The Justice Department has asked New York judges to unseal documents related to the grand jury investigations of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell.
Attorney General Pam Bondi referred to the Epstein Files Transparency Act, signed into law by Donald Trump last week following a landslide vote by congress which requires the release of the documents within 30 days.
Epstein was indicted in July 2019 in Manhattan on charges of sex trafficking girls – a month later he was found hanged in his cell before he could be tried. Maxwell, who was convicted in 2021 as part of the conspiracy, is serving a 20-year jail sentence.
Earlier this year, Bondi’s requests to the New York courts for the files to be released were rejected on the grounds of grand jury secrecy.
But now the attorney general argues the new bill signed by Trump and overwhelmingly supported by congress, ‘requires’ the courts to publish the documents.
‘The Act manifests a congressional intent to override some of the underlying bases for grand jury secrecy,’ Bondi wrote to Judge Richard Berman, who oversaw the Epstein case, and Paul Engelmayer, who presides over Maxwell’s case.
Berman denied in August a request by the Trump administration to release the grand jury files.
The judge said that ‘a significant and compelling reason’ for denying the release was because the 100,000 pages of Epstein dossiers in the government’s possession ‘dwarf the 70 odd pages of Epstein grand jury materials.’
Donald Trump, Melania Knauss, Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell at Mar-a-Lago in 2000
Berman said that the grand jury files ‘pale in comparison’ to the investigative materials held by the Justice Department, and are ‘merely a hearsay snippet of Jeffrey Epstein’s alleged conduct.’
He rebuked the government for asking the court to become embroiled in the public furor.
‘The Government’s complete information trove would better inform the public about the Epstein case,’ Berman wrote.
Two other judges have also denied the public release of material from investigations into Epstein’s decades-long sexual abuse of young women and girls.
The Justice Department has said that the only witness to testify before the Epstein grand jury was an FBI agent who, the judge noted, ‘had no direct knowledge of the facts of the case and whose testimony was mostly hearsay.’
The agent testified on June 18, 2019, and July 2, 2019. The rest of the grand jury presentation consisted of a PowerPoint slideshow and a call log. The July 2 session ended with grand jurors voting to indict Epstein.
Epstein was arrested on July 6, 2019. He was found dead in his cell at a Manhattan federal jail on August 10, 2019 in what authorities have ruled a suicide.
