US justice department questions Jeffrey Epstein accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell | BBC News

The US deputy attorney general has been questioning Ghislaine Maxwell, the former girlfriend of the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, who died in prison six years ago. She’s serving a 20-year jail sentence for sex trafficking and helping Epstein abuse young girls. Ghislaine Maxwell’s attorney said she had spent all day answering questions “truthfully, honestly and to the best of her ability.”

It comes as pressure grows on the Trump administration from the US public and his own supporters to release government files relating to the disgraced financier’s sex trafficking network. On Wednesday, The Wall Street Journal reported that the US Attorney General informed Trump in May that his name appeared in documents related to the Epstein case. The White House has dismissed the story as "fake news".

While campaigning for the presidency last year, Trump promised to release government files about Epstein, suggesting it would implicate political opponents. Simply being named in the documents would not amount to evidence of criminal activity and Trump has not been accused of wrongdoing in connection with the Epstein case.

However Trump’s supporters have grown frustrated with the administration’s failure to publish documents relating to Epstein, including a rumoured "client list". In a memo earlier this month, the justice department and FBI said that no such list existed.

Epstein died in a New York prison cell in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges, following an earlier conviction for soliciting prostitution from a minor. His death was ruled a suicide. Since then, conspiracy theories about his crimes and the cause of his death have proliferated.

Clive Myrie presents BBC News at Ten reporting by Sarah Smith in Washington.

Subscribe here: http://bit.ly/1rbfUog

For more news, analysis and features visit: www.bbc.com/news

#BBCNews