Judge denies Justice Department request to unseal Epstein grand jury transcripts

A federal judge on Wednesday rejected the Trump administration’s request to unseal grand jury transcripts from Jeffrey Epstein’s sex-trafficking case, joining two other judges who declined to release similar records from investigations into the late financier’s sexual abuse of young women and girls.

Judge Richard Berman, who presided over the 2019 case, ruled a week after another Manhattan federal judge turned down the government’s request to release transcripts from the grand jury that indicted Epstein’s longtime confidante Ghislaine Maxwell.

Barring reversal on appeal, Berman’s decision appears to foreclose the possibility of federal courts releasing Epstein-related grand jury testimony.

A federal judge in Florida declined to release grand jury documents from an investigation there in 2005 and 2007, though some material from a state case against Epstein was made public last year.

The rulings were a resounding repudiation of the Justice Department’s effort to unlock the records, a move the Republican administration undertook amid a fierce backlash over its refusal to release a massive trove of documents in its possession.

Berman and the judge in Maxwell’s case, Paul A. Engelmayer, made clear in their rulings that the grand jury transcripts contain none of the answers likely to satisfy the immense public interest in the case, with Berman calling the request a “diversion”.