The Trump administration asked federal judges on Friday to unseal grand jury transcripts from the prosecutions of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, citing public demand for transparency and renewed scrutiny of how the Justice Department handled the high-profile sex-trafficking cases.
The requests, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, follow President Donald Trump’s public request to Attorney General Pam Bondi to “produce any and all pertinent Grand Jury testimony, subject to Court approval.” Trump made his request Thursday night in a post to Truth Social amid rising pressure from his political base and Democrats demanding full disclosure of what the government found in its yearslong investigation.
In its filing in the Epstein case, the DOJ said it is seeking to release the grand jury records “subject to appropriate redactions of victim-related and other personal identifying information,” and pledged to work with the U.S. Attorney’s Office in New York to safeguard privacy protections.
“Transparency to the American public is of the utmost importance to this Administration,” the motion states. “Given the public interest in the investigative work conducted by the Department of Justice and Federal Bureau of Investigation into Epstein, the Department of Justice moves the Court to unseal the underlying grand jury transcripts.”
The motions, signed by Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, emphasize that the public’s interest in the case — and suspicions of a cover-up — have only grown since the DOJ and FBI released a July 6 memorandum concluding that there was “no credible evidence” Epstein blackmailed powerful individuals or maintained an incriminating “client list.”
Still, the DOJ acknowledged that releasing grand jury materials is rare. “It is a tradition of law that proceedings before a grand jury shall generally remain secret,” the filing says. However, it argues that secrecy rules are not absolute, noting courts have previously made exceptions for “historical interest by the public.”
“Jeffrey Epstein is ‘the most infamous pedophile in American history,’” the motion says, quoting a 2024 Florida court decision. “The facts surrounding Epstein’s case ‘tell a tale of national disgrace.’ … The time for the public to guess what they contain should end.”
The DOJ cited other rulings in which judges determined that grand jury secrecy could be lifted in the face of extraordinary public interest. “It is … entirely conceivable that in some situations historical or public interest alone could justify the release of grand jury information,” the department wrote, quoting from In re Craig, a leading 2nd Circuit precedent.
WHAT THE GOVERNMENT STILL WON’T REVEAL ABOUT JEFFREY EPSTEIN
The government seeks not only the release of grand jury materials from Epstein’s 2019 indictment, but also from Maxwell’s 2020 indictment and conviction. Maxwell was sentenced to 20 years in prison in 2021 for her role in Epstein’s trafficking ring.
Judge Richard Berman, who presided over Epstein’s federal case until his death in 2019, previously oversaw the matter in Manhattan. Judge Alison J. Nathan, who handled Maxwell’s criminal trial, now sits on the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, raising the likelihood that a new judge will handle the government’s motion in her case.
