A federal judge ruled that the Department of Justice can unseal records against Ghislaine Maxwell weeks after President Trump signed a law ordering files to be released.
Judge Paul A. Engelmayer wrote in his decision, “In modifying the protective order, the Court, consistent with the Act, puts in place a mechanism to protect victims from the inadvertent release of materials within the discovery in this case that would identify them or otherwise invade their privacy.”
“The Act unambiguously applies to the discovery in this case,” he added, going on to explain that it “governs ‘all unclassified records, documents, communications, and investigative materials in the possession of [DOJ], including the Federal Bureau of Investigation and United States Attorneys’ Offices’ related to Maxwell, Epstein, and other enumerated subjects.”
“The Court thus finds that modification of the Protective Order is necessary to enable DOJ to carry out its legal obligations under the Act,” Engelmayer wrote.
Similarly, a federal judge in Florida allowed the release of grand jury transcripts from an investigation into Jeffrey Epstein last week. Judge Rodney Smith wrote in a brief order that a recent law signed by President Trump supersedes rules blocking the release of grand jury materials. “The Government previously sought to unseal the grand jury transcripts,” he wrote. “That request was denied because it violated Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 6 and the Government failed to show that disclosure was appropriate under any of the exceptions set out in Rule 6(e)(3).”
The law directs the Attorney General to “make publicly available in a searchable and downloadable format all unclassified records, documents, communications, and investigative materials in the possession of the Department of Justice, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation and United States Attorneys’ Offices.”
