The Justice Department admitted that the grand jury transcripts in the criminal case of Ghislaine Maxwell, Jeffrey Epstein’s ex-girlfriend and long-time associate, contain mostly publicly available information.
To try to quell the uproar over the so-called Epstein files, President Donald Trump asked Attorney General Pam Bondi to make public “any and all pertinent” grand jury transcripts in the Epstein and Maxwell cases.
A judge overseeing Maxwell’s case asked the government to provide more information to the court. The department provided a version of the transcripts that identifies which information is not publicly available. However, Bondi admitted in a Monday filing that “much” of the information in the transcripts was already made publicly available.
“The enclosed, annotated transcripts show that much of the information provided during the course of the grand jury testimony—with the exception of the identities of certain victims and witnesses—was made publicly available at trial or has otherwise been publicly reported through the public statements of victims and witnesses,” she wrote.
Maxwell, 63, is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence after her 2021 conviction for her role in a scheme to sexually exploit and abuse multiple girls with Epstein. Her attorneys have taken an appeal of her conviction to the Supreme Court. After meeting with the government last week, she was moved from a federal prison in Tallahassee, Florida to the Federal Prison Camp Bryan in southeast Texas.
Bondi also noted that the government has provided notice about the requests to unseal the documents to all but one of the victims referenced in the transcripts. “The Government still has been unable to contact that remaining victim,” she wrote.
The filing comes after two Epstein victims criticized the Trump administration’s handling of the case. The victims remained anonymous and filed their letters in Epstein’s New York case.
“The latest attention on the ‘Epstein Files’, the ‘Client List’ is OUT OF CONTROL and the ones that are left to suffer are not the high-profile individuals, IT IS THE VICTIMS. Why the lack of concern in handling such sensitive information for the victims sake?” one wrote in a Monday filing.
Another wrote: “Dear United States, I wish you would have handled and would handle the whole ‘Epstein Files’ with more respect towards and for the victims. I am not some pawn in your political warfare.”
Furor has mounted over the administration’s handling of the case since the Justice Department released a July 6 memo, which contained no new revelations. The DOJ confirmed that Epstein died by suicide and said there was no evidence to support the existence of a “client list” of high profile individuals involved in his alleged sex trafficking scheme.
The memo was disappointing for many, putting an end to months-long anticipation for new information. In February, Bondi released “Phase 1” of the files, a tranche of documents that included mostly publicly available information. She also suggested that the “client list”was sitting on her desk.
Parts of Trump’s MAGA base and prominent figures on both sides of the aisle called for heightened transparency around the Epstein files.
Those calls grew louder after the Wall Street Journal published a report claiming that the president drew a sexually suggestive 50th birthday card for Epstein in 2003. Trump has vehemently denied making the card and even sued the Journal in a $10 billion defamation case.
That’s when Trump asked Bondi to produce “any and all” pertinent grand jury transcripts. Experts at the time said these documents only accounted for a small fraction of the files related to the investigation.
Although Trump has denied that his name was in the files, the Wall Street Journal reported that DOJ officials told the president in May that his name, among many others, had appeared. Being named in the files does not suggest any wrongdoing.
The president’s name was reportedly redacted from documents as the administration prepared for their potential public release, Bloomberg reported last week.
The Trump administration has declared itself the “most transparent” in history.
