The Department of Justice revealed Tuesday that there were only two witnesses to testify to the grand juries that indicted Jeffrey Epstein and his madam, Ghislaine Maxwell, on sex trafficking charges.
The revelation was made in a late-night filing that urged a Manhattan judge to unseal the transcripts and release the documents to the public, given the “abundant public interest” after it was announced that a review of the cases determined there was no Epstein client list.
Federal prosecutors said in the filing that the grand jury met in June and July of 2019 in Epstein’s case — and only one witness testified, an FBI agent.
In Maxwell’s case, the grand jury met in June and July of 2020, and again in March 2021, with the same FBI agent taking the witness stand in addition to an NYPD detective who worked in the FBI’s Child Exploitation and Human Trafficking Task Force also testified.
However, even if the judge agrees to the transcripts getting released, it would still only represent a small fraction of the mountain of Epstein-related investigative materials that the DOJ and FBI have — which the feds have said amounts to over 300 gigabytes.
Many of Epstein’s victims — whose accounts were told to the grand jury by the agent and cop — ultimately testified at the 2021 trial that ended in Maxwell’s conviction and some have also laid out their claims in lawsuits, the court documents said.
The feds said they are “sensitive” to the risk of releasing identifying information about victims and third parties, which “is why the government proposes redacting the transcripts before releasing them.”
All except for one of the victims mentioned in the grand jury transcripts have been notified about the transcripts potentially coming out, the court docs said.
While grand jury proceedings are customarily kept secret, exceptions can be made.
The DOJ argues that the public interest and “the magnitude and abhorrence of Epstein’s crimes” weigh in favor of the documents getting released.
In early July, the DOJ issued a letter announcing that they’d wrapped up their review of Epstein evidence and that there wasn’t an Epstein client list, sparking a fresh wave of public fascination and outrage.
In the letter, they specified they’d reviewed over 300 gigabytes of investigative materials related to the 66-year-old multi-millionaire hedge fund manager.
The records include a full list of the fruits of the raids on Epstein’s Manhattan, Palm Beach and Virgin Islands mansions.
The DOJ has refused to divulge any of that information or provide any further details beyond a July statement saying that there is “no basis” to disclose any of the Epstein files, which also include sick sex videos involving children.
US Attorney General Pam Bondi, who heads the DOJ, had previously claimed that she would release juicy details in the files and boasted that they were “sitting on my desk right now” in a February interview with Fox News.
Meanwhile, DOJ officials in May told President Trump that his name was among those mentioned in the files, the Wall Street Journal reported.
It was unclear in what context Trump’s name was mentioned, but Trump and Epstein were friendly throughout the 1990s into the early 2000s.
Trump said Tuesday that he cut ties with the convicted sex offender after Epstein used his Mar-a-Lago club spa as a hunting ground for young women.
The disgraced financier “stole people that worked for me,” Trump told reporters.
Last week, West Palm Beach US District Judge Robin Rosenberg denied the DOJ’s similar bid to have grand jury transcripts released from Epstein’s criminal case in which he was granted a controversial sweetheart plea deal after admitting to child prostitution charges in Florida in 2008.
He was sentenced to 18 months in prison, but only served 13 months and was allowed out on work release for much of the time.
Epstein was charged in Manhattan in a child sex-trafficking case in 2019 and killed himself a month later while he was awaiting trial in a Lower Manhattan lock-up.
Maxwell’s lawyers didn’t immediately return a request for comment Wednesday morning.