A judge denied the Justice Department's bid to unseal records from the grand jury that indicted the late financier Jeffrey Epstein on sex trafficking charges, saying the material paled in comparison to the trove of records the government has about the case but is not releasing.
Manhattan-based U.S. District Judge Richard Berman's Aug. 20 decision came as President Donald Trump has sought to quell discontent from his conservative base of supporters over his administration's decision not to release files of the case.
The judge wrote that it would be more logical for the government to directly release the vast amount of information it has collected from its investigation into Epstein than to petition the court to release the more limited grand jury materials, whose secrecy is protected by law.
"The Government's 100,000 pages of Epstein files and materials dwarf the 70 odd pages of Epstein grand jury materials," Berman wrote. "The grand jury testimony is merely a hearsay snippet of Jeffrey Epstein's alleged conduct."
The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
