New Republic • Jan 28, 2026
Longtime Jeffrey Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell has revealed that more than two dozen men received cushy plea deals with the government.In a habeas petition filed Tuesday aimed at preemptively ending her prison sentence, Maxwell alleged that 29 friends of the notorious sex trafficker had been “protected” by the Justice Department by way of “secret settlements.”Those settlements went to “25 men” and four potential “co-conspirators,” reported The Daily Beast. The petition has prompted questions regarding the identities of the cloaked individuals—and why the DOJ would offer them protection.Congress passed the Epstein Files Transparency Act on November 19 to force the executive branch to release the files in their entirety. The bill stipulated that the Justice Department had 30 days to comply, but that deadline has since disappeared in the rearview. It is now late January, and less than one percent of the files has been made publicly available.In a Tuesday court filing, the DOJ offered vague placations that it expects to process the trove, which includes two million documents, “in the near term.” Officials did not provide a specific date for the full release, as required by law.Employees at the Justice Department are reportedly manually reviewing the pages to find and redact the names of victims and, presumably, censor mentions of protected individuals.So far, the DOJ has released roughly 12,285 documents related to the Epstein files, totalling 125,575 pages.Earlier this month, Representatives Ro Khanna and Thomas Massie called for a special master or independent counsel to hold the DOJ to a timeline as it drags its feet on the cache.“The Department of Justice is openly defying the law by refusing to release the full Epstein files,” Khanna said in a statement. “Millions of files are being kept from the public.”Maxwell was sentenced in 2022 to 20 years in jail for playing an active role in Epstein’s crimes, identifying and grooming vulnerable young women while normalizing their abuse at the hands of her millionaire boyfriend. Maxwell’s attorneys have pressed the White House for a pardon for several months now, though the White House has not indicated it will grant one.A July interview between Maxwell and the DOJ proved incredibly fruitful for the convict, however, sparking concerns that the Trump administration had offered Maxwell a quid pro quo in exchange for a revised “Epstein list.”Shortly after she spoke with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, Maxwell—one of the worst sex criminals of the century—received an extremely cushy transfer, shipping her from a Florida prison to a low-security prison camp in Texas where she has been granted many privileges not typically afforded to inmates. Her time behind bars has since included meal service in her cell, unlimited toilet paper, and access to private visitations in a chaplain’s office outside standard visiting hours. Her requests to be separated from other inmates have also been granted, with tables and cellmates reportedly being relocated at her whim.