A federal judge on Monday rejected a request by the Justice Department to unseal grand jury transcripts in the New York sex trafficking case of Ghislaine Maxwell, Jeffrey Epstein’s co-conspirator.
District Judge Paul A. Engelmayer (Obama) wrote in his order that the government’s premise that unsealing the records would shed light on meaningful new information was “demonstrably false,” and that “unsealing the grand jury materials would not reveal new information of any consequence.”
“Contrary to the Government’s depiction, the Maxwell grand jury testimony is not a matter of significant historical or public interest. Far from it,” he wrote. “It consists of garden-variety summary testimony by two law enforcement agents. And the information it contains is already almost entirely a matter of longstanding public record.
“The Government has not cited any case finding such materials to present a ‘special circumstance’ that justifies the exceptional step of unsealing grand jury materials,” Engelmayer continued, adding “There is none.”
So why not just release the transcripts?
The Trump DOJ has made a similar request in Epstein’s case, which remains pending in front of a different judge.
The requests come amid months of controversy over Jeffrey Epstein – particularly Trump’s campaign trail promise that he would release the ‘Epstein list’ of high-profile sex offender friends and clients of the dead pedophile.
After Attorney General Pam Bondi released an already-public binder of Epstein documents earlier this year & Trump started acting really weird about the whole thing, the DOJ moved last month to unseal grand jury materials related to Maxwell and Epstein with redactions to protect victims’ identities.
Maxwell opposed the unsealing, while representatives of Epstein’s estate took no position. Several of the victims also generally supported unsealing, but raised concerns over the government’s motivations.
Engelmayer is the second judge to deny the government’s unsealing requests – the first being a Florida judge who declined too release grand jury materials from an investigation in the 2000s.
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