A federal decide in New York has denied the Trump administration’s movement to unseal grand jury testimony from the felony case in opposition to Jeffrey Epstein affiliate Ghislaine Maxwell.
The Trump administration has been looking for to launch supplies associated to the investigation into Epstein, the rich financier and convicted intercourse offender who died by suicide in jail in 2019, following the blowback it received from MAGA supporters after it introduced final month that no extra information could be launched.
Maxwell, a longtime affiliate of Epstein, is at present serving a 20-year prison sentence for intercourse trafficking and different offenses in reference to Epstein.
In his 31-page opinion, U.S. District Decide Paul Engelmayer of the Southern District of New York criticized the Division of Justice for utilizing “demonstrably false” reasoning to justify the discharge of grand jury testimony.
The transcripts would “not reveal new info of any consequence” about Epstein and Maxwell’s crimes, based on Decide Engelmayer, who prompt that the Trump administration’s push to launch paperwork could be an intentional “diversion.”
“Its complete premise — that the Maxwell grand jury supplies would carry to mild significant new details about Epstein’s and Maxwell’s crimes, or the Authorities’s investigation into them — is demonstrably false,” he wrote.
Engelmayer wrote that the transcripts comprise materials already within the public file and lack any firsthand details about Epstein’s and Maxwell’s crimes. The information don’t establish anybody apart from Epstein or Maxwell who had sexual contact with a minor, point out any shoppers, make clear their strategies, or present new details about Epstein’s loss of life, Engelmayer wrote.
Ghislaine Maxwell attends day 1 of the 4th Annual WIE Symposium at Heart 548 on September 20, 2013 in New York Metropolis.
Laura Cavanaugh/Getty Photographs
“Insofar because the movement to unseal implies that the grand jury supplies are an untapped mine lode of undisclosed details about Epstein or Maxwell or confederates, they definitively aren’t that. A ‘public official,’ ‘lawmaker,’ ‘pundit,’ or ‘peculiar citizen’ ‘deeply and anxious in regards to the Epstein matter,’ and who reviewed these supplies anticipating, based mostly on the Authorities’s representations, to be taught new details about Epstein’s and Maxwell’s crimes and the investigation into them, would come away feeling disillusioned and misled. There is no such thing as a ‘there’ there,” the decide wrote.
Engelmayer additionally prompt that the one purpose which may justify the discharge of the information could be to “expose as disingenuous the Authorities’s public explanations for shifting to unseal.”
“A member of the general public, appreciating that the Maxwell grand jury supplies don’t contribute something to public information, would possibly conclude that the Authorities’s movement for his or her unsealing was aimed not at ‘transparency’ however at diversion — aimed not at full disclosure however on the phantasm of such,” he wrote.
Engelmayer is the second decide to disclaim the administration’s motions to unseal secret grand jury testimony associated to Epstein and Maxwell. Final month, U.S. District Decide Robin Rosenberg dismissed the DOJ’s motion to unseal testimony from the primary federal investigation of Epstein in Florida that started within the mid-2000s.
A 3rd federal decide in New York continues to be contemplating the administration’s request to unseal testimony within the second Epstein investigation in 2019.
The federal government’s transfer to unseal grand jury testimony got here after the Trump administration confronted backlash for its choice final month not to release any additional supplies from investigations in opposition to Epstein and Maxwell, after repeated statements that it deliberate to take action.
In response to a three-page proof listing launched by the Justice Division in February, the federal government is in possession of greater than 300 gigabytes of data obtained throughout these investigations. The remaining supplies embody 40 computer systems and digital units, 26 storage drives, greater than 70 CDs and 6 recording units, based on the proof index.
The proof additionally contains roughly 60 items of bodily proof, together with images, journey logs, worker lists, greater than $17,000 in money, 5 therapeutic massage tables, blueprints of Epstein’s island and Manhattan residence, 4 busts of feminine physique elements, a pair of ladies’s cowboy boots and one stuffed canine, based on the listing.
The unreleased proof notably contains a number of paperwork associated to 2 islands Epstein owned within the U.S. Virgin Islands, Little Saint James — the place his compound was positioned — and Higher Saint James. In response to the index, the information embody a folder containing Island blueprints, images and different paperwork.
A few of the paperwork may make clear who visited the island. In response to the index, the information additionally embody a Little Saint James logbook in addition to a number of logs of boat journeys to and from the island.
Epstein died by suicide in 2019 whereas dealing with federal little one intercourse trafficking expenses. The well-connected financier has lengthy been rumored to have stored a “shopper listing” of celebrities and politicians, which right-wing influencers have baselessly accused authorities of hiding.
The Justice Division and FBI introduced final month that that they had found no evidence that Epstein stored such a listing, after a number of high officers, earlier than becoming a member of the administration, had themselves accused the federal government of defending info concerning the Epstein case.
In its joint memo, the FBI and DOJ argued {that a} “massive portion” of the information included images of victims and little one pornography. In response to the DOJ, the proof contains “pictures and movies” of victims who seem like minors, “over ten thousand downloaded movies and pictures of unlawful little one intercourse abuse materials and different pornography,” and a “massive quantity” of pictures of Epstein.
“Whereas we’ve got labored to offer the general public with most info concerning Epstein and ensured examination of any proof within the authorities’s possession, it’s the willpower of the Division of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation that no additional disclosure could be applicable or warranted,” the memo stated.
