Judge Calls Trump's Bluff on Ghislaine Maxwell Grand Jury Materials
On Monday, a federal judge in Manhattan denied Trump's request to unseal such records related to Maxwell. U.S. District Judge Paul Engelmayer described the administration's attempt as a ruse, in an opinion that unsparingly tore apart the argument that unsealing such materials would shed any additional light on the case.
The notion that the material 'would bring to light meaningful new information about Epstein's and Maxwell's crimes,' Engelmayer wrote, 'is demonstrably false.'
Someone 'deeply interested and concerned about the Epstein matter' who 'reviewed these materials expecting, based on the Government's representations, to learn new information about Epstein's and Maxwell's crimes and the investigation into them, would come away feeling disappointed and misled,' he continued. 'There is no 'there' there.'
In fact, the only way that such documents would be of use to the public, Engelmayer scathingly wrote, is that unsealing them 'would expose as disingenuous the Government's public explanations for moving to unseal.' If the records were unsealed, the public 'might conclude that the Government's motion for their unsealing was aimed not at 'transparency' but at diversion—aimed not at full disclosure but at the illusion of such.'
This is a developing story.
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