Courts remain firm against unsealing grand jury records from Epstein trial

By Thérèse Boudreaux
The Center Square

A second federal judge has denied the Trump administration’s request to unseal grand jury material from convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein’s 2019 trial.

New York-based U.S. District Judge Richard Berman, a Clinton appointee, ruled Wednesday that the U.S. Department of Justice “fails to demonstrate” legally convincing arguments for why the court should unseal the transcripts.

DOJ had filed a request on July 18 for grand jury documents from cases United States v. Epstein and United States v. Maxwell, the latter case concerning Epstein’s close associate Ghislaine Maxwell, who aided and participated in Epstein’s sex trafficking of minor girls.

The department argued that “special circumstances,” “extensive public interest,” and the belief that the grand jury materials contain “critical pieces of an important moment in our nation’s history” merited a reveal.

The Trump administration’s requests were individually denied by two different federal judges. Berman ruled against the government on similar legal grounds as the rest, arguing that the federal government, not the court, “is the logical party” to make public disclosure of any Epstein investigation materials.

Berman acknowledged that while there “is certainly and appropriately lots of discussion about the Epstein case,” the Trump administration “has already undertaken a comprehensive investigation” of its own and allegedly compiled roughly 100,000 pages of Epstein-related documents.

The 70-odd page grand jury testimony “pales in comparison” to information already in the DOJ’s possession, Berman said, particularly as the grand jury heard no testimony from Epstein’s victims, only “the hearsay testimony of one FBI agent,” who is still alive.

Epstein died awaiting trial in 2019, while Maxwell is serving a 20-year sentence that she recently appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. Interest in their crimes resurfaced after U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said Epstein’s alleged client list was “sitting on [her] desk,” only for the administration to backtrack and claim that no such list existed.

In an attempt to quell public outcry, President Donald Trump asked the DOJ to request the grand jury material from Epstein’s and Maxwell’s trials be released.

But Berman ruled that the Trump administration’s “public interest” justification is “legally insufficient,” particularly since court precedent only considers “public interest” a legitimate basis for unsealing grand jury testimony if several decades have passed.

Berman also listed “possible threats to victims’ safety and privacy” as another “compelling reason” to deny the request.

As of Wednesday afternoon, the Trump administration has not responded to the ruling. The DOJ did announce Tuesday that it will begin releasing some of its Epstein-related records this week, as The Center Square reported.