The last time we heard any significant developments in the case of accused Epstein accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell, she was begging to be transferred into the general population. I don’t know if that was some sort of thinly veiled death wish or just a legal ploy to arrange for more comfortable conditions behind bars. The request was taking place at the same time that her lawyers were fighting to keep earlier depositions she had given under wraps, however. Those efforts dragged on in court for more than two months, but it now appears that the fight may be over. Barring some further action by her lawyers that might sway the judge’s mind, they’ve been ordered to release the depositions for public viewing tomorrow morning. (Associated Press)

Transcripts of interviews lawyers conducted with the ex-girlfriend of the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein must be released by Thursday morning, a judge said Tuesday.

U.S. District Judge Loretta A. Preska’s order allows the public release of transcripts of two days of depositions in 2016 of British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell and related documents, along with the deposition transcript of an anonymous accuser.

The judge briefly permitted the immediate release of the transcripts but reversed herself after an attorney for Maxwell made a late plea to delay the release.

It’s unclear precisely how many more appeals Maxwell’s lawyers can generate – if any – to keep dragging this out. As of now, they seem to be fighting over nitpicking details involving names and other information that has been redacted from the transcripts prior to release.

One of the sticking points in Maxwell’s attempts to keep the transcripts hidden is that most of them aren’t directly related to the criminal trial she now faces. These transcripts are from depositions she gave in the lawsuit brought against her by Virginia Roberts Giuffre. We already know that the primary allegation in her case was that Maxwell and Epstein had trafficked her to have sex with Britain’s Prince Andrew when she was still a minor. But that lawsuit was settled earlier this year so the transcripts may not be considered protected material at this point.

I’m sure the Prince doesn’t want to see the transcripts showing up in the news either, but that’s probably not the biggest item of interest here. First of all, there’s another transcript involving a second, anonymous accuser who also alleges that the famous pair of perverts had shopped her around. Those details may or may not be directly relevant to the criminal case.

What everyone is really waiting to find out is how many men were “benefitting” from Epstein’s sex trafficking trade and who was showing up on his creepy private island for such purposes. As you may recall, both Roberts Giuffre and a communications technician who worked on Epstein’s island have stated that they saw Bill Clinton there visiting the boss. Roberts went further, saying that she saw Clinton “with two young girls” and that orgies were “a regular thing that happened” on the island. For his part, Bill Clinton has publicly denied ever setting foot on the island.

News: President Clinton has issued a statement on Jeffrey Epstein pic.twitter.com/LlTZC8j6pv

— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) July 8, 2019

As Ed Morrissey previously pointed out, if Maxwell’s defense team has been fighting this hard and for this long to keep those transcripts under wraps, it’s a fair bet that there’s something pretty bad in them. Precisely who it might be bad for aside from Maxwell herself, remains to be seen. But if any more of the rich and powerful have their names popping up in the testimony of the accusers, the Bureau of Prisons may want to keep Maxwell on suicide watch for a while longer. We wouldn’t want to have another “accident” taking place, after all.