President Donald Trump’s administration urged two judges on Tuesday night to release testimony heard by the grand juries that indicted the late financier Jeffrey Epstein and British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell on sex trafficking charges as the president seeks to calm an uproar over his administration’s handling of the matter.
The Justice Department first sought court permission on July 18 to make public transcripts of the confidential testimony given by witnesses years ago in the two cases, but Manhattan-based U.S. District Judges Richard Berman and Paul Engelmayer asked the government to flesh out the legal bases for the requests.
In a pair of court filings just before midnight, prosecutors said unsealing the materials would be appropriate given the “abundant public interest” in the Epstein case and persistent scrutiny of how it was handled by federal law enforcement.
The Epstein case has been at the center of conspiracy theories for years. Trump has faced pressure in recent months to make public documents from the federal investigations into Epstein and Maxwell.
Epstein hanged himself in jail in 2019, an autopsy concluded, while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges brought by federal prosecutors. He had pleaded not guilty. Maxwell, Epstein’s longtime girlfriend, was convicted in 2021 on sex trafficking charges and is serving a 20-year prison sentence in Florida. Maxwell had pleaded not guilty and is now asking the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn her conviction.
Trump said this month he had asked Attorney General Pam Bondi to seek the release of grand jury transcripts in the two cases. The president did so after the Justice Department said it concluded that Epstein died by suicide and that there was no incriminating list of his clients.
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Author: Dillon B
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