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Monday, 6 October 2025
Monday, 11 August 2025
Judge denies DOJ bid to unseal Ghislaine Maxwell grand jury records
Supporters of President Donald Trump have pushed for more disclosures related to Jeffrey Epstein and his co-conspirator, Ghislaine Maxwell.Laura Cavanaugh / Getty Images file
A federal judge on Monday denied the Department of Justice’s request to unseal grand jury materials in Ghislaine Maxwell’s criminal case.
In his 31-page ruling, U.S. District Judge Paul A. Engelmayer, a Barack Obama appointee, says that the grand jury materials do not identify anyone other than Epstein or Maxwell as having had sexual contact with a minor.
The DOJ request came as supporters of President Donald Trump have pushed for more disclosures related to Maxwell and her co-conspirator Jeffrey Epstein, the deceased financier and accused sex trafficker.
Trump directed Attorney General Pam Bondi last month to release "any and all pertinent Grand Jury testimony" in the Epstein case.
The judge noted that the government’s evidence included the testimony of women who were sexually abused as girls by Epstein and Maxwell, people who worked for Epstein and Maxwell, and law enforcement officials. Some of the evidence included photos and items collected from Epstein’s residences, flight logs and an address book.
Engelmayer argued that one factor in rejecting the unsealing of the transcripts is the “rule of secrecy” in grand juries.
In his order, Engelmayer said that the government’s reasoning for unsealing the Maxwell grand jury materials — that it came after “abundant public interest” — “fails at the threshold.”
“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.
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Engelmayer said that the government’s submissions failed to prove its claim that the grand jury materials “contained undisclosed information of significant historical or public interest.” He said that “with only very minor exceptions,” the evidence from the Maxwell grand juries is “a matter of public record.”
Engelmayer even pointed to the Trump administration’s admission that much of the material "was made publicly available at [Maxwell’s] trial or has otherwise been publicly reported through the public statements of victims and witnesses.”
Thus, a member of the public familiar with the Maxwell trial who reviewed the grand jury materials that the DOJ proposed to unseal “would thus learn next to nothing new,” the judge said.
He added, “Contrary to the Government’s depiction, the Maxwell grand jury testimony is not a matter of significant historical or public interest. Far from it. It consists of garden-variety summary testimony by two law enforcement agents.”
Engelmayer also said the materials do not identify any person other than Epstein and Maxwell as having had sexual contact with a minor.
He continued by saying that the materials “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. They do not reveal new venues at which their crimes occurred. They do not reveal new sources of their wealth. They do not explore the circumstances of Epstein’s death. They do not reveal the path of the Government’s investigation.”
Trump puts DC police department under federal control, deploys National Guard
ABC News LivePresident Donald Trump speaks to the press about deploying federal law enforcement agents in Washington to bolster the local police presence, in the Press Briefing Room at the White House, in Washington, August 11, 2025.
ByKelsey Walsh and Tierra Cunningham
President Donald Trump is holding a news conference Monday to reveal plans he's said "will, essentially, stop violent crime in Washington, D.C."
"We're here for a very serious purpose. Very serious, very," Trump said. "Something's out of control. But we're going to put it in control very quickly, like we did in the southern border. I'm announcing a historic action to rescue our nation's capital from crime, bloodshed, bedlam and squalor. And worse, this is Liberation Day in DC, and we're going to take our capital back."
He said he was declaring a public safety emergency, putting the Washington, D.C., police department under federal control and deploying the National Guard.
Trump announced that Attorney General Pam Bondi will be taking command of the Metropolitan Police Department and DEA Administrator Terry Cole will be interim federal commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Department.
He delivered his message standing beside Bondi, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, U. S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro, FBI Director Kash Patel and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum who will all play a role in the takeover Trump announced.
"Let me be crystal clear. Crime in DC is ending and ending today. We are going to use every power we have to fight criminals here," Bondi said.
The president promoted the news conference in multiple posts on his social media platform and on Sunday posted that it would "also be about Cleanliness and the General Physical Renovation and Condition of our once beautiful and well maintained Capital."
In a separate post, Trump said the homeless should leave D.C., accompanied by photos of homeless encampments along his route from the White House to his golf club in Sterling, Virginia.
"The Homeless have to move out, IMMEDIATELY. We will give you places to stay, but FAR from the Capital," Trump wrote. "The Criminals, you don’t have to move out. We’re going to put you in jail where you belong."
The news conference comes after Trump last week ordered an increase in law enforcement as part of an executive order he signed in March to "Make the District of Columbia Safe and Beautiful."
Contrary to the president's claim, preliminary year-to-date crime comparisons from Washington’s Metropolitan Police Department show that overall crime in D.C. has decreased by 7% since last year, with violent crime down 26% and property crime reduced by 5%.
A White House official said the law enforcement effort a "whole of government approach to improve overall public safety" and said that law enforcement will "be focused on high traffic tourist areas and other known hotspots."
The official added that federal officers "will be identified, in marked units, and highly visible."
