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(NewsNation) — A federal judge denied the Justice Department’s motion to unseal grand jury transcripts related to Jeffrey Epstein‘s sex crimes trial Monday, as calls for transparency around the evidence in the case have grown louder.
Epstein and co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell were convicted of sex trafficking minors. Maxwell is now serving a 20-year federal prison sentence.
On Monday, Judge Paul A. Engelmayer wrote in a 31-page response that “Maxwell’s grand jury testimony is not a matter of significant historical or public interest.”
“This Court gave careful consideration to unsealing the Maxwell grand jury materials on a similar rationale. But with the Government having now conceded that the information it proposes to release is redundant of the public record — that this information was ‘made publicly available at [Maxwell’s] trial or has otherwise been publicly reported’ — the public interest in testing the Government’s bona fides does not require the extraordinary step of unsealing grand jury records,” the judge wrote.
In Monday’s order, the judge said that anyone with knowledge of the case would not learn anything new from the court transcripts, and that if they were unsealed, anyone looking for nw information “would come away feeling disappointed and misled.”
“The materials do not identify any person other than Epstein and Maxwell as having had sexual
contact with a minor. They do not discuss or identify any client of Epstein’s or Maxwell’s. They do not reveal any heretofore unknown means or methods of Epstein’s or Maxwell’s crimes,” it read.
Engelmayer wrote that someone who knows there is no new information would consider the move a “…diversion—aimed not at full disclosure but at the illusion of such.”
“It consists of garden-variety summary testimony by two law enforcement agents. And the information it contains is already almost entirely a matter of longstanding public record, principally as a result of live testimony by percipient witnesses at the 2021 Maxwell trial,” he continued.
The DOJ and the FBI released a memo in July stating their investigation into Epstein concluded he killed himself in prison and that there was no “client list.” The page-and-a-half summary resulted in an upset internally at the FBI, according to a source close to the White House who spoke to NewsNation.
“I believe with full certainty that if Kash Patel and Dan Bongino had the power to operate separately from the DOJ, that they would have unsealed and released every single piece of evidence they could, while protecting victims, months ago,” the source said after the memo was released.
After calls for transparency grew louder, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi directed the DOJ to request the release of the grand jury transcripts.