Judge orders release of Epstein grand jury transcripts under Trump-signed law

Secret grand jury transcripts from Jeffrey Epstein’s 2019 sex trafficking case can be made public, a judge ruled on Wednesday, joining two other judges in granting the Justice Department’s requests to unseal material from investigations into the late financier’s sexual abuse.

US District Judge Richard M. Berman reversed his earlier decision to keep the material under wraps, citing a new law that requires the government to open its files on Epstein and his long-time confidant Ghislaine Maxwell. The judge previously cautioned that the roughly 70 pages of grand jury materials slated for release were hardly revelatory and “merely a hearsay snippet” of Epstein’s conduct.

On Tuesday, another Manhattan federal judge ordered the release of records from Maxwell’s 2021 sex trafficking case. Last week, a judge in Florida approved the unsealing of transcripts from an abandoned Epstein federal grand jury investigation in the 2000s.

Undated trial evidence image obtained December 8, 2021 shows British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell and US financier Jeffrey Epstein. Photo: US District Court for the Southern District of New York/AFP
Undated trial evidence image obtained December 8, 2021 shows British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell and US financier Jeffrey Epstein. Photo: US District Court for the Southern District of New York/AFP

The Justice Department asked the judges to lift secrecy orders after the Epstein Files Transparency Act, passed by Congress and signed into law by US President Donald Trump last month, created a narrow exception to rules that normally keep grand jury proceedings confidential. The law requires that the Justice Department disclose Epstein-related records to the public by December 19.

Lawyers for Epstein’s estate told Berman last week that the estate took no position on the Justice Department’s unsealing request.

Questions about the government’s Epstein files have dominated the first year of Trump’s second term, with pressure on the Republican intensifying after he reneged on a campaign promise to release the files. His administration released some material, most of it already public, disappointing critics and some allies.

An image of Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein, with the message “President Trump: Release All the Epstein Files” is projected onto the US Department of Commerce in Washington earlier this year. Photo: TNS
An image of Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein, with the message “President Trump: Release All the Epstein Files” is projected onto the US Department of Commerce in Washington earlier this year. Photo: TNS

Berman was matter of fact in his ruling on Wednesday, writing that the transparency law “unequivocally intends to make public Epstein grand jury materials and discovery materials” that had previously been covered by secrecy orders. The law “supersedes the otherwise secret grand jury materials,” he wrote.