US Department of Justice renews request to release Epstein grand jury materials | Jeffrey Epstein
The Justice Department has renewed its request to unseal grand jury materials from the Jeffrey Epstein investigation that led to the disgraced financier’s federal indictment on sex trafficking charges in 2019.
The request, signed by US Attorney Jay Clayton for the Southern District of New York, says Congress made clear in approving the release of investigative materials last week that court records must be made public.
Clayton asked in the lawsuit filed in Manhattan federal court that the materials be released immediately because lawmakers were given a 30-day window after Donald Trump signed the measure into law last week.
The Justice Department said Congress’ action went beyond existing law in a way that would allow grand jury records to be disclosed.
But Judge Richard Berman rejected an earlier request by the Trump administration to release the grand jury transcripts, citing “significant and compelling reason” for denying the request.
Berman said in August that 70 pages of grand jury transcripts and exhibits, including a PowerPoint presentation and four pages of call logs and letters from victims and their attorneys, pale in comparison to documents the government already has on Epstein.
In that to ruleBerman wrote that “the 100,000 pages of Epstein files and materials the government possesses outweigh the 70 individual pages of Epstein grand jury materials” and that the request appeared to be a “diversion” from releasing the documents in its possession.
The grand jury materials consist largely of the testimony of an FBI agent, the only witness in the grand jury proceedings, “who had no direct knowledge of the facts of the case and whose testimony was mostly hearsay.”
But Berman said a compelling reason to keep the documents under seal was “potential threats to the safety and privacy of victims.”
A similar request to unseal grand jury testimony related to the trial of Epstein co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell was also denied. Manhattan federal court judge Paul Engelmayer wrote that the government’s request to unseal “implies that the grand jury materials are an untapped mine of undisclosed information about Epstein, Maxwell or their allies, which they most certainly are not.”
However, Clayton’s request comes shortly after he was assigned to investigate Epstein’s ties to prominent Democrats and four months after the firing of Maureen Comey, one of the lead prosecutors in the cases against Epstein and Maxwell, shortly before Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche traveled to Florida to interview Maxwell.
When Attorney General Pam Bondi was asked last week how the New York Democrats-Epstein investigation might impact the release of the Epstein files in the government’s possession, he said: “We’re not going to say anything else about that because it’s now a pending investigation in the Southern District of New York.”