A federal judge has rejected the Trump Justice Department’s attempt to unseal grand jury records from the Ghislaine Maxwell sex trafficking case, delivering a sharp rebuke to the government’s claims that the materials would shed new light on Jeffrey Epstein’s crimes.
U.S. District Judge Paul A. Engelmayer ruled Monday that the DOJ’s assertions were “demonstrably false,” finding that the sealed transcripts — which include testimony from two law enforcement agents — offer “next to nothing new” beyond what was already revealed during Maxwell’s 2021 trial.
“A member of the public familiar with the Maxwell trial record who reviewed the grand jury materials… would thus learn next to nothing new,” Engelmayer wrote. The judge emphasized that the records do not name anyone beyond Epstein and Maxwell as having sexual contact with minors, do not identify any Epstein “client list,” and do not uncover new sources of the pair’s wealth or fresh details about Epstein’s death.
Maxwell, Epstein’s longtime associate, is serving a 20-year sentence after being convicted on sex trafficking charges. Epstein died by suicide in a Manhattan jail in 2019, a death that has fueled years of speculation and conspiracy theories about possible high-profile co-conspirators.
President Donald Trump, who had promised to release Epstein-related files if reelected, directed Attorney General Pam Bondi last month to push for unsealing the Maxwell grand jury materials after the Justice Department acknowledged in July that a widely hyped “Epstein client list” did not exist. The reversal angered many of Trump’s supporters, as well as some congressional Democrats.
Engelmayer acknowledged that much of the material had already been made public — a factor that could weigh in favor of unsealing — but said the legal principle of grand jury secrecy outweighed any public interest in this case. Grand juries, he noted, operate in secrecy to protect ongoing investigations and the reputations of individuals who are not charged.
The ruling undercuts the DOJ’s public rationale for the unsealing push, leaving critics to question whether the move was about transparency or about political optics.
For Trump’s Justice Department, the loss is more than a legal setback — it’s a high-profile embarrassment in an already contentious battle over how much the public will ever learn about Epstein’s network and alleged enablers.
