A judge denies the Justice Department’s request to unseal Epstein grand jury transcripts in Florida.
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Jeffrey Epstein appeared in court in West Palm Beach, Fla., in 2008.Credit...Uma Sanghvi/Palm Beach Post, via Associated Press
A federal judge in Florida on Wednesday denied a request from the Trump administration to release grand jury transcripts from an investigation into the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, stymying efforts by President Trump to dispel a storm of criticism from many of his supporters.
The quick denial came in response to a request by the government last week asking the court to unseal those documents and to transfer the case to New York, where Mr. Epstein was indicted after a grand jury investigation in 2019. In its request, the Justice Department cited “extensive public interest” and “transparency to the American public.”
Mr. Trump and his subordinates, including Attorney General Pam Bondi, have come under enormous pressure to release further details about Mr. Epstein. Ms. Bondi had promised to do so but reversed course after a joint memo issued by the F.B.I. and the Justice Department on July 6 indicated that no more disclosures about Mr. Epstein’s conviction would be forthcoming.
The memo concluded that after an exhaustive review of evidence in the cases against Mr. Epstein, the government had uncovered no new evidence “that could predicate an investigation into uncharged third parties.”
Judge Robin L. Rosenberg wrote that the court’s “hands are tied.” The government had not requested the grand jury’s findings for use in a judicial proceeding, she wrote, adding that district courts are generally prohibited from unsealing grand jury testimony except in narrow circumstances.
She ordered that a new case be created “in the public interest” that provided access to the government’s requests and the denial order, as the Epstein grand jury docket is still sealed. But she ordered closed the case where the government filed its request, which started with the investigation into Mr. Epstein in Florida in 2005.