The Trump administration just faced another legal setback in its effort to unseal grand jury transcripts related to Jeffrey Epstein, as a federal judge in Florida on Wednesday rejected the government’s bid to unseal Epstein-related transcripts from investigations in that state.
The rejection follows Tuesday’s orders from federal judges in New York that told the Justice Department its motions to unseal grand jury transcripts related to Epstein and his associate Ghislaine Maxwell in that state were inadequate. The New York judges gave the DOJ a week to try again and said Maxwell, an Epstein representative and victims can also weigh in by Aug. 5.
Whatever information comes out of this grand jury litigation will necessarily be more limited than the full scope of information that exists about Epstein.
The flurry of judicial activity comes amid unusual political backlash that President Donald Trump is attempting to fend off, as even some supporters have questioned his administration’s commitment to releasing the full scope of information related to Epstein, who died by suicide in 2019 while being held on sex trafficking charges. Maxwell was convicted in 2021 of trafficking-related crimes and is appealing her convictions to the Supreme Court. The Justice Department formally opposed her pending high court petition last week, and this week the DOJ announced it wants to meet with Maxwell, whom the House Oversight Committee separately has subpoenaed for a deposition in prison on Aug. 11. She currently has a release date in 2037.
U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said this week that he’s sending the House home early for the summer to avoid voting on releasing Epstein-related information.
Meanwhile, The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday that the DOJ told Trump in May “that his name was in the Epstein files.” NBC News and MSNBC have not confirmed the Journal report, which cited senior administration officials and noted that being mentioned in the Epstein-related records isn’t a sign of wrongdoing. Separately, Trump filed a defamation lawsuit last week over an earlier Journal story related to him and Epstein. The Journal quotes Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung as saying in response to the latest report, “This is another fake news story, just like the previous story by The Wall Street Journal.” In the Florida grand jury litigation, U.S. District Judge Robin Rosenberg said in an order that her “hands are tied” when it comes to unsealing — a point that she said the government conceded in the litigation. The Obama-appointed judge said the government couldn’t justify the disclosure based on the federal criminal procedural rules and precedent in the federal circuit covering Florida. She noted that different precedent controls in the federal circuit covering New York. So, while the Florida denial doesn’t mean the New York transcripts will necessarily stay sealed, whether they do depends on additional forthcoming filings and litigation there. Subscribe to the Deadline: Legal Newsletter for expert analysis on the top legal stories of the week, including updates from the Supreme Court and developments in the Trump administration’s legal cases.
Jordan Rubin is the Deadline: Legal Blog writer. He was a prosecutor for the New York County District Attorney’s Office in Manhattan and is the author of “Bizarro," a book about the secret war on synthetic drugs. Before he joined MS NOW, he was a legal reporter for Bloomberg Law.
Latest Post
Recommended
