A Manhattan federal judge Tuesday ordered the release of grand jury materials linked to the criminal case of Jeffrey Epstein's infamous associate, Ghislaine Maxwell — but said that the documents are unlikely to contain "any meaningful new revelations."
Judge Paul Engelmayer ruled that federal prosecutors must make the records public — including search warrants and grand jury testimony — in compliance with the law President Trump signed last month requiring all Epstein-related files to be released. However, Engelmayer said that people shouldn't expect shocking new details, noting that the material won't offer anything different from what was already revealed during Maxwell's 2021 trial, where she was convicted on several charges for helping Epstein.
All Maxwell Docs to be Made Public
Justice Department lawyers are also pushing to open up all the documents from Epstein's 2019 case — a move that could reveal thousands of files the public has never seen. Back in August, Manhattan Judges Richard M. Berman and Engelmayer rejected the DOJ's earlier attempts to unseal grand jury transcripts and other sensitive material tied to Epstein and Maxwell, saying that releasing such records is almost never permitted.
But things changed in November, when Congress passed the Epstein Files Transparency Act. The new law forces the Justice Department to make all Epstein-related documents public by December 19.
Engelmayer is now the second judge to give the DOJ the green light to release previously sealed Epstein records.
Just last week, a Florida judge approved the department's request to unseal transcripts from a federal grand jury investigation into Epstein that was abandoned back in 2006.
For now, the DOJ's effort to release the rest of the files from Epstein's 2019 sex trafficking case is still waiting on a final decision.
Nothing to Remain Secret
Epstein was arrested in July 2019 on sex-trafficking charges — just a month before he was found dead in his Brooklyn jail cell Two years later, Maxwell was convicted for her role in the trafficking scheme and received a 20-year prison sentence.
The British socialite is now serving her time at a low-security federal prison camp in Texas, all while trying to persuade the Trump administration to grant her a pardon.
There's still no clear timetable for when the grand jury materials from New York and Florida will be released. DOJ lawyers have said they'll coordinate with the appropriate U.S. Attorney's Offices to carefully redact victims' identities and other sensitive personal information before anything goes public.
Earlier this year, New York courts rejected Attorney General Pam Bondi's attempts to unseal the records, citing strict grand jury secrecy rules. But Bondi now argues that the newly passed legislation overrides those restrictions.
Despite repeatedly dismissing the Epstein files as a Democratic "hoax" in recent months, Trump has also campaigned on the promise of making the documents public once back in office.
Tensions escalated further when Trump had a dramatic falling-out with Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene — one of his most loyal supporters — after she angrily accused his administration of withholding the files.
The controversy only grew last month when the House Oversight Committee released a batch of Epstein-related emails, some of which referenced Trump multiple times.
Epstein, the New York financier who also owned a Palm Beach property, had been friends with Trump for many years, dating back to the late 1980s through the early 2000s.
Tragically, Virginia Giuffre — one of Epstein's teenage trafficking victims — died by suicide in April. In her memoir, Giuffre made it clear that she did not hold Trump responsible for any of Epstein's crimes.
