The government will have to meet a high legal bar for the court to agree that any of the grand jury documents should be released—and those materials could still be disappointing.
Key Facts
Trump directed Bondi on Thursday “to produce any and all pertinent Grand Jury testimony, subject to Court approval” on the Epstein investigation, to which Bondi responded the Justice Department was “ready to move the court tomorrow to unseal the grand jury transcripts.”
A grand jury was shown evidence about Epstein’s alleged crimes and authorized the government’s indictment of the financier in 2019, in which he was charged with sex trafficking and sex trafficking conspiracy.
While Bondi may ask the court to unseal the grand jury transcripts on Friday, that doesn’t guarantee they’ll be released, as grand jury proceedings are typically secret, and any files from them can only be released in limited circumstances.
Federal rules governing grand juries allow courts to authorize disclosure of “grand jury matter(s)” only in the following cases: if the grand jury information connects to a different judicial proceeding, if a defendant believes the grand jury materials could help get their indictment dismissed, if a foreign court or prosecutor needs the matters for an “official criminal investigation,” or if the information could disclose a violation of state, tribal, military or foreign law.
The DOJ will have to demonstrate there’s a “particularized need” for the grand jury materials that outweighs the interest in the grand jury proceedings remaining secret, and legal experts note the process of determining whether the government has met that high bar could take months to play out.
It’s unclear if the court would grant the disclosure at all—and even if it does, legal experts noted Thursday that any grand jury documents would likely be heavily redacted and would not satisfy public demand for explosive materials like a so-called Epstein “client list.”What To Watch For
Whether Bondi will file a motion with the court to unseal grand jury documents Friday as promised, and on what grounds the government will argue the documents should be released. The filing would have to be made in the Southern District of New York, where Epstein was originally indicted, per grand jury rules.Surprising Fact
One impediment to getting the grand jury files released could be Epstein’s associate Ghislaine Maxwell, who is still in the process of appealing her conviction on charges of sex trafficking and transporting minors. Maxwell could oppose the release of any of the grand jury materials because it could harm her own case, former federal prosecutor Joyce Vance noted early Friday.
