Trump admin punishing inmates for protesting Epstein accomplice's 'VIP treatment': report

President Donald Trump's administration is now reportedly coming down hard on federal inmates for speaking out against the DOJ's apparent soft treatment of convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell.

That's according to CNN, which reported Friday that Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) — the ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee — is now demanding answers from the warden at Maxwell's minimum security prison about what he alleges is "VIP treatment" for deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein's chief accomplice. CNN host Jim Sciutto said Raskin is also questioning Maxwell getting "mysterious visitors, meal delivery and other special perks" and that the DOJ has "retaliated against inmates who dared to speak out about her fawning preferential treatment."

Elie Honig, a legal analyst for the network, told Scuitto that while he's less concerned with meal deliveries and meetings with visitors, the major red flag in Raskin's letter is the allegation that inmates have been punished for drawing attention to Maxwell's treatment.

"Apparently there are other inmates in this facility, other female inmates who have spoken out about preferential treatment to Ghislaine Maxwell and are now being punished," Honig said. "Representative Raskin points out one particular inmate who appears to have been kicked out of a training program and moved to a higher security prison. That is a major problem, if that's happening as retaliation."

Honig went on to remind viewers that Maxwell shouldn't even be at the Bryan, Texas prison — where she was moved earlier this year after a two-day meeting with Deputy Attorney General (and Trump's former personal attorney) Todd Blanche — due to Bureau of Prisons rules. Facilities like Bryan are typically only for white-collar offenses, whereas violent offenders like those convicted of sex crimes have to serve their sentences in more restrictive conditions.

"That takes a waiver. Somebody within the Justice Department ... has to specifically approve that, say, 'I waive the normal course of proceedings and I'm okay with Ghislaine Maxwell being moved to a lower security prison,'" Honig said. "To this day, we don't know who actually authorized that. And we've not gotten answers from DOJ about that."

Watch the segment below:

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