CNN’s Elie Honig Has Two Questions About Maxwell’s Sudden Prison Transfer

CNN legal analyst and former prosecutor Elie Honig raised questions on CNN Friday about the transfer of Ghislaine Maxwell to a lower-security federal prison.

Authorities reportedly transferred Maxwell to a minimum-security prison camp in Texas. During an appearance on “The Lead with Jake Tapper,” Honig asked two questions regarding Maxwell’s transfer.

“She was at low security, and now she’s at what we would call a camp, which is the lowest possible security,” Honig said. “So clearly, DOJ is delivering her some benefit, and clearly they have some faith in what she told them. The question is, will this be the only benefit she gets, or will they deliver further benefits as we move along?”

Honig suggested that while there’s a slight possibility the move was a coincidence, the evidence suggests otherwise.

“There’s an outside chance, a minuscule chance, that this is a coincidence, but I highly doubt it. BOP, the Bureau of Prisons, does occasionally move prisoners around, but look at the timing. I mean, just days after that meeting that Paula talked about face-to-face with the deputy attorney general,” Honig said. 

For Honig, the implications suggest the DOJ received sufficient cooperation from Maxwell.

“And so what this tells me is really a couple things. First of all, clearly DOJ, Todd Blanche, the deputy attorney general, were at least satisfied with what Maxwell told them. If they believe she lied, it’s hard to believe they’d be giving her a benefit,” Honig said. “They are giving her a substantial benefit. I promise you, every one of the tens of thousands of current federal inmates would love to be sent to a lower designation prison. And that’s what happened here.”

Authorities transferred Ghislaine Maxwell from a federal prison in Tallahassee, Fla. to a federal prison camp in Bryan, Texas, about a week after her interview with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche about the Epstein case. Maxwell’s lawyer, David Oscar Markus, confirmed the move.

During a two-day meeting, Maxwell discussed her ties to Epstein and provided detailed information about nearly 100 individuals allegedly linked to him.