{"id":273539,"date":"2025-07-19T01:59:11","date_gmt":"2025-07-19T01:59:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/273539\/"},"modified":"2025-07-19T01:59:11","modified_gmt":"2025-07-19T01:59:11","slug":"us-justice-department-asks-to-unseal-grand-jury-transcripts-in-epstein-case-trump-administration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/273539\/","title":{"rendered":"US justice department asks to unseal grand jury transcripts in Epstein case | Trump administration"},"content":{"rendered":"

The US Department of Justice asked a federal court on Friday to unseal grand jury transcripts in Jeffrey Epstein\u2019s<\/a> case at the direction of Donald Trump<\/a> amid a firestorm over the administration\u2019s handling of records related to the wealthy financier.<\/p>\n

The move \u2013 coming a day after a Wall Street Journal story put a spotlight<\/a> on Trump\u2019s relationship with Epstein \u2013 seeks to contain a growing controversy that has engulfed the administration since it announced that it would not be releasing more government files from Epstein\u2019s sex trafficking case.<\/p>\n

Todd Blanche, the US deputy attorney general, filed motions urging the court to unseal the Epstein transcripts as well as those in the case against British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell<\/a>, who was convicted of luring teenage girls to be sexually abused by Epstein. Epstein killed himself in 2019 shortly after his arrest while awaiting trial.<\/p>\n

The justice department\u2019s announcement that it would not be making public any more Epstein files enraged parts of Trump\u2019s base<\/a> in part because members of his own administration had hyped the expected release and stoked conspiracies around the well-connected financier.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s demand to release the grand jury transcripts came after the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday on a sexually suggestive letter that the newspaper says bore Trump\u2019s name and was included in a 2003 album for Epstein\u2019s 50th birthday.<\/p>\n

The letter bearing Trump\u2019s name includes text framed by the outline of what appears to be a hand-drawn naked woman and ends with, \u201cHappy Birthday \u2013 and may every day be another wonderful secret,\u201d according to the newspaper. The outlet described the contents of the letter but did not publish a photo showing it entirely.<\/p>\n

Trump denied writing the letter, calling it \u201cfalse, malicious, and defamatory\u201d and promised to sue. Trump said he spoke to both to the paper\u2019s owner, Rupert Murdoch, and its top editor, Emma Tucker, and told them the letter was \u201cfake\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese are not my words, not the way I talk. Also, I don\u2019t draw pictures,\u201d the president wrote on social media.<\/p>\n

The justice department said in the court filings that it will work with with prosecutors in New York to make appropriate redactions of victim-related information and other personally identifying information before transcripts are released.<\/p>\n

\u201cTransparency in this process will not be at the expense of our obligation under the law to protect victims,\u201d Blanche wrote.<\/p>\n

But despite the new push to release the grand jury transcripts, the administration has not announced plans to reverse course and release other evidence in its possession. Pam Bondi, the US attorney general, had hyped the release of more materials after the first Epstein files disclosure in February sparked outrage because it contained no new revelations.<\/p>\n

A judge would have to approve the release of the grand jury transcripts, and it\u2019s likely to be a lengthy process to decide what can become public and to make redactions to protect sensitive witness and victim information.<\/p>\n

The records would show testimony of witnesses and other evidence that was presented by prosecutions during the secret grand jury proceedings, when a panel decides whether there is enough evidence to bring an indictment, or a formal criminal charge.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The US Department of Justice asked a federal court on Friday to unseal grand jury transcripts in Jeffrey…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":273540,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[13,12,14],"class_list":{"0":"post-273539","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-stories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114877429380313646","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273539","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=273539"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273539\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/273540"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=273539"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=273539"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=273539"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}