Attorney General Pam Bondi on Monday asked the Manhattan federal court to release sealed materials related to the grand jury investigations of sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and his longtime companion Ghislaine Maxwell.
The Justice Department, in making the request to two federal judges, cited legislation signed by President Trump last week calling on the department to release its files on the government’s investigation into Mr. Epstein’s sex trafficking ring.
Mr. Epstein was indicted in July 2019 in Manhattan on charges of sex trafficking minors and conspiracy; the following month, he was found hanged in a jail cell before he could be tried. His death was ruled a suicide. Ms. Maxwell, who was convicted in 2021 of sex trafficking and other charges, is serving a 20-year prison sentence.
This summer, a Justice Department request to the same two judges to unseal the materials was rejected on grand jury secrecy grounds. In the new requests, the department said it interprets the new Epstein Files Transparency Act “as requiring it to publish the grand jury and discovery materials.”
“The Act manifests a Congressional intent to override some of the underlying bases for grand jury secrecy,” Ms. Bondi said in the motions submitted to Judge Richard M. Berman, who oversaw the Epstein case, and Paul A. Engelmayer, who has been assigned to Ms. Maxwell’s case.
The new motions were filed by Ms. Bondi and Todd Blanche, the deputy attorney general, and were signed by Jay Clayton, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York.
Ms. Bondi recently assigned Mr. Clayton’s office to conduct an investigation demanded by Mr. Trump into ties between Mr. Epstein and prominent Democrats.
Benjamin Weiser is a Times reporter covering the federal courts and U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan, and the justice system more broadly.
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