A Clinton-appointed federal judge on Wednesday denied the Trump administration’s request to unseal grand jury materials used to charge Jeffrey Epstein with sex trafficking, and instead said that the federal government is the ‘logical party’ to dump said ‘files.’
“The information contained in the Epstein grand jury transcripts pales in comparison to the Epstein investigation information and materials in the hands of the Department of Justice,” US District Judge Richard Berman wrote in a 14-page ruling, in which he said there is “clear precedent and sound purpose” for keeping the records under seal – and that the DOJ failed to show the Epstein papers demonstrate a “special circumstance” which would justify their release.
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According to Berman, the government has already conducted a comprehensive investigation into Epstein, and has assembled a “trove” of documents, interviews and exhibits. In fact, the government has such a mountain of evidence outside of that case – records which “dwarf” the “70 odd pages” of grand jury materials, that Berman cited it as a “significant and compelling reason” to reject the request.
“The Government is the logical party to make comprehensive disclosure to the public of the Epstein Files,” wrote Berman, adding “By comparison, the instant grand jury motion appears to be a ‘diversion’ from the breadth and scope of the Epstein files in the Government’s possession.”
Berman’s ruling is the latest in a saga pitting Trump – a former Epstein associate whose previous AG Bill Barr ‘presided’ over the death of the disgraced pedophile. Barr’s father, who wrote pedo-centric short stories – hired Epstein to teach children at the Dalton school in the early 1970s when Barr Senior was headmaster.