Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) said House oversight and government reform committee Republicans are not supporting a pardon for convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell, the co-conspirator of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Luna made the comments in a NewsNation interview days after Rep. James Comer (R-KY), the chairman of the oversight committee, told reporters the committee was divided on whether to pardon Maxwell. Comer had said “a lot of people” on the committee were in favor of pardoning Maxwell in exchange for testimony.
“I haven’t heard that,” Luna said. “She’s not getting a pardon, the votes aren’t there for that.”
“My committee’s split on that,” Comer said, though he told reporters he himself was not in favor of granting Maxwell a pardon. Comer had declined to say which committee members supported the idea.
“At this point, we are not going to be supporting a pardon,” Luna said on Thursday evening.
Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA), the oversight committee’s ranking member, also spoke out against the possibility of a Maxwell pardon this week, calling the idea “outrageous” in a Thursday statement.
“She is a sexual abuser who facilitated the rape of women and children,” Garcia said. “This is a shameful way to treat survivors. Oversight Democrats are united in opposing any pardon.”
In June 2022, Maxwell was sentenced to 20 years in prison plus five years of supervised release for conspiring with Epstein. She was convicted in 2021 on five counts related to the sex trafficking and abuse of underage women. Maxwell is serving out her sentence in a federal prison in Bryan, Texas.
The House oversight committee held depositions with former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in late February after Comer deposed the couple. The two denied any knowledge of Epstein’s crimes, and Comer called the former president’s deposition “productive.”
The committee also sat for a closed-door deposition with Epstein’s former accountant, Richard Kahn, in March.
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In mid-March, the House oversight committee subpoenaed now-former Attorney General Pam Bondi while she was still in her Cabinet role.
After she was fired on April 2, the Justice Department announced Bondi would not sit for her deposition, citing that she “was subpoenaed in her capacity as Attorney General.”