Maxwell making it clear they did not consider her “a bystander” to Epstein's abuse.

“You were a central, deliberate actor in a system built to find children, isolate them, groom them, and deliver them to abuse,” Sky and Amanda Roberts wrote in the letter addressed to Maxwell.

Maxwell was moved from a federal prison in Florida to a low-security prison camp in Texas last summer after she participated in two-days of interviews with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche.

Comer had also subpoenaed her at the time, but her attorneys have consistently told the committee that she wouldn't answer questions. However, Comer came under pressure to hold the deposition as he pressed for the committee to enforce subpoenas on Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. After Comer threatened them with contempt of Congress charges, they both agreed to sit for depositions later this month.

Comer has been haggling with the Clintons over whether that testimony should be held in a public hearing, but Comer reiterated Monday that he would insist on holding closed-door depositions and later releasing transcripts and video.

Meanwhile, several lawmakers also planned on Monday to look through unredacted versions of the files on Epstein that the Department of Justice has released to comply with a law passed by Congress last year.

House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., joined at left by Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., speaks to reporters after a closed-circuit deposition with Ghislaine Maxwell, the former girlfriend and confidante of sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, at the Capitol in Washington, Monday, Feb. 9, 2026. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., flanked by Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., left, and Rep. William Timmons, R-S.C., speaks to reporters after a closed-circuit deposition with Ghislaine Maxwell, the former girlfriend and confidante of sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, at the Capitol in Washington, Monday, Feb. 9, 2026. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. military forces boarded a sanctioned oil tanker in the Indian Ocean after tracking the ship from the Caribbean Sea, the Pentagon said Monday.

The Pentagon's statement on social media did not say whether the ship was connected to Venezuela, which faces U.S. sanctions on its oil and relies on a shadow fleet of falsely flagged tankers to smuggle crude into global supply chains.

However, the Aquila II was one of at least 16 tankers that departed the Venezuelan coast last month after U.S. forces captured then-President Nicolás Maduro, said Samir Madani, co-founder of TankerTrackers.com. He said his organization used satellite imagery and surface-level photos to document the ship's movements.

A Navy official would not comment on what forces were used in the operation but confirmed that the destroyers USS Pinckney and USS Ralph Johnson, along with the mobile base ship USS Miguel Keith were operating in the Indian Ocean. In videos posted to social media by the Pentagon, uniformed forces can be seen boarding a Navy helicopter that then takes off from a ship that matches the profile of the Miguel Keith.

Video and photos of the tanker shot from inside a helicopter also show a Navy destroyer sailing alongside the ship. It is not clear from the video to which agency the forces conducted the seizure of the vessel belonged.

According to data transmitted from the ship on Monday, it is not currently laden with a cargo of crude oil.

The Aquila II is a Panamanian-flagged tanker under U.S. sanctions related to the shipment of illicit Russian oil. Owned by a company with a listed address in Hong Kong, ship tracking data shows it has spent much of the last year with its radio transponder turned off, a practice known as “running dark” commonly employed by smugglers to hide their location.

U.S. Southern Command, which oversees Latin America, said in an email that it had nothing to add to the Pentagon's post on X. The post said the military “conducted a right-of-visit, maritime interdiction” on the ship.

“The Aquila II was operating in defiance of President Trump’s established quarantine of sanctioned vessels in the Caribbean,” the Pentagon said. “It ran, and we followed.”

The U.S. did not say it had seized the ship, which the U.S. has done previously with at least seven other sanctioned oil tankers linked to Venezuela.

Since the U.S. ouster of Maduro in a surprise nighttime raid on Jan. 3, the Trump administration has set out to control the production, refining and global distribution of Venezuela’s oil products. Officials in President Donald Trump’s Republican administration have made it clear they see seizing the tankers as a way to generate cash as they seek to rebuild Venezuela’s battered oil industry and restore its economy.

Trump also has been trying to restrict the flow of oil to Cuba, which faces strict economic sanctions by the U.S. and relies heavily on oil shipments from allies like Mexico, Russia and Venezuela.

Since the Venezuela operation, Trump has said no more Venezuelan oil will go to Cuba and that the Cuban government is ready to fall. Trump also recently signed an executive order that would impose a tariff on any goods from countries that sell or provide oil to Cuba, primarily pressuring Mexico because it has acted as an oil lifeline for Cuba.

FILE - The Pentagon, the headquarters for the U.S. Department of Defense, is seen from the air, Sept. 20, 2025, in Arlington, Va. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, FIle)