'Hands are tied': Trump DOJ loses bid to unseal Epstein grand jury testimony
A federal judge rejected the Justice Department's bid to unseal grand jury testimony tied to Florida-based investigations of sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
A federal judge in Florida rejected a bid from President Donald Trump's Justice Department on July 23 to unseal grand jury testimony tied to a two-decades-old investigation into convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
The Justice Department asked the federal court in the Southern District of Florida to release transcripts from grand jury investigations that took place in West Palm Beach, Florida, in 2005 and 2007, according to Judge Judge Robin L. Rosenberg's order.
However, Rosenberg ruled that she doesn't have the power to order the records' release. She said she is bound by a past ruling of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, which governs Florida federal courts and only allows for releasing grand jury records in narrow circumstances.
"(T)he Court's hands are tied," Rosenberg wrote in the order.
The narrow exceptions include releasing grand-jury materials for a judicial proceeding or for use in a foreign criminal investigation.
The ruling does not apply to separate requests from the Justice Department for the Manhattan federal court to unseal grand jury testimony for federal criminal cases filed in that court against Epstein and his associate, convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell.
What are the Florida grand jury transcripts about?
The material sought in Florida includes records from a federal investigation of Epstein that never resulted in an indictment. The infamous “deal of the century,” in which Epstein pleaded guilty to two state court prostitution-related felonies in 2008, rendered that moot because it was an agreement with a Florida federal prosecutor not to prosecute the federal charges.
A draft federal indictment contained more than 60 counts of sexual misconduct with minors and sex trafficking, according to a Justice Department disciplinary investigation of the federal prosecutors that concluded in 2020.
The FBI and federal prosecutors were brought into the case by then-Palm Beach police Chief Michael Reiter, who told the Palm Beach County state attorney that he did not agree with the way the state attorney’s prosecution was progressing.
“After giving this much thought and consideration, I must urge you to examine the unusual course that your office’s handling of this matter has taken and consider if good and sufficient reason exists to require your disqualification from the prosecution of these cases,” Reiter wrote to then-Palm Beach County State Attorney Barry Krischer.
Federal investigation followed state proceedings that accused child victim of criminality
Krischer, among other issues, had sent the case to a state grand jury – the first time ever that a child sex crime case had been considered in a secret proceeding in Palm Beach County.
The Palm Beach Post, in a 2019 investigation of how Krischer handled the case, learned that his prosecutors had discredited their own witnesses during questioning in front of grand jurors. The paper sued in 2019 in order to make public the transcripts of that grand jury, which had resulted in a single solicitation-of-prostitution charge.
The transcripts were released in July 2024.
The documents showed that prosecutors told the only two victims to testify during questioning that they themselves were the criminals.
"You’re aware that you've committed a crime?" the prosecutor told a girl who was 14 at the time she went to Epstein’s mansion.
"Now I am," the victim said. "I didn't know it was a crime when I was doing it."
Contributing: Nick Penzenstadler - Paste BN
This story has been updated with additional information.