Epstein Files 2026: arrests, resignations, and Maxwell

Ghislaine Maxwell, sentenced to 20 years for sex trafficking, appeared before the United States Congress on February 9 wearing her brown prison uniform, stared at the table in front of her, and repeated the same phrase to every question: "I assert my Fifth Amendment right to remain silent." Then her lawyer read a statement that summarized in a single transaction everything the Epstein files have uncovered in two months: Maxwell would speak freely if President Trump grants her clemency. In exchange, she would publicly absolve him and Bill Clinton of any wrongdoing.

This is how the network works. Even from prison.

The Epstein Files Transparency Act, passed in November 2025 and signed by Trump, forced the Justice Department to release its entire file. On January 30, 2026, more than three million pages were published. What followed was not an orderly disclosure but a staggered detonation: every week, a new name. Every week, a different institution in damage control mode.

The release included Epstein's contact book, flight logs for his planes, and court documents spanning more than twenty years of litigation. The problem is that approximately 2.5 million documents from the DOJ's investigative file have not been made public, and many of the 3.5 million pages already released are heavily redacted. Congress has spent weeks demanding to know what is hidden in what's missing.

The answer arrived in the form of a journalistic investigation: an NPR probe found that the Justice Department pulled or withheld Epstein files related to sexual abuse allegations mentioning President Trump, including what appear to be more than 50 pages of FBI interviews with a woman who accused Trump.

The White House responded that Trump "has been fully exonerated." The DOJ called the subpoena regarding the matter "completely unnecessary." No one explained why pages that were legally required to be published do not appear in the database.

Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor is the first member of the House of Windsor arrested in its entire history, and by extension the first member of the British royal family detained in 379 years. The arrest was carried out on February 19—his 66th birthday—on charges of "misconduct in public office," a British common law offense that carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment. The charges do not revolve around the sexual abuse previously mitigated with an out-of-court settlement in 2022, but rather the alleged leak of classified government information to Epstein during his years as the UK's trade envoy.

Four days later, former ambassador Peter Mandelson was arrested outside his home and released on bail hours later, also on suspicion of misconduct in public office. DOJ documents indicated that Mandelson facilitated high-level meetings for Epstein, and that Mandelson's boyfriend received monthly payments of $4,000 funneled from the financier's accounts between 2009 and 2010.

What makes the Mandelson case particularly serious for Prime Minister Keir Starmer is what he knew before appointing him ambassador to Trump: according to subsequently declassified documents, civil servants presented him with a report warning of the "reputational risks" associated with Mandelson. Starmer appointed Mandelson anyway. He dismissed him nine months later when the publication of the files made the position untenable.

The corporate sector reacted before the justice system. The logic was simple: appearing 9,300 times in declassified documents, even in emails where you call a convicted sex trafficker "wonderful" and "Uncle Jeffrey," makes you a liability that no board of directors wants on its balance sheet.

Kathryn Ruemmler, Goldman Sachs' chief legal officer and former White House counsel under Obama, announced her departure effective June 2026. The files showed $9,000 handbags, Apple Watches, and spa treatments funded by Epstein, along with what the documents imply was strategic advice to help him manage his public reputation. Goldman Sachs, while processing the situation, approved an 11% pay raise for Ruemmler up to $25 million annually. The package was signed weeks before her forced resignation.

Thomas Pritzker, Executive Chairman of Hyatt Hotels, also announced his immediate retirement after it was documented that he maintained sustained contact with Epstein and Maxwell long after the 2008 sex crimes conviction. Brad Karp, chairman of the law firm Paul Weiss, resigned. Casey Wasserman, a Hollywood agent, announced the sale of his company. The World Economic Forum lost its president, Børge Brende. Dubai ports operator DP World ousted its CEO.

One resignation a day, for weeks. The pattern is the same in every case: first the denial, then the emails, then the exit.

The Apollo Global Management co-founder paid Epstein $170 million between 2012 and 2017 for supposed "tax planning services." The Senate Finance Committee, led by Senator Ron Wyden, has documented that the fees paid to Epstein were 30 times higher than those of the top international law firms that Black already employed. One payment of over $10 million was channeled through a charitable foundation registered under Epstein's own name in the Virgin Islands, with written instructions to "avoid public disclosure" of Black's name.

The documents also reveal that Epstein operated as a middleman for hush-money payments to several women, and that he shared the geographical location of these individuals with operatives linked to the Russian government.

That last detail transforms the investigation. It's no longer just tax evasion.

The House Oversight Committee voted to formally subpoena Attorney General Pam Bondi to testify about how she has handled the Epstein case. Five Republican lawmakers broke ranks with the Trump administration to back the subpoena alongside Democrats. Bondi will appear at a closed-door hearing on April 14.

Democrats on the Oversight Committee walked out of a briefing with Bondi and her deputy Todd Blanche on Wednesday after Bondi repeatedly refused to confirm whether she would comply with the subpoena to testify under oath. When the press asked her on her way out, Bondi replied only: "I will comply with the law."

No one on Capitol Hill interpreted that phrase as a clear commitment.

The same Blanche who managed the session with Bondi was the one who previously interviewed Maxwell in prison in a format that lawmakers described as a conversation, not an interrogation, and who blocked the delivery to Congress of a 2015 DEA memo that, according to Senator Wyden, documented evidence that the federal government knew the true scale of Epstein's operations decades earlier.

Maxwell's attorney, David Oscar Markus, stated during the deposition that "Ms. Maxwell is prepared to speak fully and honestly if President Trump grants her clemency." He added that both Trump and Clinton "are innocent of any wrongdoing," and that "only Ms. Maxwell can explain why, and the public has a right to that explanation."

The offer is bold in its transparency. There is no subtext: it is an open negotiation. The most relevant convict of the entire network is offering to politically exonerate the president in exchange for getting out of prison.

Trump has sent well wishes to Maxwell on several occasions in the past. When she was arrested in 2020, he said he had "seen her numerous times" and wished her "well."

What makes the calculation impossible for the White House is the political arithmetic: granting a pardon would not prove innocence. It would prove exactly what two-thirds of Americans already suspect, according to a CNN poll published in January, that the government is deliberately withholding information. A bought absolution does not clear a name. It buries it.

"The issue will not go away until they release all the files," said Representative Ro Khanna.

There are 2.5 million unpublished pages remaining. Bondi's hearing is set for April 14. The Clintons have pending subpoenas. Leon Black, Howard Lutnick, and Epstein's accountant, Richard Kahn, have already sat for depositions.

And Maxwell is still waiting for an answer from her low-security prison in Texas, with a service dog loaned out for her personal entertainment, as whistleblowers reported to Congress, in apparent violation of protocols that prohibit exactly that.

Someone, somewhere in the system, continues to make decisions so that she is comfortable while she decides whether to speak.