DOJ defends bringing case against Ghislaine Maxwell — as AG Pam Bondi faces MAGA firestorm over Epstein files

The Justice Department on Monday defended prosecuting Jeffrey Epstein’s madam Ghislaine Maxwell — as US Attorney General Pam Bondi faces a brewing firestorm over files related to the notorious pedophile.

The disgraced British socialite was wrong to claim that she was protected by the baffling sweetheart plea deal Epstein struck with the Florida feds in 2007, DOJ lawyers argued.

“That contention is incorrect,” the feds wrote in a legal filing.

Maxwell, 63, has asked the US Supreme Court to toss her 2021 conviction for grooming and abusing young women based on that claim.

A Manhattan federal jury found the heiress guilty of helping deceased jet-setting financier Epstein — her boss and off-and-on lover — run a sex-trafficking ring of underage girls.

Epstein was found dead with a noose around his neck in a Manhattan jail cell in 2019 while facing federal charges.

Bondi earlier this year suggested in an appearance on Fox News that a stack of newsworthy Epstein files was “sitting on my desk” and that she planned to release the documents to the public.

But the AG last week abruptly changed course, saying that the government would not be releasing the records after all — drawing criticism from across the political spectrum, including from MAGA influencers who had previously supported President Trump.

Trump has publicly defended Bondi, and thumbed his nose at those demanding more transparency about the Epstein case.

“Are people still talking about this guy, this creep? That is unbelievable,” the irked president said after The Post asked him about the notoriously headline-grabbing case during a Cabinet meeting last week.

In in a TruthSocial missive over the weekend, Trump wrote: “Let’s… not waste Time and Energy on Jeffrey Epstein, somebody that nobody cares about.”

“LET PAM BONDI DO HER JOB — SHE’S GREAT!” the president added in all caps.

Maxwell, meanwhile,has been cooling her heels in a Florida prison where she’s serving a 20-year-sentence.

Her lawyers have urged the Supreme Court to consider their argument — already rejected by a mid-level federal appeals court — that her bombshell prosecution should have been blocked under the feds’ 2007 deal with Epstein.

The shocking agreement allowed the convicted predator to serve just 13 months in a county jail where he could come and go during the day, despite several underage victims testifying he raped them.

The deal mentioned not bringing future cases against either Epstein or his “coconspirators,” but prosecutors at the Southern District of New York have successfully argued that the agreement was only binding to Florida federal prosecutors, and not to others around the country.

With the 2nd Circuit of Appeals having already rejected Maxwell’s appeal, only the Supreme Court is left to potentially review the case.

“I’d be surprised if President Trump knew his lawyers were asking the Supreme Court to let the government break a deal. He’s the ultimate dealmaker—and I’m sure he’d agree that when the United States gives its word, it should keep it,” Maxwell’s lawyer, David Oscar Markus, told The Post Monday.

“With all the talk about who’s being prosecuted and who isn’t, it’s especially unfair that Ghislaine Maxwell remains in prison based on a promise the government made and broke,” the attorney said.

Maxwell was portrayed during her trial as a “sophisticated predator” who served as Epstein’s right hand and abused young girls with him from at least 1994 to 2004.