Trump Orders Grand Jury Documents Released—Why That Won’t Happen Quickly

Topline

President Donald Trump directed Attorney General Pam Bondi on Thursday to release grand jury documents related to disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, but while Bondi vowed to ask the court Friday to unseal the filings, it could take months for any documents to actually be released—if the court allows them to come out at all.

Attorney General Pam Bondi speaks alongside President Donald Trump in the briefing room at the White … More House on June 27.

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Key Facts

Trump directed Bondi on Thursday “to produce any and all pertinent Grand Jury testimony, subject to Court approval” on the Epstein investigation, to which Bondi responded the Justice Department was “ready to move the court tomorrow to unseal the grand jury transcripts.”

A grand jury was shown evidence about Epstein’s alleged crimes and authorized the government’s indictment of the financier in 2019, in which he was charged with sex trafficking and sex trafficking conspiracy.

While Bondi may ask the court to unseal the grand jury transcripts on Friday, that doesn’t guarantee they’ll be released, as grand jury proceedings are typically secret, and any files from them can only be released in limited circumstances.

Federal rules governing grand juries allow courts to authorize disclosure of “grand jury matter(s)” only in the following cases: if the grand jury information connects to a different judicial proceeding, if a defendant believes the grand jury materials could help get their indictment dismissed, if a foreign court or prosecutor needs the matters for an “official criminal investigation,” or if the information could disclose a violation of state, tribal, military or foreign law.

The DOJ will have to demonstrate there’s a “particularized need” for the grand jury materials that outweighs the interest in the grand jury proceedings remaining secret, and legal experts note the process of determining whether the government has met that high bar could take months to play out.

It’s unclear if the court would grant the disclosure at all—and even if it does, legal experts noted Thursday that any grand jury documents would likely be heavily redacted and would not satisfy public demand for explosive materials like a so-called Epstein “client list.”

What To Watch For

Whether Bondi will file a motion with the court to unseal grand jury documents Friday as promised, and on what grounds the government will argue the documents should be released. The filing would have to be made in the Southern District of New York, where Epstein was originally indicted, per grand jury rules.

Surprising Fact

One impediment to getting the grand jury files released could be Epstein’s associate Ghislaine Maxwell, who is still in the process of appealing her conviction on charges of sex trafficking and transporting minors. Maxwell could oppose the release of any of the grand jury materials because it could harm her own case, former federal prosecutor Joyce Vance noted early Friday.

What Could The Grand Jury Documents Contain?

Democrats and Trump administration critics have criticized Trump’s request to release the grand jury files specifically, because they argue any information that gets released would be fairly limited. The indictment against Epstein details how the financier allegedly abused numerous women and led a sex trafficking operation in which victims were persuaded to recruit other women, many of whom were underage. The indictment also alleges employees and unnamed “associates” of Epstein were involved in the operation, but it does not make any allegations about the financier’s powerful friends participating in the sex trafficking operation, or suggest the grand jury would have known the identity of other people who abused women that Epstein recruited. Vance notes any grand jury testimony that gets released is likely to be heavily redacted since it would discuss Epstein’s victims, and since hearsay is allowed in grand jury testimony, some of what was presented to the grand jury might just be FBI agents testifying about the evidence against Epstein, rather than testimony from any victims themselves. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., who’s a former federal prosecutor, told MSNBC Thursday that what gets presented to grand juries is only a “small sliver” of prosecutors’ total evidence in a case, explaining prosecutors are “selective about what [they] bring in” and it’s “exceedingly rare” for that to be anything more than a “small fraction of what the full file is.” Whitehouse and other critics also pointed out Trump directing Bondi to release only “pertinent” materials means the government would likely only try to release select grand jury documents, rather than everything that came out of the proceedings.

What Else Is In The Full Epstein Files?

The grand jury documents represent only a small amount of the materials that have yet to be released in the Epstein investigation. According to sources cited by Julie K. Brown, the Miami Herald journalist who initially broke the story about Epstein’s alleged sex trafficking operation, materials that still haven’t been publicly released include files from Epstein’s computers that were recovered during searches of his homes, “tens of thousands” of FBI documents, case files from the prosecution against Maxwell, video footage from Epstein’s residences, records from the U.S. Marshals who inspected Epstein’s planes, Federal Aviation Administration records on Epstein’s flights, evidence from the U.S. Virgin Island’s civil litigation against Epstein’s estate, information about Epstein’s finances, Epstein’s autopsy and other information from the investigation into his 2019 death in prison. There is no evidence to suggest the existence of an Epstein “client list” that details the financier’s powerful associates who could be implicated in his crimes, however.

Chief Critic

Democrats and legal experts critical of Trump have suggested the president and Bondi’s willingness to release the grand jury documents could be a further attempt to delay any release of the Epstein files and get out of releasing materials that could potentially be more explosive. “All of the possible impediments to releasing grand jury material may well be the point for Trump,” Vance wrote early Friday. “He can say, yet again, that he tried and the courts stood in his way. Even a delay, while lawyers brief the matter and a judge schedules a hearing, could work in Trump’s favor if the fickle public loses interest in the issue and moves on, and he lives to fight another day, yet again.”

Key Background

Epstein allegedly abused more than 100 women between 2002 and 2018, and while the financier died in prison in 2019, the allegations against him have continued to be a source of public fascination. Epstein was known to associate with a number of high-level figures—including Trump himself—which has sparked interest in who else participated in his scheme, even though there is no evidence to suggest Trump or other officials connected to Epstein, like former President Bill Clinton, ever engaged in any misconduct. Conspiracy theories tied to Epstein have long been pushed by major figures on the right, such as now-FBI Director Kash Patel, and he and Bondi long promised they would release the full “Epstein files” as a result. After Trump’s DOJ largely failed to release any Epstein documents—save for one tranche of materials that was already largely public—the agency filed a memo last week announcing it would not release any further documents and shooting down popular theories about the Epstein files, such as the existence of a “client list” and that Epstein did not die by suicide. That memo sparked an outcry from Trump’s base of supporters, who criticized the DOJ’s about-face and called for Bondi’s resignation, even as Trump decried the public interest in the Epstein case and denounced his supporters who continued to promote it. The president’s call for Bondi to release grand jury documents came after The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that Trump once sent Epstein a “bawdy” letter for his 50th birthday, which allegedly included a drawing of a naked woman and Trump telling Epstein, “Happy Birthday — and may every day be another wonderful secret.” Trump has strongly denied the letter as “fake news” and suggested he will sue News Corp. owner Rupert Murdoch for publishing the Wall Street Journal piece.