A federal judge in New York has denied the Trump administration’s motion to unseal grand jury testimony from the criminal case against Jeffrey Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell.
The Trump administration has been seeking to release materials related to the investigation into Epstein, the wealthy financier and convicted sex offender who died by suicide in jail in 2019, following the blowback it received from MAGA supporters after it announced last month that no additional files would be released.
Maxwell, a longtime associate of Epstein, is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence for sex trafficking and other offenses in connection with Epstein.
In his 31-page opinion, U.S. District Judge Paul Engelmayer of the Southern District of New York criticized the Department of Justice for using “demonstrably false” reasoning to justify the release of grand jury testimony.
The transcripts would “not reveal new information of any consequence” about Epstein and Maxwell’s crimes, according to Judge Engelmayer, who suggested that the Trump administration’s push to release documents might be an intentional “diversion.”
“Its entire premise — that the Maxwell grand jury materials would bring to light meaningful new information about Epstein’s and Maxwell’s crimes, or the Government’s investigation into them — is demonstrably false,” he wrote.
Engelmayer wrote that the transcripts contain material already in the public record and lack any firsthand information about Epstein’s and Maxwell’s crimes. The records do not identify anyone other than Epstein or Maxwell who had sexual contact with a minor, mention any clients, shed light on their methods, or provide new information about Epstein’s death, Engelmayer wrote.
Ghislaine Maxwell attends day 1 of the 4th Annual WIE Symposium at Center 548 on September 20, 2013 in New York City.
Laura Cavanaugh/Getty Images
“Insofar as the motion to unseal implies that the grand jury materials are an untapped mine lode of undisclosed information about Epstein or Maxwell or confederates, they definitively are not that. A ‘public official,’ ‘lawmaker,’ ‘pundit,’ or ‘ordinary citizen’ ‘deeply interested and concerned about the Epstein matter,’ and who reviewed these materials expecting, based on the Government’s representations, to learn new information about Epstein’s and Maxwell’s crimes and the investigation into them, would come away feeling disappointed and misled. There is no ‘there’ there,” the judge wrote.
Engelmayer also suggested that the only reason that might justify the release of the records would be to “expose as disingenuous the Government’s public explanations for moving to unseal.”
“A member of the public, appreciating that the Maxwell grand jury materials do not contribute anything to public knowledge, might conclude that the Government’s motion for their unsealing was aimed not at ‘transparency’ but at diversion — aimed not at full disclosure but at the illusion of such,” he wrote.
Epstein died by suicide in 2019 while facing federal child sex trafficking charges. The well-connected financier, who owned a private island estate in the U.S. Virgin Islands, has long been rumored to have kept a “client list” of celebrities and politicians, which right-wing influencers have baselessly accused authorities of hiding.
The Justice Department and FBI announced last month that they had found no evidence that Epstein kept such a list, after several top officials, before joining the administration, had themselves accused the government of shielding information regarding the Epstein case.
