Attorney General Pam Bondi has undercut President Donald Trump’s claim that the Jeffrey Epstein files are a hoax, admitting there is “abundant public interest” in providing Americans with details of the investigation into his sex trafficking operations.
In a late-night court filing by the Department of Justice, Bondi and her deputy, Todd Blanche, urged a Manhattan court to move forward with the department’s request to unseal Grand Jury transcripts from the case. They maintain the issue has escalated following the administration’s attempts to shut it down.
“Attention given to the Epstein and Maxwell cases has recently intensified in the wake of the July 6, 2025 Memorandum announcing the conclusions of the Government’s review into the investigation,” they wrote in the memorandum.
“The instant motions for unsealing are consistent with the fundamental purposes set forth in that memorandum given the magnitude and abhorrence of Epstein’s crimes: to provide information to the public while remaining sensitive to protecting the rights of victims.”
The overnight court filing comes as Trump continues to face a political headache over the issue, and days after Blanche himself met with Epstein’s accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell, in a bid to stem the damage.
But while Trump has repeatedly tried to dismiss the issue as a Democratic “hoax”, the DOJ memo now acknowledges that “there is undoubtedly a clearly expressed interest from the public in Jeffrey Epstein’s and Ghislaine Maxwell’s crimes.”
“Beyond that, there is abundant public interest in the investigative work conducted by the Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation into those crimes,” it adds.
The filing was signed by Bondi, Blanche, and Jay Clayton, who Trump nominated to be the U.S Attorney for the Southern District of New York.
It is a notable shift for Bondi, who has kept a low profile this month after coming under sustained fire from MAGA world for her handling of the case, and also clashed with FBI deputy director Dan Bongino over it.
Earlier this year, for instance, the Attorney General helped organize a “scoop” for MAGA social media influencers, who were called to the White House and presented with binders of Epstein-related documents. But as it turned out, those binders contained hundreds of pages that mostly had been public for years.
Also in February, Bondi appeared on Fox News, suggesting she had possession of the convicted sex offender’s supposed black book of prominent figures who engaged in illegal sexual activities. It has still not been released.
But while the DOJ is now seeking to unseal the Grand Jury transcripts on Trump’s order, getting the court’s approval will be an uphill battle given the high-level secrecy surrounding them, which is designed to protect victims.
It is also not clear how much the public will learn, even if the information is released, because the filing confirms that any identifying information will be redacted, not just for victims but also for “third parties” who have not yet been charged or accused in the case.
Trump, meanwhile, has refused to rule out pardoning Maxwell, risking inflaming tensions even further.
On Tuesday, however, he acknowledged for the first time that one of Epstein’s victims, Virginia Giuffre, had been poached by Epstein from his Mar-a-Lago resort when she was working as a spa employee as a 17-year-old.
This corroborated Giuffre’s 2016 deposition, in which she said she was sitting outside the women’s locker room around 2000, reading a book on massage therapy, when Maxwell befriended her and then ultimately recruited her as one of Epstein’s sex slaves.
“She told me that she knew somebody that was looking for a traveling masseuse. If the guy likes you then, you know, it will work out for you. You’ll travel. You’ll make good money,” she said at the time.
Giuffre died by suicide earlier this year. Epstein died in a Manhattan jail in 2019 while awaiting trial for his crimes, while Maxwell was subsequently sentenced to 20 years in prison for being his accomplice.
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