A U.S. federal judge has denied the Justice Department’s request to unseal grand jury transcripts from the criminal case of Ghislaine Maxwell, the convicted associate of late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
In a ruling issued Monday, District Judge Paul Engelmayer said the transcripts contained little beyond what is already public and did not implicate anyone other than Maxwell and Epstein in having sexual contact with underage girls.
The Trump administration had pushed for the release of the documents, hoping it would ease outrage among the former president’s supporters, many of whom have long claimed there was a cover-up surrounding Epstein’s crimes and powerful associates.
Rejecting the DOJ’s argument of “abundant public interest,” Judge Engelmayer dismissed suggestions that the sealed materials held explosive revelations.
“Its entire premise — that the Maxwell grand jury materials would bring to light meaningful new information about Epstein’s and Maxwell’s crimes, or the Government’s investigation into them — is demonstrably false,” he wrote. “Insofar as the motion to unseal implies that the grand jury materials are an untapped mine lode of undisclosed information… they definitively are not that. There is no ‘there’ there.”
Maxwell, 63, is serving a 20-year sentence after her 2021 conviction for recruiting underage girls for Epstein, who died in a New York jail in 2019 while awaiting trial for sex trafficking.
The Justice Department has also sought the release of Epstein’s grand jury transcripts, a request currently before a different judge.
Epstein’s case has fueled years of speculation and conspiracy theories, particularly among Trump loyalists, who have been angered by recent FBI and DOJ statements that the financier acted alone, did not maintain a “client list,” and was not involved in blackmailing public figures.
In an effort to quell the backlash, DOJ officials pursued the unsealing of both Epstein and Maxwell’s grand jury records.
Trump, 79, was once a close acquaintance of Epstein, and The Wall Street Journal reported last month that his name appeared among hundreds in a Justice Department review of the so-called “Epstein files.” No evidence of wrongdoing by the former president has been found.
Maxwell remains the only Epstein associate convicted in connection with the sex trafficking network — a case that continues to stir public fascination and political controversy
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