The Justice Department is seeking to unseal the exhibits shown to the federal grand juries in New York that indicted Jeffrey Epstein and his former companion Ghislaine Maxwell in addition to the transcripts of testimony, according to a court filing Friday.
Justice Department officials have conceded that much of what is in the transcripts is already publicly known, but the exhibits contain names that did not appear in the transcripts, the filing said.
The government is now trying to notify those individuals “to the extent their names appear in grand jury exhibits that were not publicly admitted at the Maxwell trial,” the filing said.
The Justice Department asked the court to give it until Aug. 14 to make the necessary notifications. The filing did not say how many individuals needed to be contacted.
The Trump administration has been seeking to release materials related to the investigation into Epstein, the wealthy financier and convicted sex offender who died by suicide in jail in 2019, following the blowback it received from MAGA supporters after it announced last month that no additional files would be released.
This photo provided by the New York State Sex Offender Registry shows Jeffrey Epstein, March 28, 2017.
New York State Sex Offender Registry
Attorneys for victims of Epstein and Maxwell have criticized the administration’s approach to transparency, saying in a letter to the court that it “reinforces the perception that the victims are, at best, an afterthought to the current administration.”
The victims say they are generally supportive of transparency, but that they want the chance to review the records and propose additional redactions.
Maxwell, a longtime associate of Epstein, is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence for sex trafficking and other offenses in connection with Epstein.
