A federal judge in New York on Wednesday denied the Justice Department’s request to unseal grand jury transcripts and exhibits in the Jeffrey Epstein case.
U.S. District Judge Richard Berman found the government had not reached the high bar necessary to unseal the transcripts – and suggested there was not much there anyway.
“A significant and compelling reason to reject the Government’s position in this litigation is that the Government has already undertaken a comprehensive investigation into the Epstein case and, not surprisingly, has assembled a ‘trove’ of Epstein documents, interviews and exhibits,” Berman wrote.
“The government’s 100,000 pages of Epstein files and materials dwarf the 70 odd pages of Epstein grand jury materials,” the ruling said, adding the government’s motion “appears to be a ‘diversion’ from the breadth and scope of the Epstein files in the Government’s possession.”
The grand jury testimony, the judge said, is “a hearsay snippet of Jeffrey Epstein’s conduct” delivered by an “FBI agent who had no direct knowledge of the facts of the case.”
The judge said another factor in his decision was “possible threats to victims’ safety and privacy.”
“According to the government, there are over a thousand victims of Jeffrey Epstein,” the judge wrote, and it is “difficult to know exactly how many victims favor unsealing,” in part because the Justice Department did not give them adequate notice of its request.
The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the ruling by Berman, who was nominated to the bench in 1998 by then-President Bill Clinton.
Two other judges have also denied the Justice Department’s bid to unseal grand jury records – one involving an earlier case in Florida and the other in the case involving Epstein’s accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell.
The House Oversight Committee has subpoenaed the DOJ for the investigative file, and the department has said it will begin turning documents over to the committee on Friday.
In his ruling, Berman noted U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi had said in a press release in February that the department was “committed to transparency” and “intends to release the remaining (Epstein) documents to the public.”
That position changed on July 6, when DOJ and the FBI issued a joint unsigned memo saying no other people were expected to be charged in the probe and “no further disclosure” of the files would be appropriate.
The memo led to a furious backlash from President Donald Trump’s MAGA base, because the politically-connected Epstein’s criminal case and 2019 death have long been the subject of conspiracy theories that have been stoked by the president and his supporters.
Those who were in Epstein’s social circle included Trump and Clinton.
Trump directed Bondi to seek to unseal the grand jury transcripts last month, just hours after The Wall Street Journal reported that Trump had sent a “bawdy” 50th birthday letter to Epstein in 2003. NBC News has not independently verified the documents, and Trump denied sending such a letter.
Trump has sued the newspaper’s publisher, two of its reporters and News Corp. founder Rupert Murdoch over the story. The paper has said it stands by its reporting.
Maxwell, who’s serving a 20-year prison sentence, also sat for an unusual interview with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche late last month. A source familiar with the matter told NBC News earlier this month that the department was considering releasing a transcript of the interview.
After her meeting with Blanche, Maxwell was transferred from a Florida prison to a minimum-security prison in Texas where the majority of inmates are serving time for nonviolent offenses and white-collar crimes.
