Washington, D.C. The Trump administration has been refused access to grand jury materials from the 2019 trial of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein by a second federal judge.
A Clinton appointment, U.S. District Judge Richard Berman of New York, decided Wednesday that the U.S. Department of Justice has not provided legally sound justifications for the court to release the transcripts.
On July 18, DOJ submitted a request for grand jury records from the cases United States v. Epstein and United States v. Maxwell. The latter case involved Ghislaine Maxwell, a close acquaintance of Epstein who assisted and took part in Epstein’s sex trafficking of young girls.
The agency contended that a disclosure was warranted due to unique circumstances, widespread public interest, and the conviction that the grand jury records included crucial details of a significant period in our country’s history.
Two federal justices separately rejected the requests of the Trump administration. On the same legal grounds as the others, Berman decided against the government, stating that the federal government, not the court, should be the one to disclose any Epstein probe files to the public.
Although there is undoubtedly and rightfully a lot of talk about the Epstein issue, Berman recognized that the Trump administration has already conducted a thorough investigation of its own and had gathered around 100,000 pages of Epstein-related records.
According to Berman, the roughly 70-page grand jury testimony is insignificant compared to the facts already in the DOJ’s hands, especially since the grand jury only heard the hearsay testimony of one FBI agent who is still alive and no testimony from Epstein’s victims.
Maxwell is currently serving a 20-year sentence that she just appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, while Epstein passed away in 2019 while awaiting trial. After U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said that Epstein’s purported client list was on [her] desk, interest in their crimes reignited. However, the government later retracted its claims, stating that there was no such list.
President Donald Trump requested the DOJ to request the release of the grand jury information from the Epstein and Maxwell trials in an effort to calm public uproar.
However, given that court precedent only recognizes public interest as a valid reason for releasing grand jury testimony after several decades have passed, Berman decided that the Trump administration’s public interest defense is legally insufficient.
Another strong argument to reject the request was provided by Berman, who also mentioned potential risks to the victims’ privacy and safety.
The Trump administration has yet to comment on the decision as of Wednesday afternoon. According to The Center Square, the DOJ did declare on Tuesday that it will start making some of its Epstein-related information available this week.
