Judge Rejects Request to Unseal Ghislaine Maxwell Grand Jury Transcripts, Blasts DOJ Argument as ‘Demonstrably False’
A federal judge in New York has rejected a request by the Department of Justice to unseal the transcripts from the grand jury that indicted the convicted child sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell — noting in his opinion that the records proposed to be released contained “next to nothing new” and knocking down the DOJ’s main argument as “demonstrably false.”
Maxwell, the former girlfriend and accomplice of dead sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein, is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence after she was convicted of one count of sex trafficking a minor, one count of transporting a minor with the intent to engage in criminal sexual activity, and three counts of conspiracy. Multiple victims testified at Maxwell’s trial about how she not only recruited young women and underage girls to have sex with Epstein and other older men, but that Maxwell also sometimes assaulted them herself.
There has been some chatter among Trump-friendly media that sounds like an effort to rehabilitate Maxwell for the MAGA audience and Trump has refused to rule out granting her a pardon, but polling shows this continues to be extremely unpopular even with his most diehard supporters.
Meanwhile, the furor over the “Epstein files” continues, specifically over a rumored “client list.” Maxwell spoke with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche for two days in Tallahassee, Florida, at the maximum-security federal women’s prison where she was previously held. Shortly after she met with Blanche, she was transferred to Federal Prison Camp (FPC) Bryan in Bryan, Texas, a minimum-security facility that is not commonly usedto house inmates convicted of crimes as serious as Maxwell’s. The move to this “cushy prison camp” was sharply criticized by some of Epstein and Maxwell’s victims.
In his 31-page opinion, U.S. District Judge Paul Engelmayer with the Southern District of New York noted the longstanding tradition of maintaining secrecy for grand jury proceedings and the fact that the materials that the DOJ had sought to release were unlikely to satisfy the public clamoring for the release of the Epstein files.
“A member of the public familiar with the Maxwell trial record who reviewed the grand jury materials that the Government proposes to unseal would thus learn next to nothing new,” wrote Engelmayer. “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.”
Engelmayer pointed to this lack of available new information in rejecting the DOJ’s arguments to release the transcripts.
“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.”[T]he evidence put before the Maxwell grand juries is today, with only very minor exceptions, a matter of public record. The Government admitted as much in response to the Court’s order.”
This is a breaking news story and has been updated.
