U.S. Lawyer Common Pam Bondi speaks to the media, after the U.S. Supreme Court docket dealt a blow to the ability of federal judges by limiting their skill to grant broad authorized reduction in circumstances because the justices acted in a authorized combat over President Donald Trump’s bid to restrict birthright citizenship, within the Press Briefing Room on the White Home in Washington D.C., June 27, 2025.
Ken Cedeno | Reuters
The Division of Justice on Friday requested federal judges to unseal grand jury transcripts within the legal circumstances of infamous intercourse offender Jeffrey Epstein and his convicted procurer of younger women, Ghislaine Maxwell.
The formal requests got here at some point after President Donald Trump stated he requested Lawyer Common Pam Bondi to “produce any and all pertinent Grand Jury testimony, topic to Court docket approval.”
Trump recommended he was taking that step in an effort to tamp down on the rising strain from his personal supporters to launch the so-called Epstein recordsdata. “This SCAM, perpetuated by the Democrats, ought to finish, proper now!” he wrote in a Fact Social put up on the time.
Lower than two weeks earlier, the Justice Division stated in a memo that it will not disclose any extra data associated to Epstein’s federal intercourse trafficking case after conducting an “exhaustive overview.”
However since then, “there was in depth public curiosity within the foundation for the Memorandum’s conclusions,” Deputy Lawyer Common Todd Blanche wrote in separate courtroom filings within the Epstein and Maxwell circumstances in Manhattan federal courtroom.
“Whereas the Division of Justice and Federal Bureau of Investigation proceed to stick to the conclusions reached within the Memorandum, transparency to the American public is of the utmost significance to this Administration,” Blanche wrote.
“Given the general public curiosity within the investigative work performed by the Division of Justice and Federal Bureau of Investigation into Epstein, the Division of Justice strikes the Court docket to unseal the underlying grand jury transcripts,” topic to acceptable redactions, he wrote.
These redactions embody “victim-related and different private figuring out data,” Blanche wrote.
A footnote within the similar paperwork says {that a} comparable request shall be filed in federal courtroom in southern Florida. Epstein pleaded responsible in 2008 in Florida to soliciting an underage prostitute.
Epstein was arrested in 2019 and killed himself in jail weeks later. Maxwell, his longtime confidant, was convicted in 2021 of appearing as a recruiter of younger women who would later be abused by Epstein. She is presently serving a 20–yr sentence in a federal jail in Florida.
Earlier Friday afternoon, Trump filed a defamation lawsuit towards media large Rupert Murdoch and a number of Wall Road Journal journalists, hours after they reported {that a} assortment of birthday letter to Epstein in 2003 included a “bawdy” message signed by Trump.
The president has denied penning the message.
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