A federal judge on Monday shot down the Trump administration’s attempt to make the grand jury transcripts of Ghislaine Maxwell’s sex trafficking case made public.
The Department of Justice has been trying to make the grand jury transcripts of the cases of Jeffrey Epstein, who died in 2019 before the charges against him could go to trial, and co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell, who was convicted of sex trafficking in 2021, public.
The quest for the materials began after the Justice Department said it had no Epstein client list and would not disclose any further details it had about Epstein, triggering a firestorm of protest.
On Monday, U.S. District Court Judge Paul Engelmayer rejected the Justice Department’s effort to make public the transcripts of Maxwell’s grand jury sessions, as noted by CBS.
The Justice Department had argued that special circumstances exist requiring the transcripts to be made public.
“The Government’s invocation of special circumstances, however, fails at the threshold,” Engelmayer wrote in his ruling.
“Its entire premise — that the Maxwell grand jury materials would bring to light meaningful new information about Epstein’s and Maxwell’s crimes, or the Government’s investigation into them — is demonstrably false,” he wrote.
The ruling noted that the Justice Department had been asked to identify whatever new information it thought needed to be released.
“The Government’s submissions in response to the Court’s orders were telling. They belied the Government’s claim, in its motion to unseal, that the Maxwell grand jury materials contain significant, undisclosed information about Epstein’s and Maxwell’s crimes, or the investigation into them,” he wrote.
Should Ghislaine Maxwell’s grand jury records be unsealed?
He said such things as the Justice Department wanted made public were “scattered words, clauses, and occasional sentences,” calling them “few and far between.”
“The highlighted snippets supply, at most, tertiary details about the same conduct that was the focus of Maxwell’s month-long trial,” he wrote.
The transcripts do not “discuss or identify any client of Epstein’s or Maxwell’s. They do not reveal any heretofore unknown means or methods of Epstein’s or Maxwell’s crimes,” Engelmayer wrote.
“They do not reveal new venues at which their crimes occurred. They do not reveal new sources of their wealth. They do not explore the circumstances of Epstein’s death. They do not reveal the path of the Government’s investigation,” he wrote.
Engelmayer was appointed in 2011 after being nominated by former President Barack Obama.
Previously, U.S. District Judge Robin Rosenberg rejected a Justice Department request to allow transcripts from 2005 and 2007 grand juries that investigated Epstein to be made public.
As noted by Politico, Rosenberg was also appointed by Obama.
A ruling on release of the transcripts in Epstein’s 2019 trial has not yet taken place.
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