Donald Trump was handed another blow on Wednesday when a federal judge denied his administration’s attempts to release grand jury testimony from the Jeffrey Epstein case. U.S. District Judge Richard Berman deemed Trump’s Justice Department did not provide adequate reasoning to unseal the highly-protected materials.
He also said that the grand jury motion was likely a ‘diversion’ coming from the Trump administration. ‘[T]he court denies the government’s motion to unseal the Epstein grand jury transcripts and exhibits,’ the Clinton-appointed judge wrote in his Wednesday decision.
It comes after Attorney General Pam Bondi moved at the direct of the president this summer to request the documents be unsealed in attempts to satisfy Americans who were enraged over the lackluster review of the Epstein files. The request came only after weeks of bemoaning from the MAGA base claiming there was a ‘cover-up’ and that Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel were not being as ‘transparent’ as Trump promised they would be.
‘Based on the ridiculous amount of publicity given to Jeffrey Epstein, I have asked Attorney General Pam Bondi to produce any and all pertinent Grand Jury testimony, subject to Court approval,’ Trump wrote on his Truth Social account last month amid the backlash. On July 18, Bondi filed motions in the Southern Districts of New York and Florida to have judges grant release of grand jury testimony from the [sexual] trafficker’s cases in the respective states.
Florida swiftly denied the request, while SDNY requested the government send their reasoning for requesting the years-old documents be drudged up. Trump’s government argued in its reasoning that ‘the passage of time has not dulled the public’s interest in these cases.’
It also revealed that there were only two witnesses in the case – an FBI agent and New York Police Department officer, both of whom are still alive. But Judge Berman claimed that the reasoning was not sufficient for him to grant the request to unseal the grand jury testimony. ‘The Government is a logical party to make comprehensive disclosure to the public of the Epstein files,’ Berman wrote in the Wednesday decision.
‘By comparison, the instant grand jury motion appears to be a ‘diversion’ from the breath and scope of the Epstein files in the Government’s possession.’ He also said that Trump’s administration did not exhibit there were any ‘special circumstances’ that would justify unsealing the documents. Berman has come under fire from Trump and his supporters in the past for being a partisan judge.
Bill Clinton appointed Berman to the bench in the Southern District of New York in 1998, where he has worked ever since as a judge and then a senior judge starting in September 2011. It’s widely known that Clinton and Epstein had personal, professional and philanthropic connections. Epstein donated $1,000 to Clinton’s presidential campaign in 1991 and two years later contributed $10,000 to the White House Historical Association for a redecoration project.
This got him and longtime girlfriend and accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell a ticket to a White House donors’ reception hosted by Bill and Hillary Clinton. Maxwell is still serving out a 20-year sentence in relation to the child [sexual] trafficking crimes. She even spoke for nine hours over the course of two days with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche in Florida last month to answer questions about Epstein’s crimes. She was transferred to a prison in Texas days after the interviews and appears to be angling for pardon from Trump.
Flight logs for Epstein’s private plane the Lolita Express show that Clinton took at least 17 flights between 2002 and 2003, often with staff, Secret Service agents and Clinton Foundation supporters. Trump also has links to the disgraced financier and appears on his flight logs. Epstein attended Trump’s wedding to his second wife Marla Maples in 1993.
The deep connections to those most influential in political and business circles is what Americans think is stopping the release of files related to his crimes and his sketchy death. Conspiracies still float online claiming that Epstein was killed in prison in August 2019 and that it was made to look like he took his own life – even though Trump’s DOJ concluded that Epstein did [kill himself].
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