Trump’s Justice Department asks judge to unseal Epstein grand jury material

Washington — The Justice Department on Friday formally asked a federal judge to unseal transcripts from grand jury proceedings involving convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

The filing from federal prosecutors comes a day after President Trump said he asked Attorney General Pam Bondi to seek the release of “any and all pertinent grand jury testimony, subject to court approval.” Bondi said the Justice Department would ask the federal court in Manhattan on Friday to make public the grand jury transcripts.

The Justice Department filed a request to unseal grand jury transcripts related to Epstein’s 2019 child sex trafficking charges in New York, which ended when Epstein died in custody later that year. It also petitioned for the release of grand jury transcripts in the case against Ghislaine Maxwell, who in 2021 was convicted of conspiring with Epstein, and said it will ask a South Florida court to release transcripts. Epstein was initially investigated by federal authorities in Florida in the 2000s, which ended in a federal non-prosecution agreement and a guilty plea on state prostitution charges.

The judges overseeing the cases will be the final decision-makers as to whether and how much of the grand jury documents can be released. If the judges do grant the government’s requests to unseal the material, it’s unlikely to be immediately available, and it could be weeks or months before the records are unsealed. Federal rules typically require matters before a grand jury to be kept secret.

In its filings Friday, the Justice Department said it will work to redact “victim-related information and other personal identifying information.” It argued the releases are justified “as a matter of public interest.”

The White House has spent the past week dealing with the fallout from a Justice Department and FBI memo that concluded Epstein did not have a “client list” and confirmed that he died by suicide. The memo, which detailed the findings of a review of Epstein’s case, also said there was no “credible evidence” that the disgraced financier blackmailed prominent people.

The Justice Department and FBI wrote that they would not release any additional information about Epstein’s case, and said the review did not uncover evidence that would lead to an investigation into uncharged third parties. 

In Friday’s court petitions, the department said “there has been extensive public interest in the basis for the Memorandum’s conclusions,” and “transparency to the American public is of the utmost importance to this Administration.”

Transcripts of the grand jury proceedings likely do not constitute the entirety of the evidence that the FBI and Justice Department collected in their investigation into Epstein. A list released by the Justice Department in February shows investigators gathered financial records, travel logs, photographs, data from phones and computers, and blueprints of property Epstein owned. It’s unknown how much of that underlying material was presented to the grand jury, and whether it would be included in a release.

Thousands of pages of documents have already been made public through court records in other lawsuits and public records requests.

The memo earlier this month sparked immense backlash against Mr. Trump and Bondi from his supporters, many of whom were skeptical of the Justice Department’s claim that there was nothing else to be released. Bondi had pledged to release files related to Epstein and suggested in a February interview with Fox News that a “client list” was “sitting on my desk right now to review.”

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt later said Bondi was referring to “all of the paper in relation to Jeffrey Epstein’s crimes.”

Still, Laura Loomer, an ardent defender of Mr. Trump, called for Bondi to be fired, and even House Speaker Mike Johnson told a conservative podcaster that “we should put everything out there and let the people decide.” He later tried to downplay any division between him and the president.

Mr. Trump has tried to blunt the outrage and claimed his backers have been duped by Democrats who deliberately stirred up the interest in Epstein.

“[A]ll these people want to talk about, with strong prodding by the Fake News and the success starved Dems, is the Jeffrey Epstein Hoax,” the president wrote Wednesday on Truth Social. “Let these weaklings continue forward and do the Democrats work, don’t even think about talking of our incredible and unprecedented success, because I don’t want their support anymore!”

But many of Mr. Trump’s supporters, as well as administration officials like Vice President JD Vance, FBI Director Kash Patel and Deputy FBI Director Dan Bongino, had suggested for years that Democrats were deliberately trying to conceal information about Epstein and his alleged list of clients.

The Justice Department in February distributed binders to 15 right-wing social media influencers at the White House that were labeled “The Epstein Files: Phase 1.” But the influencers said they contained documents that were already in the public domain.

Epstein was arrested in Florida in 2006 and pleaded guilty to two state prostitution charges in 2008. Then, in 2019, a federal grand jury indicted him on one count of sex trafficking of minors and one count of conspiracy to commit sex trafficking of minors.

Federal prosecutors alleged that Epstein sexually exploited and abused dozens of underage girls from 2002 through 2005, and worked with others who set up sexual encounters with victims at Epstein’s residences in Manhattan and Palm Beach, Florida.

Epstein and Mr. Trump were friends for years, running in the same social circles in New York and Florida from the late 1980s to the early 2000s. On Thursday, the president lashed out at a story in the Wall Street Journal that chronicled the pair’s relationship, which the president has said ended before Epstein’s first arrest in 2006. The Journal reported that Mr. Trump signed a “bawdy” letter to Epstein in the early 2000s to mark his 50th birthday that said, in part, “may every day be another wonderful secret.” Mr. Trump called the letter “fake” and said he would sue the Journal, its parent company and media mogul Rupert Murdoch over the story.

Epstein died by suicide while in custody at a Manhattan correctional facility while awaiting trial. The Justice Department’s inspector general investigated Epstein’s death and agreed with a medical examiner’s determination that he died by suicide.

Ghislaine Maxwell, an associate of Epstein’s, was convicted in 2021 for her role in helping Epstein recruit, groom and abuse underage girls. She is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence.