Justice department seeks court permission to make public testimony given by witnesses over Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell
Hello and welcome back to our coverage of US politics.
Donald Trump’s administration urged two judges on Tuesday night to release testimony heard by the grand juries that indicted the late financier Jeffrey Epstein and British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell on sex trafficking charges as the president seeks to calm an uproar over his administration’s handling of the matter.
The Justice Department first sought court permission on 18 July to make public transcripts of the confidential testimony given by witnesses years ago in the two cases, but Manhattan-based US district judges Richard Berman and Paul Engelmayer asked the government to flesh out the legal bases for the requests.
The US president also spoke about Jeffrey Epstein and his links to the president’s Mar-a-Lago club, saying that the late sex offender “stole” Virginia Giuffre and other young female staffers when he hired them while they were working at the Florida country club.
