Trump Administration Requests Release of Epstein Grand Jury Records. What’s Next?

President Trump on Thursday directed Attorney General Pam Bondi to ask a federal judge to release transcripts of grand jury testimony related to the 2019 indictment of Jeffrey Epstein for sex trafficking. On social media, he said that “any and all pertinent Grand Jury testimony” relating to Mr. Epstein should be released, “subject to Court approval.” On Friday, Ms. Bondi followed through. In court filings, she asked federal judges to unseal grand jury transcripts from Mr. Epstein’s case, and the prosecution of his longtime associate Ghislaine Maxwell as well.

The request falls short of demands by Mr. Trump’s critics to release all of the government’s files on Mr. Epstein, who died in federal custody while awaiting trial.

Generally, grand jury evidence is narrowly tailored by prosecutors to fit the criminal charges they want to file. So even if judges agree to unseal the grand jury testimony, it is unlikely to offer anything approaching an exhaustive accounting of what F.B.I. agents and prosecutors learned about Mr. Epstein’s activities. And the requests by the Justice Department to release the material will now most likely be only the beginning of a complicated process of review, redaction and potential release of testimony. Here’s how it might work.

What is a grand jury?

Grand juries are groups of citizens who hear evidence from prosecutors and witnesses in secret, and then decide whether to formally indict a person under investigation. Grand juries are used in both state and federal courts; they are typically convened to gather and weigh evidence before charges are filed in most felony cases.

Compared with a trial, the grand jury process is friendlier to prosecutors, as jurors do not hear from lawyers representing the accused. And the standard for indicting people for a criminal offense is lower than the one for finding them guilty at trial.

Why is grand jury material sealed?

Grand juries are intended to be a screening mechanism, one that serves as a check on prosecutors to make sure that the government has a solid case before it brings criminal charges against someone in open court. Their proceedings are kept secret to protect the reputations of the people under government investigation who may turn out to be innocent or who are never charged with a crime. Secrecy also makes it easier to obtain full and truthful testimony from witnesses.

Prosecutors, investigators and jurors are generally barred from revealing not only grand jury testimony, but also the very existence of a grand jury proceeding. Violators can be punished for contempt of court. The rules around witnesses are less strict. Grand jury investigations sometimes become known to the public when prosecutors issue subpoenas to witnesses for their testimony.

What are the rules that govern the unsealing of grand jury testimony?

The operating manual for grand jury secrecy is Rule 6(e) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure. That rule details the process for filing a petition asking the court to unseal grand jury material, and a number of exceptions under which releasing it can be legally justified. Courts can unseal grand jury materials for national security reasons, to help a defendant dismiss a different grand jury’s indictment or at the request of a foreign court for use in its own criminal investigation.

The unsealing of grand jury materials is not a rubber-stamp process. The Florida courts refused to unseal Epstein materials until the State Legislature intervened by passing a new law. And the federal courts remain divided on whether judges have the inherent power to unseal grand jury materials, outside of the exceptions listed in Rule 6(e). In the Epstein case, Ms. Bondi cited “longstanding and legitimate” public interest in the matter, as well as case law supporting that such interest can sometimes outweigh “the countervailing interests in privacy and secrecy.”

The complex limits on the release of grand jury material came briefly into the spotlight in 2019, when Congress asked a federal judge in Washington to unseal materials from a grand jury investigation by the special counsel Robert S. Mueller III into possible connections between Mr. Trump’s 2016 campaign and the Russian government. The judge refused to do so for a time, until Congress started a formal impeachment inquiry into Mr. Trump.

The judge then said that inquiry meant he could unseal some grand jury material because it was needed “preliminarily to or in connection with a judicial proceeding,” the impeachment proceedings. That is one of the exceptions to grand jury secrecy included in the rules of criminal procedure.

What grand juries have considered the Epstein case?

Courts have convened several grand juries that heard evidence relating to Mr. Epstein’s alleged crimes. The first was a Florida state grand jury in Palm Beach County that indicted Mr. Epstein for felony solicitation of prostitution in 2006. Nearly 200 pages of evidence gathered by that grand jury was made public last year, after Florida passed a law known as the “Epstein grand jury bill,” intended to remove legal obstacles to its release.

In July 2019, another grand jury, this one federal, indicted Mr. Epstein for sex trafficking in New York. Mr. Epstein died at the Metropolitan Correctional Center before a trial could be held; a Justice Department investigation found that he died by suicide.

Yet another grand jury that heard Epstein-related evidence indicted Ms. Maxwell in 2020. She was later found guilty of conspiring with Mr. Epstein to abuse young girls.

Ms. Bondi’s filings request the release of grand jury transcripts from both Ms. Maxwell’s case and Mr. Epstein’s. In those filings, she said a similar motion would be filed in the Southern District of Florida, where prosecutors investigated Mr. Epstein before state charges were filed.

What would be the process for unsealing the Epstein grand jury material?

The Justice Department has already taken the first step, by formally filing two petitions in the Southern District of New York, where both Mr. Epstein and Ms. Maxwell were charged. In the Epstein case, the petition was submitted to Judge Richard M. Berman, who was nominated to the federal bench by President Bill Clinton, and who was overseeing Mr. Epstein’s case in the weeks before his death.

Judge Berman can now give the parties in the case the opportunity to be heard, and possibly other interested parties such as Mr. Epstein’s victims and media organizations. If he then rules to unseal some grand jury material, it would be up to him to decide what documents to make public. In its filings, the Justice Department said it would redact “victim-identifying information” as well as “other personal identifying information” before release.

Would the release of the Epstein grand jury material answer the public’s questions around the case?

Almost certainly not. The Epstein case has spawned countless conspiracy theories and a number of legitimate questions as well.

Typically, grand jury testimony is neither exhaustive nor fully granular in its detail. It would not include all of the investigative material the F.B.I. seized during its investigation of Mr. Epstein and Ms. Maxwell, such as the trove of photos found inside a locked safe at his Manhattan townhouse after he was arrested.

Instead, it is intended to provide sufficient backup to persuade jurors that there is probable cause that the person under investigation committed a crime. So the best preview of what the testimony might contain is the two indictments against Mr. Epstein and Ms. Maxwell.

Those indictments have a narrow focus around Mr. Epstein’s paying underage girls to exploit them sexually, and Ms. Maxwell’s role in facilitating and sometimes participating in the abuse. They do not address Mr. Epstein’s finances or his extensive network of wealthy and prominent friends.

Benjamin Weiser contributed reporting.

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