Judge shuts down Trump admin’s Epstein request

The Department of Justice has faced repeated setbacks in its efforts to unseal grand jury transcripts and other materials in relation to the late Jeffrey Epstein. And now, they’re being hit with another loss.

Court denies DOJ

A New York judge recently denied the DOJ’s request to unseal the documents, claiming that the content of the transcripts “pales in comparison to the Epstein investigative information and materials” already in the government’s possession.

Court calls DOJ request a ‘diversion’

District Judge Richard Berman, who presided over Epstein’s case before he died in 2019, criticized the government’s request. He agreed with a prior ruling by another judge who described the DOJ’s effort as a “diversion” designed to shift attention from mounting public pressure on President Donald Trump‘s administration to disclose the “Epstein Files.” Wrote Berman, “The government is the logical party to make comprehensive disclosure to the public of the Epstein file. By comparison, the instant grand jury motion appears to be a ‘diversion’ from the breadth and scope of the Epstein files in the government’s possession. … The grand jury testimony is merely a hearsay snippet of Jeffrey Epstein’s alleged conduct.”

Maxwell documents also denied

This recent ruling comes on the heels of another denial involving grand jury documents connected to Ghislaine Maxwell. Maxwell, Epstein’s former partner, is currently serving a 20-year sentence after being convicted of charges linked to Epstein’s crimes. District Judge Paul Engelmayer ruled that releasing the grand jury materials would add nothing new to the public record. He warned that any disclosure would only leave the public “disappointed and misled.”

White House backtracks

Earlier this year, the White House responded to public demand by releasing binders of Epstein-related documents to far-right influencers. At the time, White House official Pam Bondi told Fox News that additional materials were “sitting on my desk right now to review.” Yet by July, the Trump administration reversed its stance, concluding there was “no basis to revisit the disclosure of those materials” amid ongoing demands. Officials maintained that “no further disclosure would be appropriate or warranted.”

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