BURSTA CNN legal analyst and former federal prosecutor suggested Friday that the Department of Justice's (DOJ) ongoing discussions this week with convicted sex offender Ghislaine Maxwell may just be an effort to "appease the critics."
"This is not realistically — given her credibility problems, given her past — going to result in DOJ in signing her up as a cooperator, giving her a sentencing break, indicting new people based on her, calling her as a witness at trial," Elie Honig said on "CNN News Central."
"It looks to me like they're trying to check a box or trying to appease the critics, be able to say, 'Look, we sat down with her, we got information, we dug in, we tried to find the truth,' and hopefully that'll appease people," Honig said.
The DOJ on Thursday dispatched Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, who formerly served on President Trump's private legal team, to Florida to interview the ex-girlfriend and longtime associate of sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Maxwell is serving a 20-year sentence after being convicted of aiding Epstein's sex trafficking of minors.
Blanche said in a social media post Thursday evening that he planned to continue interviewing Maxwell on Friday.
"The Department of Justice will share additional information about what we learned at the appropriate time," Blanche wrote in a post on social platform X.
Honig, who was an assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York from 2004 to 2012 and worked in the New Jersey attorney general's office from 2012 to 2018, said the interviews are unlikely to lead to credible revelations.
"She has no credibility: Remember who she is. People are treating her now like she's a savior," Honig said. "She's a convicted sex trafficker who has done nothing but refuse to talk, and when she has talked, lied."
"Anyone who's holding out hope that she's going to come in and bring justice for these victims, think again," he added.
Another prominent legal expert has described the move to interview Maxwell as "extremely unusual" amid ongoing questions about Epstein, his death and possible connections he had to Trump and other prominent people before he was charged with sex trafficking minors and died in a New York City jail in 2019.
Trump, meanwhile, has denied suggestions that the DOJ is vetting Maxwell for a pardon in exchange for revealing information about Epstein's connections.