Judge denies release of Jeffrey Epstein transcripts in Florida : NPR

Geoffrey Berman, then American lawyer for the South New York district, announced charges against Jeffrey Epstein on July 8, 2019 in New York. A federal judge in Florida denied a request for non-selling the transcriptions of the great jury of a distinct case of Epstein in Florida.

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Stephanie Keith / Getty images

A federal judge from Florida rejected on Wednesday rejected a request for non-scell the transcription of the great jury of a federal investigation into the disgrace financier Jeffrey Epstein.

President Trump had called for the release of testimonies from the great jury linked to Epstein, which was accused of the sexual trafficking of children, in response to the pressure of the legislators and certain supporters to show more transparency with the case.

The American district judge Robin Rosenberg of Florida declared in his decision that the 11th law on circuits did not allow him to grant the request of the government and that his “hands are linked”.

Rosenberg also said that the government’s request to descend the transcriptions of the Grand Jury does not fall under limited exceptions authorized by law.

Two New York judges also envisage parallel requests from the Ministry of Justice to under the transcriptions of the Grand Jury linked to Epstein. They gave the department next week to explain in more detail why transcriptions should be made public and an additional week to hear the representatives of Epstein and its victims.

Epstein died in prison in 2019 pending a trial for federal trafficking on children’s sexual traffic, but his close partner Ghislaine Maxwell is serving a sentence of 20 years in prison to facilitate Epstein abuse for girls.

The Ministry of Justice asked the judges of several states last week to disclose the transcriptions of the great jury linked to Epstein. The department has deposited requests in the South New York district as well as in the southern district of Florida.

In Florida, the ministry asked for transcriptions of investigations on the Grand Jury on Epstein in 2005 and 2007.

While the government said that the release of the great jury’s transcriptions was “a question of public interest” and that specific circumstances should allow their release given the death of Epstein, Rosenberg judged that the request was not in the limited exceptions authorized by law.

The “declared justification of the DoJ is not exceptions,” wrote Rosenberg.

The decision comes in the middle of a political storm which was triggered earlier this month by the release of a doj memo claiming that there was no evidence that Epstein had had a “list of customers” or that he had made eminent individuals sing.

It seemed to contradict the previous declarations Made by the Attorney General Pam Bondi on an alleged list of customers. In February, Bondi told Fox News in an interview that the list of Epstein customers was “sitting on my desk at the moment to revise”.

Doj’s memo caused cries Members of the base of President Trump, who criticized the administration for what they consider to be backwards on promises of promises to disclose additional information related to the case of Epstein.

Congress calls for more information

Trump tried to divert controversy by rejecting it as a “witch hunt” focused on the political level. Asked about the case during an appearance at the Oval Office on Tuesday, Trump said: “I’m not really too much”, before pivoting complaints concerning the Obama administration and Russian interference in the 2016 elections.

The case provokes political headaches for the Republicans at the Congress. The president of the Mike Johnson room, R-La., Canceled the votes later this week and rather returns the legislators to the house for their recess in August one day earlier. The schedule change was announced Tuesday after the clashes between the Republicans on the files – including a dead end of the powerful committee for the rules of the Chamber for a push of the Democrats to force the votes on the Epstein affair.

Despite the planning change, legislators are still looking for more information. On Wednesday, a chamber supervision committee voted to assign the Ministry of Justice for its Epstein investigation files. Three Republicans joined the Democrats of the Federal police subcommittee to approve Pennsylvania Democrat Summer Lee’s proposal.

The vote followed an announcement by the chairman of the Chamber Committee on the surveillance and the government’s reform that he had published an assignment to Maxwell for a deposition of the federal prison on August 11.

“The facts and circumstances surrounding the affairs of your and Mr. Epstein have received immense public interest and a meticulous exam,” wrote President James Comer, R-Ky, in the cover letter for flexibility.

“It is imperative that Congress will have monitoring of the application by the federal government of the laws on sexual trafficking in general and in particular its treatment of the survey and the pursuit of you and Mr. Epstein,” wrote Comer.

Wednesday, separately, a federal judge in New York who examines the request of the Ministry of Justice to descend the transcriptions of the Grand Jury in the Maxwell case rejected a request by his lawyers to examine the documents.

“It is the law on black letters that defendants are generally not entitled to access to the materials of the Grand Jury,” wrote Judge Paul Engelmayer in his decision.