Trump said Sunday that he has given D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser an opportunity to reduce crime rates but she has failed to do that.
"The Mayor of D.C., Muriel Bowser, is a good person who has tried, but she has been given many chances, and the Crime Numbers get worse, and the City only gets dirtier and less attractive. The American Public is not going to put up with it any longer," he claimed.
Bowser said Sunday that Washington has spent the last two years driving down violent crime, “driving it down to a 30 year low, in fact.”
“It is true that we had a terrible spike in crime in 2023, but this is not 2023, this is 2025 and we've done that by working with the community, working with the police, working with our prosecutors, and, in fact, working with the federal government," Bowser told MSNBC.
On Saturday, Trump said the nation’s capital has become “one of the most dangerous cities anywhere in the World.”
Last week he threatened to deploy the National Guard to D.C. and, as he has on several occasions since he was inaugurated in January, suggested that there should be a federal takeover.
That call came after Edward Coristine, a former Department of Government Efficiency employee, was beaten after he tried to break up a carjacking in D.C.
"So whether you call it federalize or what. And that also includes the graffiti that you see, the papers all over the place, the roads that are in bad shape, the medians that are falling down, the median in between roads, it's falling down,” Trump said in the Oval Office on Wednesday.
“We're going to beautify the city. We're going to make it beautiful. And, what a shame. Rate of crime, the rate of muggings, killings and everything else. We're not going to let it. And that includes bringing in the National Guard, maybe very quickly.”
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement last week, “Washington, DC is an amazing city, but it has been plagued by violent crime for far too long. President Trump has directed an increased presence of federal law enforcement to protect innocent citizens. There will be no safe harbor for violent criminals in D.C. President Trump is committed to making our Nation’s capital safer for its residents, lawmakers, and visitors from all around the world.”
The seven-day law enforcement effort is being led by the U.S. Park Police but includes personnel from the Metro Transit Police Department, Amtrak Police Department, United States Capitol Police, Washington’s Metro Police Department, Homeland Security Investigations, Federal Protective Service, Enforcement and Removal Operations, Drug Enforcement Administration, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, United States Marshals Service, United States Attorney’s Office-District of Columbia, Department of Interior, Pre-Trial Services Agency, Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency (CSOSA), the White House official said.
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Judge denies release of Ghislaine Maxwell grand jury transcripts
This March 28, 2017, file photo, provided by the New York State Sex Offender Registry shows Jeffrey Epstein.New York State Sex Offender Registry/AP
A federal judge in Manhattan on Monday rejected the Trump administration's request to release grand jury transcripts from Justice Department investigation into convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein's longtime confidant Ghislaine Maxwell.
The department asked the court last month to unseal the grand jury transcripts, which are generally secret, saying there was "abundant public interest" in the case. The unusual request was part of the administration's effort to tamp down the intense public blowback over its handling of the Epstein files.
But on Monday, U.S. District Judge Paul Engelmayer said that there were no special circumstances to justify releasing the transcripts in Maxwell's case.
"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," Engelmayer wrote.
He said the materials provide no new insight into Epstein or Maxwell clients, nor new information about the venue, new sources of their wealth, or the circumstances of Epstein's death.
"There is no 'there' there," the judge added.
Epstein died in a federal lockup in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges. His death, which authorities have repeatedly said was a suicide, has fueled conspiracy theories about Epstein's abuse of underage girls and the actions of his associates.
President Trump and some of the top officials in his administration, including FBI Director Kash Patel, for years helped stoke those conspiracy theories.
They promised transparency on the Epstein matter, but in July the Justice Department and FBI released a memo that knocked down several of those theories and said no further materials from the Epstein investigations would be made public, touching off public outrage including from Trump's MAGA base.
In an effort to contain the fallout, the president, who knew Epstein, asked Attorney General Pam Bondi to seek the release of grand jury transcripts from the department's investigations of Epstein and Maxwell.
The department followed up by asking three federal judges — two in Manhattan and one in Florida — to unseal the grand jury transcripts from investigations into Epstein and his longtime associate, Ghislaine Maxwell. The judge in Florida, Robin Rosenberg, denied the request, saying 11th Circuit law doesn't allow for the release of such records.
Law
What it takes to release documents like the 'Epstein files'
Manhattan-based judge Engelmayer falls under the 2nd Circuit, where precedent allows for the public release of grand jury materials under certain special circumstances. In this instance, the judge said, that high threshold was not met.
Even if the transcripts had been released, expectations were low that anything significant would have emerged from them.
The DOJ has previously said in court filings that in the Epstein case, a single FBI agent was the only witness to testify before the grand jury. In the case against Maxwell, the department says the same FBI agent as well as a New York Police Department detective were the only two witnesses.
Maxwell is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence for charges of facilitating Epstein's abuse of girls.
Late last month, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, who previously served as Trump's personal attorney, interviewed Maxwell behind closed doors to question her about Epstein.
The Justice Department has not provided any details on the meeting, who took part or what Maxwell said.
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