Ghislaine Maxwell’s alleged prison perks spark Raskin probe into Trump administration

(NEW YORK) — Rep. Jamie Raskin sent a sharply worded six-page letter to President Donald Trump on Sunday following new information his committee received from a whistleblower alleging that Ghislaine Maxwell is preparing a “commutation application” for the Trump administration and receiving preferential treatment while incarcerated.

Raskin, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, accused the Trump administration of allowing “a corrupt misuse of law-enforcement resources” and demanded that Deputy U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche testify before the Judiciary Committee immediately to “answer for this corrupt misuse of law enforcement resources and potential exchange of favors for false testimony exonerating you and other Epstein accomplices.”

White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said in a statement about Raskin’s letter: “The White House does not comment on potential clemency requests. As President Trump has stated, pardoning Ghislaine Maxwell is not something he has thought about.”

Asked in July about a possible pardon for Maxwell, Trump said no one had approached him, though he reiterated his power to grant one.

The Justice Department has not responded to ABC News’ request for comment.

Democratic Rep. Robert Garcia, the ranking member on the House Oversight Committee who has led the minority on the panel’s Epstein investigation — released a statement on Monday calling on House Speaker Mike Johnson and Trump to “publicly oppose a commutation or pardon by President Trump” after the Judiciary Committee Democrats released their whistleblower information.

Johnson has resisted calls to swear in Democratic Rep.-elect Adelita Grijalva, who won a special election in September to succeed her father Rep. Raul Grijalva, who died in March, and said he would after the House reconvenes following the Senate passing a government funding bill.

The speaker sent the House home after it passed the funding resolution four days before Grijalva’s election.

The speaker has denied that his decision is related to her intent to become the 218th signature on a discharge petition forcing a vote to release the Department of Justice’s full Epstein file.

“This is a White House cover-up, and Speaker Johnson is now complicit. Seat Adelita Grijalva, and release the Epstein files, now,” Garcia said.

Raskin’s letter is a follow-up to an August 12 letter he and other Democrats sent to the Department of Justice and the Bureau of Prisons about Maxwell’s transfer to Federal Prison Camp Bryan, a minimum-security facility that he said was an “apparent flagrant violation of BOP policies, including one that explicitly prohibits the placement of sex offenders in such facilities.”

Maxwell is serving a 20-year prison sentence for child sex trafficking and other offenses in connection with Jeffrey Epstein, the former financier and convicted sex offender who died by suicide in jail in 2019.

FCI Tallahassee in Florida, where Maxwell had been held, is a “low security” prison for men and women, while FPC Bryan is a “minimum security” camp just for women.

The transfer followed Maxwell’s two-day meeting in July with Blanche in Tallahassee, where her attorney said the two discussed “about 100 names” associated with Epstein, after the Trump administration promised to release additional information about the deceased sex offender.