The Justice Division formally requested Friday the unsealing of grand jury data tied to federal investigations into Jeffrey Epstein, in accordance with a court docket submitting.
President Donald Trump introduced the day gone by that he ordered Lawyer Common Pam Bondi to hunt the discharge of extra Epstein materials following pushback from conservatives and others for extra transparency within the case.
“On the path of the Lawyer Common, the Division of Justice hereby strikes the Courtroom to launch grand jury transcripts related to the above-referenced indictment,” the movement stated.
Donald Trump seems on on the day he indicators the HALT Fentanyl Act, within the East Room on the White Home in Washington, D.C., July 16, 2025.
Umit Bektas/Reuters
The division stated within the submitting that the request follows “in depth public curiosity” generated since DOJ and FBI issued its July 6 memo concerning their determination to not launch any additional information from federal investigations into Epstein.
“Whereas the Division of Justice and Federal Bureau of Investigation proceed to stick to the conclusions reached within the Memorandum, transparency to the American public is of the utmost significance to this Administration,” the submitting said. “Given the general public curiosity within the investigative work carried out by the Division of Justice and Federal Bureau of Investigation into Epstein, the Division of Justice strikes the Courtroom to unseal the underlying grand jury transcripts in United States v. Epstein, topic to applicable redactions of victim-related and different private figuring out info.”
The submitting says DOJ plans to work with the U.S. Lawyer’s Workplace in SDNY “to make applicable redactions of victim-related info and different private figuring out info previous to releasing the transcripts.”
“Transparency on this course of won’t be on the expense of our obligation below the regulation to guard victims,” the submitting provides.
The submitting requests the court docket “conclude that the Epstein and [Ghislaine] Maxwell circumstances qualify as a matter of public curiosity, launch the related grand jury transcripts, and elevate any preexisting protecting orders.”
The movement is signed solely by Lawyer Common Pam Bondi and Deputy Lawyer Common Todd Blanche — no profession prosecutors within the U.S. Lawyer’s Workplace for the Southern District of New York are on the submitting.
The Justice Division’s submitting comes as Trump has threatened to file a libel lawsuit in opposition to the Wall Road Journal, Rupert Murdoch and others over the Thursday report about Trump’s alleged birthday message despatched to Epstein in 2003.
Trump has denied to the Wall Road Journal that he wrote the letter. ABC Information has not been in a position to verify the existence of the letter.
“I sit up for getting Rupert Murdoch to testify in my lawsuit in opposition to him and his ‘pile of rubbish’ newspaper, the WSJ. That might be an attention-grabbing expertise!!!” the president wrote on his social media platform Friday morning.
Earlier Friday, Trump instructed there is no such thing as a “smoking gun” within the Epstein information as he seeks to downplay a case that is lengthy animated his MAGA supporters.
“If there was a ‘smoking gun’ on Epstein, why did not the Dems, who managed the ‘information’ for 4 years, and had Garland and Comey in cost, use it? BECAUSE THEY HAD NOTHING!!!” Trump wrote on his conservative social media platform.
Trump stated he requested Bondi to “produce any and all pertinent Grand Jury testimony, topic to Courtroom approval.”
The transfer from Trump to order the legal professional common to hunt the discharge of extra grand jury materials comes after per week of intense stress from his MAGA supporters to do more on Epstein following a brief memo from the Justice Division and FBI stating no additional disclosure “can be applicable or warranted.”
The memo said a evaluate from the DOJ and FBI discovered no proof that Epstein stored a so-called “consumer record” of associates or that he blackmailed any distinguished people, and likewise confirmed the disgraced financier died by suicide in jail whereas awaiting trial on sex-trafficking prices.
Bondi days in the past had stated the “memo speaks for itself.”
Between then and now, Trump has tried to tamp down intrigue into Epstein that is been fueled by right-wing figures for years, together with conspiracy theories of a “deep state” defending the nation’s elites.
He has known as the Epstein information a “Democratic hoax” in opposition to him and people Republican supporters who’re questioning his administration’s dealing with of them as “silly” and “silly.”
However his administration has shut down the concept of appointing a particular prosecutor within the Epstein case.
“The thought was floated from somebody within the media to the president. The president wouldn’t suggest a particular prosecutor within the Epstein case. That is how he feels,” White Home press secretary Karoline Leavitt advised reporters at Thursday’s briefing.
Sen. Dick Durbin, the highest Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, penned three separate letters to Bondi, FBI Director Kash Patel and FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino to lift questions on discrepancies regarding the Epstein information and concerning the July 7 memo from the administration regarding Epstein.
Durbin wrote that his workplace obtained info that Bondi “pressured the FBI” to enlist 1,000 personnel, together with New York discipline workplace personnel, to evaluate roughly 100,000 Epstein associated data and to “flag” any data during which Trump was talked about. He requested Bondi to answer quite a lot of questions regarding her private evaluate of the Epstein paperwork.
ABC Information’ Allison Pecorin contributed to this report.
