Judge Berman Rejects DOJ Request to Unseal Jeffrey Epstein Grand Jury Records
Manhattan ruling marks the third federal denial, shifting focus to the Justice Department’s 100,000-page investigative archive.
New York, August 20 EST: Jeffrey Epstein’s grand jury records will stay sealed, after a federal judge in Manhattan shot down yet another push to pry them loose. The ruling, delivered Wednesday by U.S. District Judge Richard Berman, is the third such denial this summer, underscoring just how tightly the courts intend to guard the secrecy of the late financier’s case files even as the public clamors for answers.
Judge Berman Says DOJ Is Looking in the Wrong Place
Judge Berman didn’t just reject the Justice Department’s request; he called it a distraction. In a sharply worded opinion, he argued that the government was chasing scraps while sitting on a mountain of evidence it could release on its own.
“The Department of Justice is the logical party to provide transparency,” Berman wrote, pointing out that prosecutors already control more than 100,000 pages of investigative files. The transcript in question? Seventy pages total, consisting of a single FBI agent’s testimony, a PowerPoint deck, and a call log hardly the kind of bombshell many imagine.
Berman also raised concerns about victims’ privacy and safety, stressing that even minor disclosures could carry real-world risks. For him, the balance wasn’t close.
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Courts Keep Closing the Door
This isn’t the first time a judge has been asked to unseal Epstein-related grand jury material, and it probably won’t be the last. But the trend line is clear.
Last month, Judge Robin Rosenberg in Florida said no to a request for records from Epstein’s 2005–2007 Palm Beach case, ruling that public interest alone doesn’t meet the strict legal threshold. Days later, Judge Paul Engelmayer in New York refused to open up transcripts from the Ghislaine Maxwell prosecution, calling them duplicative of trial evidence that was already public.
Now Berman has joined that chorus, reinforcing the idea that the courts won’t be the venue for major disclosures. If the truth is going to surface, it will almost certainly come from the Justice Department itself.
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Political Heat Keeps Rising
That hasn’t stopped the politics from intensifying. Donald Trump and some of his allies have made the grand jury transcripts a rallying cry, portraying them as the key to exposing hidden truths. But critics including Berman himself say the fixation is misplaced.
What really matters, they argue, is the massive investigative archive the DOJ has so far kept under wraps. And Congress is already pressing for it. The House Oversight Committee has subpoenaed the department to start turning over documents, but the DOJ blew past its first deadline earlier this month.
That delay drew fire from lawmakers, including Rep. Summer Lee, a Democrat from Pennsylvania, who warned against the possibility of a selective or heavily redacted release. “Cherry-picked documents won’t cut it,” she said.
Transparency vs. Tradition
The Epstein case sits at a strange crossroads on one side, a public hungry for accountability in a scandal that touched politics, finance, and global elites; on the other, the long-standing principle of grand jury secrecy, which exists to protect witnesses and encourage candor in sensitive investigations.
Courts rarely carve out exceptions, and so far, they’ve been unanimous in refusing to do so here. That leaves the Justice Department in the hot seat. Does it hand over its files in good faith? Or does it keep fighting Congress and invite even deeper suspicion?
What Happens Next
For now, the transcript remains locked away, and the judiciary seems united in keeping it there. Berman’s ruling all but shuts the door on the courtroom route. The bigger story is whether the DOJ finally opens up the archives it’s sitting on tens of thousands of pages that could shed far more light on how Epstein operated, who enabled him, and how the justice system handled his case.
Until then, the focus on a slim 70-page transcript looks more like a sideshow. The real fight is just beginning, and it’s one that pits the public’s right to know against the government’s instinct to hold tight to its secrets.
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Trained in war zones, raised in Newark, and seasoned in city hall, Jordan blends grit reporting with deep integrity. From floods to finance bills, they’re always first on scene and last to leave.
