A Manhattan federal judge has granted the Justice Department's request to unseal secret grand jury transcripts from Jeffrey Epstein's 2019 sex trafficking investigation.
US District Judge Richard M Berman on Wednesday reversed his earlier decision to keep the materials under wraps, marking what appears to be the final unlocking of one of the most scrutinized criminal cases in recent history.
Within days, the last vaults have cracked open. Berman became the third federal judge in a week to order documents unsealed, joining rulings on Maxwell's 2021 New York case and the 2006 Florida proceedings against Epstein.
Final Epstein files are unsealed by judge in dramatic last act
It is unclear when the materials from the New York and Florida grand juries will be made public. DOJ attorneys said they 'will work with the relevant US Attorney's Offices to make appropriate redactions of victim-related and other personal identifying information.'
The breakthrough follows passage of the Epstein Files Transparency Act, signed into law by Donald Trump last month, which compels the Justice Department to release all investigative records by December 19.
Congress's mandate effectively overrode the conventional wall of grand jury secrecy that had kept the documents sealed.
Trump's second term has been dominated by questions about the Epstein files, with pressure intensifying on the President after he reneged on a campaign promise to release the files.
Trump, who was a longtime associate of Epstein from the 1990s through the early 2000s, earlier this year ordered the release of some material, most of it already public, disappointing critics and prominent allies including Marjorie Taylor Greene.
Donald Trump and his then-girlfriend Melania Knauss, Jeffrey Epstein, and Ghislaine Maxwell at Mar-a-Lago, Palm Beach, Florida, February 12, 2000
The Epstein bill was passed by Congress on November 19 before being signed by Trump that same day.
- The judges' orders cover not only grand jury transcripts but also discovery materials, witness testimony, and investigative records from both New York and Florida - the two jurisdictions where Epstein was prosecuted.
Defense lawyers had fought to keep much of this material sealed for years. . .""
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