Attorney General Bondi told the House Judiciary Committee under oath that Maxwell was not moved to a lower-security prison

On February 11, 2026, before the House Judiciary Committee, Attorney General Pam Bondi answered: "I did not know she was being transferred, and she was not transferred to a lower-level facility," after Rep. Deborah Ross of North Carolina asked whether a convicted sex offender like Ghislaine Maxwell deserved special treatment and special privileges in prison. She went on to state twice more that Maxwell had been moved to a "same level" prison. Bondi had, as congressional witnesses do, agreed at the outset to answer questions truthfully under penalty of perjury.

The Justice Department moved Maxwell in August 2025 from the Federal Correctional Institution in Tallahassee, Florida, to the Federal Prison Camp in Bryan, Texas, days after she was interviewed by Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, previously one of President Trump's defense lawyers. The Bureau of Prisons, an agency within Bondi's department, describes FCI Tallahassee as a low-security correctional institution and FPC Bryan as a minimum-security prison camp. The two classifications differ on the Bureau's own published criteria: low-security institutions have double-fenced perimeters and cell housing, while minimum-security camps have limited or no perimeter fencing and dormitory housing. Maxwell wrote to a relative a week after the transfer that the food was "legions better," the staff "responsive and polite," and that she felt "much, much happier here and more importantly safe."

Bondi's separate assertion that she had been unaware of the transfer until after it happened concerned a facility operated by an agency under her own authority. The Justice Department did not answer press questions about the discrepancy between her testimony and the Bureau's classifications. The customary mechanism for Congress to pursue a witness who testifies falsely is a criminal referral to the Justice Department — the department Bondi runs.

The hearing itself was combative throughout, with Bondi trading insults with Democratic members over the Justice Department's handling of the congressionally compelled release of Epstein investigation records and its prosecutions of the President's political opponents.

Updates

2026-03-02 — Ross, Raskin and Khanna opened a Bureau of Prisons inquiry into the transfer [2]

Rep. Deborah Ross, House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Jamie Raskin and Rep. Ro Khanna wrote to the Bureau of Prisons demanding all documents concerning Maxwell's transfer, noting that Bondi's testimony had established she did not authorize it and did not know who did. The lawmakers wrote that no record documenting the transfer or its authorization appeared among the 3.5 million documents produced under the Epstein Files Transparency Act, and that under Bureau policy Maxwell "should never have been eligible for transfer to a minimum-security facility in the first place."

2026-06-12 — Ross, Raskin, Khanna demanded answers on secretive BOP policy change [5]

Rep. Deborah Ross, House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Jamie Raskin and Rep. Ro Khanna wrote to the Bureau of Prisons demanding answers about a policy change expanding the Attorney General's authority over inmate placement to minimum-security facilities, citing Bondi's testimony that she did not authorize Maxwell's transfer and did not know who did.