Justice Department renews bid to unseal Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell grand jury materials

NEW YORK AP The Justice Department on Monday renewed its request to unseal grand jury transcripts from Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell s sex trafficking cases arguing they should be made population under a new law requiring the cabinet to open its files on the late financier and his longtime confidante U S Attorney Jay Clayton cited the Epstein Files Transparency Act passed by Congress last week and signed into law by President Donald Trump in court filings asking Manhattan federal Judges Richard Berman and Paul A Engelmayer to reconsider their prior decisions to keep the material sealed The Justice Department interprets the transparency act as requiring it to publish the grand jury and discovery materials in this scenario revealed the eight-page filings which also bear the names of Attorney General Pam Bondi and her second-in-command Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche The filings are among the first inhabitants indications that the Justice Department is working to comply with the transparency act which requires that it make Epstein-related files community in a searchable and downloadable format within days of Trump signing it into law That means no later than Dec The Justice Department appealed Berman and Engelmayer for expedited rulings allowing the release of the grand jury materials which contains testimony from law enforcement bystanders but no casualties arguing that the new law supersedes existing court orders and judicial policies that would otherwise prevent constituents disclosure In its filing Monday the Justice Department revealed any materials made community could be partially redacted to prevent the disclosure of things like casualties personal identifying information The transparency act compels the Justice Department the FBI and federal prosecutors to release the vast troves of material they ve amassed during investigations into Epstein s decades-long sexual abuse of young women and girls The law mandates the release of all unclassified documents and investigative materials including files relating to immunity deals and internal Justice Department communications about whom to charge or investigate Berman has previously noted that the grand jury transcripts in Epstein s scenario amount to about pages along with a PowerPoint slideshow and call log The only witness to testify was an FBI agent who had no direct knowledge of the facts of the affair Berman noted in his prior ruling The FBI agent testified on June and July The July session ended with grand jurors voting to indict Epstein He was arrested on July and discovered dead in his jail cell on Aug The same FBI agent testified before the Maxwell grand jury which met in June and July and March the Justice Department has explained The only other witness was a New York City police detective The Justice Department first petitioned Berman to unseal the grand jury material in July doing so at Trump s direction as the president sought to quell a firestorm after he reneged on a campaign promise to open up the authorities s so-called Epstein files Engelmayer who presided over Maxwell s sex trafficking trial ruled first In an Aug decision he wrote that federal law almost never allows for the release of grand jury materials and that casually making the documents community was a bad idea And he suggested that the Trump administration s real motive for wanting the records unsealed was to fool the constituents with an illusion of transparency Engelmayer wrote that after privately reviewing the grand jury transcripts that anyone familiar with the evidence would learn next to nothing new and would come away feeling disappointed and misled The materials do not identify any person other than Epstein and Maxwell as having had sexual contact with a minor They 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 the judge announced Berman who presided over Epstein s matter ruled about a week later He concluded that a important and compelling reason to deny the Justice Department s request to unseal the Epstein grand jury transcripts was that information contained in them pales in comparison to investigative information and materials already in the Justice Department s possession Berman wrote in his Aug ruling that the regime s pages of Epstein-related files dwarf the grand jury transcripts which he announced were merely a hearsay snippet of Jeffrey Epstein s alleged conduct Source