Taking another look

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MARY REICHARD, HOST: It’s Tuesday the 29th of July.

Glad to have you along for today’s edition of The World and Everything in It. Good morning, I’m Mary Reichard.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: And I’m Myrna Brown.

First up: A new twist in the long-running Jeffrey Epstein saga.

Yesterday, Ghislaine Maxwell—Epstein’s longtime associate and a convicted sex trafficker—asked the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn her conviction.

She says she was wrongfully found guilty of helping Epstein sexually exploit underage girls, asserting legal errors and unfair treatment during her trial.

REICHARD: The filing comes days after senior officials in the Department of Justice met with Maxwell in her Tallahassee prison.

When asked about that meeting, Trump called ongoing interest in the Epstein case a “witch hunt.” He then pivoted to declassified documents from 2016, claiming the Obama administration knew there was no Russian interference in the U.S. election system … but chose to mislead the public anyway.

TRUMP: This was treason. This was every word you can think of. They tried to steal the election. They tried to obfuscate the election.

BROWN: Joining us now is Bobby Higdon, a veteran of federal law enforcement with decades of experience. He now practices law privately in North Carolina. During his government service, he served as U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of North Carolina, and spent 24 years as Assistant U.S. Attorney before that.

REICHARD: Bobby, good morning.

BOBBY HIGDON: Good morning, Mary.

REICHARD: Well, let’s start with the 2016 story. The Russian collusion intelligence fiction appeared to be settled back in 2023 when the Durham report showed there was partisanship in the FBI. So I wonder: does the recent release of documents from Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard change anything about how we analyze 2016?

HIGDON: Well, I'm not sure whether it does or not. You know it, what it certainly does is add to the body of evidence that some will have access to. And what she's doing is she is surfacing those materials—I think she said it was about 200 pages of documents that were previously classified, and she's provided those to the Justice Department to incorporate into this review that we thought was settled at one time that revealed partisan conduct by the FBI. It'll be up to prosecutors and investigators to then evaluate that evidence, and the Attorney General set up a task force to review it. She didn't say to investigate or prosecute, but she said review, which is sort of a preliminary step to see, is there merit to it, and if there is, if it shows criminal activity, then they can move to the stage of opening an investigation and then conducting that investigation. So I think the answer is, we don't know yet.

REICHARD: President Trump says that President Obama and some officials may have committed treason and you’re saying we’ll have to find out. But I wonder: how would the Supreme Court's decision in Trump v. U.S. affect any investigations or prosecutions? That ruling gave President Trump absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for acts done within his core constitutional authority, among other things.

HIGDON: I think you've crystallized exactly what the main legal issue would be as to President Obama. Presidents, by necessity, are given broad authority, and the Supreme Court really affirmed that and further expanded it and defined it when that ruling. And so I think that it would be a very tall hurdle to get over to prosecute a former president for actions that were taken in the course of their official duties, and that it would be a good argument that ordering an Intelligence Review for whatever reason would fall within the scope of that. I think what will be an interesting question is there are obviously a lot of other individuals involved there may or may not have the benefit of any type of immunity in conducting their official business, and many of those are people that we've seen in the media over the last few years making certain statements about the state of intelligence related to Russian collusion, Russian involvement in our elections. And so I suspect there'll be a much broader review that won't just focus on President Obama, but would focus on those that were serving in his administration and dealing with this issue.

REICHARD: Let’s talk about Ghislaine Maxwell’s appeal to the Supreme Court. What is her argument?

HIGDON: Well, she advanced, I think, four basic arguments. She was trying to take advantage of the non-prosecution agreement that Jeffrey Epstein had several years ago with the Southern District of Florida, and alleged that it was improper to prosecute her the trial court and the appellate court in the Second Circuit threw that out.

She also alleged that the statute of limitations that was applicable to her case had expired and could not be extended by this the statute that was passed that they were relying on. The lower court rejected that argument.

She asked for a new trial because she said that some of the jurors answers to questions during what year, which is the time period during the trial when you're selecting jurors were improperly handled.

And then she also said that at the time of questions being asked by the jury as they were deliberating her case, that the judge's answers modified the indictment, what they call his constructive modification. In other words, the judge changed the charges by answering those questions. Now the trial judge rejected all of that, the Second Circuit rejected all of that, and we'll see if the Supreme Court even accepts her case, let alone decides her case. But that's really essentially what's pending before the Supreme Court for a decision right now as they determine whether they'll take her case.

REICHARD: Which of those, if any, do you think are her strongest or weakest arguments?

HIGDON: Well, I think, frankly, that most of these arguments are not very strong ones. I think that the the issue of the non-prosecution agreement will be governed by the terms of the agreement. Statute of limitations is a matter of looking at the statute and seeing whether or not any of the activity that's alleged, and in this case, there was a conspiracy which would give broad scope to the charges. If any of those activities fall within the limitations period, then you can prosecute her. Judges are given very wide latitude in dealing with jurors, and you have to look at what is said to the jury in the context of the entire trial. So I'll be surprised if the Supreme Court takes the case, let alone decides in her favor.

REICHARD: Are there other aspects of these stories that you think warrant more discussion? Either Russian collusion or the Epstein files?

HIGDON: Well, I think what is fascinating about the Maxwell case is the decision by the Justice Department to interview her. In recent days, the deputy attorney general spent nine hours with her, and let me just pause there and tell you, for the deputy attorney general of the United States to interview any witness is unusual, because the deputy attorney general does not generally involve himself or herself in the the individual workings of a specific criminal case. It's not to say it's improper, it's just unusual, but this is a very high profile case and a very important case. And so they granted Ms. Maxwell limited immunity, called use immunity, or in some districts, it's called “queen for a day,” where you get to talk about your own criminal activity and that of others without harming your case. You're given immunity for the conversation and the content of that conversation that you have on that day, and that's what they granted to her, even though she has been convicted at trial, which makes it unusual in terms of timing, and even though she has an appeal pending, which makes it unusual in terms of timing.

As a prosecutor who worked these types of cases for nearly three decades, I could count on one hand the number of times I even interviewed an individual after they've been convicted at trial. That type of benefit is usually extended to someone who's agreed to plead guilty and wants to cooperate, cooperate with you and earn a reduction in their sentence. I'm sure that her goal, if they use her as a cooperator, is to achieve a reduction in her sentence. But of course, the government has a significant interest in determining what is the full scope of evidence and who else was involved, if anyone, and we know there were many people involved in the criminal activity she was a part of, so it'd be very interesting to see how this plays out. But what occurred in the last few days is very unusual.

REICHARD: That’s clarifying. Thank you. Bobby Higdon is a former Assistant U.S. now in private practice in North Carolina. Thanks so much.

HIGDON: Thank you, Mary.

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