White House responds to Ghislaine Maxwell grand jury decision

A federal judge has denied the Department of Justice’s request to unseal grand jury transcripts related to the indictment of Ghislaine Maxwell, marking a setback for President Donald Trump’s efforts to shed light on records tied to the Jeffrey Epstein scandal.

Maxwell decision

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt addressed the ruling during a press briefing. She said the administration was disappointed by the decision. “We think that is unfortunate. The president wants to see credible evidence released. As for the appeal process, I would send you to the Department of Justice for that,” Leavitt told reporters. In a sharply worded written opinion, U.S. District Judge Paul A. Engelmayer stressed that federal law “almost never” allows grand jury materials to be made public. He cautioned that casually releasing such records could set a dangerous precedent and accused the Justice Department of advancing its motion under misleading pretenses. According to Engelmayer, the true purpose of the request was to create an “illusion” of transparency rather than to provide meaningful disclosure.

Maxwell transcripts

Engelmayer dismissed the Justice Department’s assertion that unsealing the transcripts might reveal new information about Maxwell or Epstein. He described the argument as “demonstrably false” and explained that his private review of the documents showed they contained little of value. “Anyone familiar with the evidence from Maxwell’s 2021 s** trafficking trial would learn next to nothing new” and “would come away feeling disappointed and misled,” he wrote. The judge emphasized that the transcripts do not identify anyone besides Epstein and Maxwell as having intimate contact with a minor. “They do not discuss or identify any client of Epstein’s or Maxwell’s. They do not reveal any heretofore unknown means or methods of Epstein’s or Maxwell’s crimes,” Engelmayer stated. He further noted that the records shed no new light on the locations of crimes, the origins of Epstein and Maxwell’s wealth, the circumstances of Epstein’s death, or the course of the government’s investigation.

Unsealing the transcripts

Engelmayer argued that the strongest reason for unsealing the transcripts would be to highlight the government’s own disingenuous explanation. He wrote that “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.”

The Justice Department

The Justice Department’s unsuccessful bid to unseal the records undermines Trump’s broader push to release Epstein-related documents. Trump had promised during his campaign to make such records public in an effort to dispel speculation about his past ties to Epstein, who died in jail in 2019. However, when a limited batch of documents was released under his administration, they contained no major revelations, drawing criticism from both supporters and detractors.

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