The Justice Department has asked New York judges to unseal documents related to the grand jury investigations into 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 jail cell before he could be tried. Maxwell, who was convicted in 2021 as part of the conspiracy, is serving a 20-year sentence.
Earlier this year, Bondi’s requests to the New York courts were rejected on the grounds of grand jury secrecy.
But now the attorney general argues the new bill signed by Trump and backed to the hilt by congress, supersedes any existing legal hurdles.
‘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.
The motion noted that the law allows redactions of anything that ‘would jeopardize an active federal investigation or ongoing prosecution’, however the filings did not mention the recently launched investigations into Bill Clinton, Larry Summers, and Reid Hoffman ordered by Trump.
GOP Rep. Thomas Massie, one of the main architects of the Epstein bill, had claimed that Trump’s sudden order for the new probes was a ‘smokescreen’ to prevent the full release of the files.
Donald Trump, Melania Knauss, Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell at Mar-a-Lago in 2000
Trump repeatedly called the Epstein files a Democrat ‘hoax’ in recent months despite campaigning on a pledge to release the documents once in office.
The president explosively fell out with Republican firebrand Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene – one of his most loyal allies in the House – after she ferociously attacked the administration, claiming that they were withholding the files.
Epstein, a New York financier who owned a home in Palm Beach, was a longtime friend of Trump throughout the 1990s and into the early 2000s.
The president expelled Epstein from his Mar-a-Lago Club around October 2006 over accusations of ‘creepy’ behavior toward young female staff members. Epstein was convicted of solicitation of a minor in 2008.
Virginia Giuffre, Epstein’s ‘sex slave’ who killed herself earlier this year, was recruited by Maxwell from Mar-a-Lago. She absolved Trump in her memoir, writing that she had never known of any allegations against the president.
Judge 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.’
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.
