Judge denies Justice Department request to unseal Epstein grand jury transcripts
NEW YORK AP A federal judge in New York who presided over the sex trafficking episode against the late financier Jeffrey Epstein has rejected the cabinet s request to unseal grand jury transcripts The ruling Wednesday by federal Judge Richard Berman in Manhattan came after the judge presiding over the incident against British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell Epstein s former girlfriend also turned down the ruling body s request Maxwell is serving a -year prison sentence after her conviction on sex trafficking charges for helping Epstein sexually abuse girls and young women Epstein died in jail awaiting trial A Justice Department spokesperson declined to comment Berman commented 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 According to Berman s ruling no casualties testified before the Epstein grand jury The only witness the judge wrote was an FBI agent who had no direct knowledge of the facts of the affair and whose testimony was mostly hearsay The agent testified over two days on June and July The rest of the grand jury presentation consisted of a PowerPoint slideshow shown during the June session and a call log shown during the July session which ended with grand jurors voting to indict Epstein Both of those will also remain sealed Berman ruled Maxwell s matter has been the subject of heightened populace focus since an outcry over the Justice Department s declaration last month saying that it would not be releasing any additional documents from the Epstein sex trafficking scrutiny The decision infuriated online sleuths conspiracy theorists and elements of President Donald Trump s base who had hoped to see proof of a governing body cover-up Since then Trump administration agents have tried to cast themselves as promoting transparency in the incident including by requesting from courts the unsealing of grand jury transcripts The executive is the logical party to make comprehensive disclosure to the constituents of the Epstein file 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 he added the instant grand jury motion appears to be a diversion from the breadth and scope of the Epstein files in the Regime s possession The grand jury testimony is merely a hearsay snippet of Jeffrey Epstein s alleged conduct
