NEW YORK (AP) — Transcripts of grand jury testimony that led to sex trafficking charges against Jeffrey Epstein's longtime confidante Ghislaine Maxwell shouldn't be released, a judge ruled Monday in a stinging decision suggesting the Trump administration's real motive for wanting them unsealed was to fool the public with an "illusion" of transparency.
U.S. District Judge Paul A. Engelmayer said in a written decision that federal law seldom allows the release of grand jury materials and that making the documents public casually was a bad idea.
The judge also belittled the Department of Justice's argument that releasing grand jury materials might reveal new information about Epstein's and Maxwell's crimes, calling that premise "demonstrably false."
The decision was a blow to President Donald Trump, who had called for the release of transcripts as he seeks to dispel rumors and quell criticism about his long ago involvement with Epstein, who killed himself in jail in 2019.
Trump campaigned on a promise to release files related to Epstein, but was met with criticism — including from many of his own supporters — when the small number of records released by his Justice Department lacked any real bombshells.
In his ruling, Engelmayer wrote that after privately reviewing the grand jury transcripts, anyone familiar with the evidence from Maxwell's 2021 sex trafficking trial would "learn next to nothing new" and "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," Engelmayer said.
He said the materials also don't reveal new locations where crimes occurred, new sources of Maxwell and Epstein's wealth, the circumstances of Epstein's death or the path of the government investigation.
The best argument to release the transcripts might be that "doing so would expose as disingenuous the Government's public explanations for moving to unseal," Engelmayer wrote.
"A member of the public, appreciating that the Maxwell grand jury materials do not contribute anything to public knowledge, might conclude that the Government's motion for their unsealing was aimed not at 'transparency' but at diversion — aimed not at full disclosure but at the illusion of such," he said.
Another federal judge is weighing whether to release transcripts from the separate grand jury proceeding that led to Epstein's indictment.
Florida lawyer Brad Edwards, who has represented nearly two dozen Epstein accusers, said he didn't disagree with the ruling and most wanted to protect victims.
"The grand jury materials contain very little in the way of evidentiary value anyway," he said.
Maxwell, Epstein's onetime girlfriend, is serving a 20-year prison sentence for helping Epstein sexually abuse several underage girls. Her lawyer, Bobbi Sternheim, declined to comment.
The Justice Department did not respond to requests for comment.
The Epstein saga has again become a national flash point years after Epstein served jail time and registered as a sex offender after pleading guilty to Florida prostitution offenses in a 2008 deal that let him avoid federal charges then.
Trump raised questions about Epstein's death, and Trump's allies stoked conspiracy theories that dark secrets were covered up to protect powerful people. Some of those allies got powerful positions in Trump's Justice Department and promised to pull back the curtain on the Epstein investigation — but then announced this summer nothing more would be released and a long-rumored Epstein "client list" doesn't exist.
The about-face amplified the clamor for transparency. After denigrating his own supporters for not moving on, Trump told Attorney General Pam Bondi to ask courts to unseal the grand jury transcripts.
With pressure mounting in recent weeks, the Justice Department's second-in-command, Todd Blanche, recently interviewed Maxwell over two days in an effort to show that the Trump administration was serious about looking for further evidence of misconduct.
Maxwell was moved from a federal prison in Florida to a prison camp in Texas after speaking with Blanche.
The Republican-led House Oversight Committee subpoenaed the Justice Department for Epstein-related files and has moved to interview former President Bill Clinton, who was among a number of luminaries once acquainted with Epstein.
The decision about the grand jury transcripts in Maxwell's case doesn't affect thousands of other pages the government possesses but has declined to release. The Justice Department has said much of the material was court-sealed to protect victims and little of it would have come out had Epstein gone to trial.
A federal judge in Florida declined to release grand jury documents from an investigation there in 2005 and 2007.
Maxwell, who is appealing her conviction, opposed unsealing the documents.
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