By LARRY NEUMEISTER, MICHAEL R. SISAK and ERIC TUCKER Associated Press
NEW YORK (AP) — A federal judge on Wednesday rejected the Trump administration’s request to unseal grand jury transcripts from Jeffrey Epstein ‘s sex trafficking case, joining two other judges in denying the public release of material from investigations into the late financier’s decades-long sexual abuse of young women and girls.
Judge Richard Berman, who presided over the 2019 case, ruled a week after another Manhattan federal judge turned down the government’s request to release transcripts from the grand jury that indicted Epstein’s longtime confidante Ghislaine Maxwell.
Barring reversal on appeal, Berman’s decision appears to foreclose the possibility of courts releasing Epstein-related grand jury testimony. A federal judge in Florida declined to release grand jury documents from an investigation there in 2005 and 2007, though some material was made public last year.
Each judge cited longstanding grand jury secrecy rules and concluded that the government did not meet any of the extraordinary exceptions under federal law that could justify making them public.
The rulings were a resounding repudiation of the Justice Department’s effort to unlock the records, a move the Republican administration undertook amid a fierce backlash over its refusal to release a massive trove of documents in its possession.
Berman and the judge in Maxwell’s case, Paul A. Engelmayer, made clear in their rulings that the grand jury transcripts contain none of the answers likely to satisfy the immense public interest in the case, with Berman calling the request a “diversion.”
President Donald Trump had called for the release of transcripts amid rumors and criticism about his long-ago involvement with Epstein. During last year’s presidential campaign, Trump promised to release files related to Epstein, but he was met with criticism — including from many of his own supporters — when the small number of records released by his Justice Department lacked new revelations.
A Justice Department spokesperson declined to comment on Wednesday.
Berman said a “significant and compelling reason” to reject the government’s request was that the information contained in the Epstein grand jury transcripts “pales in comparison to the Epstein investigative information and materials in the hands of the Department of Justice.”
He wrote that the government’s 100,000 pages of Epstein files and materials “dwarf the 70 odd pages of Epstein grand jury materials.”
“The Government is the logical party to make comprehensive disclosure to the public of the Epstein Files,” Berman wrote in an apparent reference to the Justice Department’s refusal to release additional records on its own while simultaneously moving to unseal grand jury transcripts.
“By comparison,” Berman added, “the instant grand jury motion appears to be a ‘diversion’ from the breadth and scope of the Epstein files in the Government’s possession. The grand jury testimony is merely a hearsay snippet of Jeffrey Epstein’s alleged conduct.”
The Justice Department had informed Berman 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 over two days, 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, which ended with grand jurors voting to indict Epstein. Both of those will also remain sealed, Berman ruled.
Last year, a judge in Florida unsealed around 150 pages of transcripts of the grand jury proceedings that led to Epstein’s indictment on state charges there in 2006.
Maxwell, a British socialite and publishing heir, is serving a 20-year prison sentence after her 2021 conviction on sex trafficking charges for helping Epstein sexually abuse girls and young women. She was recently transferred from a prison in Florida to a prison camp in Texas. Epstein died in jail awaiting trial.
Maxwell’s case has been the subject of heightened public focus since an outcry over the Justice Department’s statement last month saying that it would not be releasing any additional documents from the Epstein sex trafficking investigation. The decision infuriated online sleuths, conspiracy theorists and elements of Trump’s base who had hoped to see proof of a government cover-up.
Since then, officials in Trump’s Republican administration have tried to cast themselves as promoting transparency in the case, including by requesting from courts the unsealing of grand jury transcripts.
Meanwhile, Maxwell was interviewed at a Florida courthouse weeks ago by Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, and the House Oversight Committee had also said that it wanted to speak with Maxwell. Her lawyers said they would be open to an interview but only if the panel were to ensure immunity from prosecution.
In a letter to Maxwell’s lawyers, Rep. James Comer, the committee chair, wrote that the committee was willing to delay the deposition until after the resolution of Maxwell’s appeal to the Supreme Court. That appeal is expected to be resolved in late September.
Comer wrote that while Maxwell’s testimony was “vital” to the Republican-led investigation into Epstein, the committee would not provide immunity or any questions in advance of her testimony, as was requested by her team.