Washington, DC [US], July 20 : US President Donald Trump administration's decision to seek the release of grand jury transcripts but not Justice Department files comes after a recent article by the Wall Street Journal reported on an alleged bawdy birthday greeting by the president for convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein in 2003, EuroNews reported.
The US Justice Department has requested a federal court to unseal secret documents related to disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein's case. The Trump administration made the request late on Friday, asking that grand jury transcripts pertaining to the case be made public.
The Justice Department, however, will not release the thousands of pages related to the case in its possession, which do not require approval or a formal process and can be made public immediately, as per EuroNews.
Grand juries decide whether there is enough evidence to bring an indictment, or a formal criminal charge, and their proceedings are secret to protect the reputations of people who end up not being charged and to encourage reluctant witnesses to testify.
Even with the Justice Department endorsement, it could take weeks or months of legal wrangling to decide what can be released and how to protect witnesses and other sensitive victim information.
Grand jury transcripts, which could show the testimony of witnesses and other evidence presented by prosecutors, are rarely released by courts, unless they need to be disclosed in connection with a judicial proceeding.
It's also unlikely for the transcripts to offer any jaw-dropping revelations to conspiracy theorists obsessed with the Epstein case. The uproar over the Epstein files was never about the grand jury transcripts, but about the thousands of other documents in the government's possession, which the Trump administration now says it won't release.
Following the first failed release of Epstein files in February, US Attorney General Pam Bondi said officials were sifting through a "truckload" of previously withheld evidence handed over by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
After a months long review of evidence, Bondi later announced that her Justice Department determined that "no further disclosure would be appropriate or warranted". She's since not fully explained the reasoning behind the decision and largely refused to answer questions on the matter, EuroNews reported.
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