By Michael R. Sisak and Larry Neumeister | Associated Press
NEW YORK — Lawyers for imprisoned British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell are fighting the requested release of 90,000 pages related to disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein and Maxwell, saying a law used to force the public release of millions of documents is unconstitutional.
The lawyers filed papers late Friday in Manhattan federal court to try to block the release of documents from a since-settled civil defamation lawsuit brought a decade ago by the late Epstein victim Virginia Giuffre against Maxwell. The Justice Department recently asked a judge to lift secrecy requirements on the files.
Maxwell’s attorneys said the Justice Department obtained the documents — otherwise subject to secrecy orders — improperly during its criminal probe of Maxwell. They said the documents include transcripts of over 30 depositions and private information regarding financial and sexual matters related to Maxwell and others.
Some records from the year-long exchange of evidence in the lawsuit battle were already released publicly in response to a federal appeals court order.
Maxwell’s lawyers say a law Congress passed in December to force the release of millions of Epstein-related documents violates the Constitution’s separation of powers doctrine.
“Congress cannot, by statute, strip this Court of the power or relieve it of the responsibility to protect its files from misuse. To do so violates the separation of powers,” wrote the lawyers, Laura Menninger and Jeffrey Pagliuca about the Epstein Files Transparency Act.
“Under the Constitution’s separation of powers, neither Congress nor the Executive Branch may intrude on the judicial power. That power includes the power to definitively and finally resolve cases and disputes,” the lawyers added.
The release of Epstein-related documents from criminal probes that began weeks ago has resulted in new revelations about Epstein’s decades-long sexual abuse of women and teenage girls. Some victims have complained that their names and personal information were revealed in documents while the names of their abusers were blacked out.
Members of Congress have complained that only about half of existing documents, many with redactions, have been made public even as Justice Department officials have said everything has been released, except for some files that can’t be made public until a judge gives the go-ahead.
Giuffre said Epstein had trafficked her to other men, including the former Prince Andrew, now known as Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor. She sued Mountbatten-Windsor in 2021, claiming that they had sex when she was 17.
He denied her claims and the two settled the lawsuit in 2022. Days ago, he was arrested and held in custody for nearly 11 hours on suspicion of misconduct in having shared confidential trade information with Epstein.
In a memoir published after she killed herself last year, Giuffre wrote that prosecutors told her they didn’t include her in the sex trafficking prosecution of Maxwell because they didn’t want her allegations to distract the jury.
Maxwell, 64, was convicted in December 2021 and sentenced to 20 years in prison. Epstein took his own life in a federal lockup in August 2019 as he awaited trial on sex trafficking charges. 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.
Two weeks ago, she declined to answer questions from House Oversight Committee lawmakers in a deposition conducted in a a video call to her federal prison camp, though she indicated through a statement from her lawyer that she was “prepared to speak fully and honestly” if granted clemency.
The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Saturday.
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