Judge will not unseal grand jury papers in Epstein and Maxwell cases

A federal judge Monday denied the government’s request to unseal grand jury transcripts from its investigation into Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, a longtime companion of Epstein who is serving a 20-year prison sentence for sexually exploiting and abusing teenage girls.

Unsealing the transcripts would mean applying a “special circumstances” exception to the secrecy of grand juries, wrote the judge supervising Maxwell’s case, Paul A. Engelmayer.

Permitting such an exception “casually or promiscuously” would erode confidence in people called to testify before future grand juries, Engelmayer wrote.

“This factor weighs heavily against unsealing,” the judge wrote in his order Monday.

The ruling comes as President Donald Trump tries to subdue criticism and conspiracy theories from his supporters about Epstein and his circle by pushing for the transcripts’ disclosure. Epstein’s death six years ago in a cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Center spurred improbable theories, including that he was killed by Democrats and that he was blackmailing rich and famous people. His death was ruled a suicide.

Top aides to Trump pushed some of those theories before they entered government, and the administration’s failure to disclose any revelations about Epstein, a financier who moved in exclusive circles, has threatened to drive a wedge between Trump and some of his fervent supporters.

The judge’s refusal Monday to unseal the transcripts is the latest setback in the president’s effort to defuse the controversy.

Maxwell was arrested a year after Epstein’s death and in December 2021 was found guilty of sex trafficking and other charges. Her conviction was affirmed on appeal. She has asked the Supreme Court to review her case.

Maxwell’s lawyers have argued that she had been scapegoated by federal prosecutors who had no one else to prosecute after Epstein died. The lawyers had resisted the government’s request to release the transcripts, writing that while Epstein is dead, “Ghislaine Maxwell is not.”

“Whatever interest the public may have in Epstein, that interest cannot justify a broad intrusion into grand jury secrecy in a case where the defendant is alive, her legal options are viable and her due process rights remain,” they said.

Monday’s order came weeks after a federal judge in Florida denied a request by the government to release grand jury transcripts from an investigation in that state into Epstein.

In the push to unseal the transcripts in both New York and Florida, government officials argued that there was significant public interest in the case.

The government argued that the release would be warranted because attention to the cases had “recently intensified” after the Justice Department announced last month that it had concluded its review of the investigation. The Justice Department said the release of the materials would bolster the government’s claims that it had left no stone unturned.

For months, Attorney General Pam Bondi had promised the release of material that could show damaging details of the investigation. But in February, when Bondi released documents connected to the case, she failed to appease Trump’s supporters and conservative media figures. The documents primarily had information that had already been in the public domain and did not reveal wrongdoing by people other than Epstein.

Last month, the Justice Department said it had closed the case, prompting an instant outcry.

In a memo, the FBI and the Justice Department said its review of files regarding Epstein had “revealed no incriminating ‘client list’” or credible evidence that “Epstein blackmailed prominent individuals as part of his actions.” It indicated that there would be no more disclosures about Epstein.

The announcement merely fueled the backlash. In recent weeks, Todd Blanche, Bondi’s deputy, held two days of interviews with Maxwell in Florida, in an effort to quell criticism that the government was hiding information about Epstein.

Last week, the Republican-led House Oversight Committee issued a subpoena to the Justice Department for its files related to the Epstein case.

In his order Monday, Engelmayer noted the public interest argument, saying he had given it “careful consideration.” However, he wrote, because the government has “conceded that the information it proposes to release is redundant of the public record,” there is no need to unseal the grand jury materials.

The push to unseal the records might be seen as an effort not “aimed not at ‘transparency’ but at diversion – aimed not at full disclosure but at the illusion of such,” he wrote.

“Contrary to the government’s depiction, the Maxwell grand jury testimony is not a matter of significant historical or public interest,” Engelmayer wrote. “Far from it. It consists of garden-variety summary testimony by two law enforcement agents.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.