As President Donald Trump fends off critics of his administration’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein sex trafficking of minors’ case, new attention is swirling around Epstein’s co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell, who was convicted as a conspirator in 2022.
She has been interrogated for a day and a half by Trump’s former defense attorney and now Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche.
She has been subpoenaed to testify before the House Oversight Committee.
She has filed a sudden appeal of her conviction to the U.S. Supreme Court, and she has been transferred to a minimum-security federal prison camp in Texas as she serves her 20-year sentence for sex trafficking of minors.
At the center of this Maxwell maelstrom are legal terms that many people do not understand such as “immunity,” “limited immunity,” “absolute immunity,” “clemency,” “pardon” and “commutation.”
What do these terms mean, in everyday language?
For example, Maxwell was given “limited immunity” to talk with Deputy Attorney General Blanche.
Her defense attorney has demanded that she receive “immunity” before she testifies before Congress. And Maxwell’s appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court concerns whether she was immune from prosecution by an earlier Epstein agreement with the federal authorities.
Meanwhile, her attorney has said that she would cooperate fully with the government if she received “clemency” from President Trump in the form of either a “pardon” or a “commutation” of her sentence.
Retired judges Gayle Williams Byers and Thomas Hodson break down these terms into understandable bites on this episode of their podcast Next Witness…Please.
They delve into legal strategies in play and talk about what might happen as this legal drama continues to unfold.

President Donald Trump has asked Senate leadership to forego the Senate’s traditional August recess and “long weekends” to push through a series of his appointments to key federal positions.
One such nomination that is hanging in the balance is the appointment of ultra controversial Trump loyalist Emil Bove to a seat on the Third Circuit Court of Appeals. That court spawned conservative Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito.
Bove’s nomination highlights the ongoing battle between Trump’s administration and the federal courts.
Bove currently is the Principal Associate Attorney General and is a longtime Trump attorney who represented Trump in the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case and was part of Trump’s defense team when the president was convicted of a felony.
As part of the Department of Justice, Bove has been accused of ignoring federal court orders, providing misinformation to federal judges and telling federal attorneys that they should consider saying “F… You” to the courts.
He has been accused of personally ordering three plane loads of prisoners to be deposited at the CECOT prison in El Salvador after federal judge James Boasberg ordered the planes to turn around and return to America.
Bove has reportedly advocated for policies promoting racial profiling and undermining due process rights of immigrants.
Bove also was instrumental in the Justice Department’s move to dismiss corruption charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams.
He is a former U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York where his management style and temper were challenged by colleagues and opponents alike.
Bove has no judicial experience whatsoever but is rumored to be on a fast track for the next nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court. He also is not an experienced litigator in federal appellate courts.
On this episode of Next Witness…Please, retired judges Gayle Williams Byers and Thomas Hodson unveil the judicial appointment process and dig deep into Bove’s controversial nomination.

“Next Witness…Please” examines the bill that could turn abortion into homicide—and voters into bystanders.
You might have thought that abortion rights were safe in Ohio after the Ohio Reproductive Freedom amendment to the Ohio Constitution was passed by 57 percent of the vote in 2023.
But think again.
In mid-June, House Bill 370, the Ohio Prenatal Equal Protection Act was introduced in the Ohio General Assembly. Its intent is to “entirely abolish abortion in this state.”
It does so by establishing that when a woman’s egg is fertilized that it then becomes a “pre-born person” entitled to all the federal constitutional protections provided a person once born.
The bill’s supporters say that Fourteenth Amendment protections of the U.S. Constitution would wipe out the Ohio Constitutional amendment legalizing abortion.
In short, an abortion would be considered a homicide by the mother, the doctor who performed the abortion, and anyone who advised the mother to be to get an abortion.
The proposed bill outlaws all abortion, even in the cases of rape or incest. There are only two exceptions: a spontaneous miscarriage and a life-saving emergency of the mother.
On this episode of Next Witness…Please, retired judges Thomas Hodson and Gayle-Williams Byers dive deeply into this bill and examine its potential ramifications – not only for Ohio but for the nation.
They also discuss the impact this bill, if passed, would have on democracy – given the recent overwhelming passage of the Reproductive Freedom Amendment in Ohio.
Additionally, they examine hypotheticals about how far ranging this proposed statute might be.