U.S. President Donald Trump listens throughout a multilateral lunch with African leaders within the State Eating Room of the White Home July 9, 2025 in Washington, DC.
Win Mcnamee | Getty Pictures Information | Getty Pictures
President Donald Trump, going through rising strain to publicly launch Justice Division information associated to Jeffrey Epstein, stated on Thursday night time that he had requested Lawyer Basic Pam Bondi to hunt the unsealing of grand jury testimony associated to the legal prosecution of the infamous pedophile.
Bondi replied in a social media submit, writing, “President Trump — we’re prepared to maneuver the court docket tomorrow to unseal the grand jury transcripts.”
Trump’s announcement got here hours after The Wall Avenue Journal reported {that a} “bawdy” letter bearing Trump’s signature was included in an album of letters Epstein obtained for his fiftieth birthday in 2003.
The letter was among the many paperwork “examined by Justice Division officers who investigated Epstein” and his convicted procurer, Ghislaine Maxwell, “years in the past,” the newspaper reported.
“Based mostly on the ridiculous quantity of publicity given to Jeffrey Epstein, I’ve requested Lawyer Basic Pam Bondi to provide any and all pertinent Grand Jury testimony, topic to Courtroom approval,” Trump wrote in a Reality Social submit.
“This SCAM, perpetuated by the Democrats, ought to finish, proper now!” the president added.
From left, Donald Trump and his girlfriend (and future spouse), former mannequin Melania Knauss, financier (and future convicted intercourse offender) Jeffrey Epstein, and British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell pose collectively on the Mar-a-Lago membership in Palm Seaside, Florida on Feb. 12, 2000.
Davidoff Studios Pictures | Archive Photographs | Getty Pictures
It’s not clear that the Justice Division will be capable to persuade a federal choose in New York, the place Epstein was investigated, to launch the transcripts that indicted him in 2019 on little one intercourse trafficking expenses.
Grand jury transcripts are, as a rule, stored secret beneath federal legal process guidelines, which offer restricted, slender exceptions.
Additionally it is not clear that if the transcripts are launched that they may fulfill critics of Bond’s current resolution to not launch any extra paperwork or proof associated to Epstein. The transcripts would symbolize only a fraction of the proof assembled by prosecutors and the FBI.
Epstein’s case has spawned conspiracy theories amongst Trump’s MAGA base of supporters.
These supporters have questioned the official discovering that Epstein killed himself whereas in custody in a Manhattan jail in August 2019, a month after being arrested on the costs filed within the Southern District Courtroom of New York.
They’ve additionally known as for the discharge of what they consider is a “consumer record” maintained by Epstein, presumably to be used to blackmail wealthy and highly effective individuals in his orbit. And so they have argued that different individuals needs to be dropped at justice for his crimes.
Trump was for years a pal of Epstein, earlier than the 2 fell out, and the secretive cash supervisor additionally counted individuals, together with President Invoice Clinton and Britain’s Prince Andrew, in his social orbit.
Trump has blamed Democrats for the calls for for the Epstein information to be launched. However a rising variety of Republicans, together with his former vp, Mike Pence, and GOP members of Congress, have stated Bondi ought to launch additional materials.
White Home Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt earlier Thursday stated Trump “wouldn’t advocate a particular prosecutor” be appointed to evaluation the dealing with of the legal case in opposition to Epstein, regardless of calls from a few of his main supporters for that concept.
The FBI, in a memo launched by the Justice Division this month, stated {that a} “systematic evaluation” of the Epstein case information revealed no incriminating ‘consumer record.’ “
“There was additionally no credible proof discovered that Epstein blackmailed outstanding people as a part of his actions,” the memo stated. “We didn’t uncover proof that might predicate an investigation in opposition to uncharged third events.”
The memo additionally supported the earlier official ruling that Epstein had killed himself, and included a video with footage confirming that “from the time Epstein was locked in his cell at round 10:40 pm on August 9, 2019, till round 6:30 am the subsequent morning, no person entered any of the tiers within the” particular housing unit of the Manhattan jail.
However Wired journal earlier this week reported that “newly uncovered metadata reveals that almost three minutes of footage had been minimize from what the US Division of Justice and Federal Bureau of Investigation described as ‘full uncooked’ surveillance video from the one functioning digicam close to Jeffrey Epstein’s jail cell the night time earlier than he was discovered useless.”
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