Representative Jamie Raskin sent a message six page letter to President Donald Trump on Sunday following new information his committee received from a whistleblower who alleges Ghislaine Maxwell is preparing a “commutation request” 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 the possible exchange of favors for false testimony exonerating you and Epstein’s other co-conspirators.”
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.”
When asked in July about a possible pardon for Maxwell, Trump said no one had approached him, although he reiterated his power to grant one.
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) addresses the crowd at a Democratic “People’s Town Hall” in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, on March 20, 2025.
ABC News
The Justice Department has not responded to ABC News’ request for comment.
Democratic Rep. Robert Garcia, ranking member of the House Oversight Committee who led the minority on the panel’s Epstein investigation, released a statement on Monday called on House Speaker Mike Johnson and Trump to “publicly oppose a commutation or pardon by President Trump” after 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. Raúl Grijalva, who died in March, and said he would do so after the House reconvenes after the Senate passed a government funding bill.
The president sent the House home after he approved the funding resolution four days before Grijalva’s election.
The spokesperson has denied that her decision is related to her intention to become the 218th signature on a discharge petition that requires a vote for publish the full Epstein file from the Department of Justice.
“This is a White House cover-up, and President Johnson is now complicit. Nod to Adelita Grijalva and release the Epstein files, now.” Garcia said.
Maxwell’s brother, Ian Maxwell, told ABC News that he is “not aware of any commutation or pardon request made to the second Trump administration by my sister, any of her legal representatives or by the Maxwell family.”
Ian Maxwell said that in any application for clemency or commutation, a prisoner must demonstrate that he has exhausted all avenues of appeal and that his sister is “working diligently” on an appeal which will be lodged “as soon as possible”.
Ian Maxwell said new evidence will show “unequivocally that significant government and jury misconduct occurred before, during and after the trial.”
He said the allegations in Raskin’s letter “strike to me as mischief, primarily in pursuit of a political agenda that seeks to embarrass the president and the administration.”
Raskin’s letter follows an Aug. 12 letter he and other Democrats sent to the Department of Justice and the Bureau of Prisons about Maxwell’s transfer to Bryan Federal Prison Camp, 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 crimes in connection with Jeffrey Epstein, the former financier and convicted sex offender who died by suicide in prison in 2019.
FCI Tallahassee in Florida, where Maxwell was held, is a “low security” prison for men and women, while FPC Bryan is a “minimum security” camp for women only.
The transfer followed Maxwell’s two-day meeting in July with Blanche in Tallahassee, where her lawyer said the two discussed “about 100 names” associated with Epstein, after the Trump administration promised to release additional information about the deceased sex offender.
ABC News James Hill contributed to this report.
