A New York judge has unsealed the grand jury materials as well as other documents in relation to the prosecution of Ghislaine Maxwell, the accomplice of disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein. The move comes as the Trump administration has been pushing to release more of the documents related to Epstein.
The ruling from Judge Paul Engelmayer stems from a request to release the files from the Department of Justice, per court documents. The move is meant to comply with the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which has mandated the release of documents related to the case.
“The Act does not explicitly refer to grand jury materials. The Court nonetheless holds — again in agreement with DOJ — that the Act textually covers the grand jury materials in this case,” Judge Paul Engelmayer said in the order to unseal the grand jury documents.
The order from the judge allows the DOJ to publicly disclose grand jury transcripts, exhibits, as well as other documents in materials from Maxwell’s criminal trial. The order from Engelmayer also puts into place “a mechanism to protect victims from the inadvertent release of materials within the discovery in this case that would identify them or otherwise invade their privacy.”
The Epstein Files Transparency Act, which was passed by Congress and later signed by President Donald Trump requires that the DOJ present all “unclassified records, documents, communications, and investigative materials in DOJ’s possession that relate to the investigation and prosecution of Jeffrey Epstein” in a searchable database online.