Trump Tells Bondi to Seek Release of Epstein Grand Jury Testimony

President Trump announced Thursday night that he was authorizing Attorney General Pam Bondi to seek the public release of grand jury testimony from the prosecution of the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, and Ms. Bondi said she would make that request in federal court on Friday.

Mr. Trump, under intense pressure from his right-wing base after a Justice Department review found no evidence to support conspiracy theories about the sex trafficking case, ordered Ms. Bondi to “produce any and all Grand Jury Testimony, subject to Court approval,” in a social media post.

The president cited “the ridiculous amount of publicity given to Jeffrey Epstein” for his directive, which falls far short of demands from some congressional Republicans to make public all investigative files collected by the department and the F.B.I., not just testimony presented in federal court.

Ms. Bondi, a Trump loyalist accused by far-right influencers of abetting a cover-up, responded immediately with a post on social media that undercut the memo the department and F.B.I. drafted this month declaring Mr. Epstein’s 2019 jailhouse death a suicide and the case closed.

“President Trump — we are ready to move the court tomorrow to unseal the grand jury transcripts,” she wrote, quickly reversing course at his command. But it was not clear that she would succeed, because the secrecy of grand jury transcripts is highly protected.

Mr. Trump’s request came hours after The Wall Street Journal reported on a 50th birthday greeting it said Mr. Trump sent Mr. Epstein in 2003, including a sexually suggestive drawing, an expression of friendship and a reference to secrets they shared.

The president vehemently denied the report, which The New York Times has not verified. He warned Rupert Murdoch, the founder of News Corp., the paper’s parent company, that he planned to sue.

An angry Mr. Trump, referring to himself in the third person in a long Truth Social post, claimed that Mr. Murdoch had agreed to “take care of” the article but apparently lacked the authority to overrule the decisions of the paper’s top editor, Emma Tucker. He accused The Journal of publishing a “false, malicious and defamatory” report.

“President Trump has already beaten George Stephanopoulos/ABC, 60 Minutes/CBS, and others, and looks forward to suing and holding accountable the once great Wall Street Journal,” he added.

In 2019, Mr. Epstein was found dead by hanging in his cell at a Manhattan federal prison while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges. Two years later, a federal jury convicted his close associate Ghislaine Maxwell of five counts, including the most serious charge, sexually trafficking a minor.

Mr. Trump’s stated desire to address the “ridiculous” publicity around the case may not be enough to convince the judge to release the transcripts. Grand jury transcripts are, under federal guidelines, kept secret to protect crime victims and witnesses. They are typically released only under narrowly defined circumstances.

Even if the transcripts are made public, which might involve months of legal wrangling, the evidence represents a fraction of material collected in the investigation. Over the past several months, dozens of F.B.I. agents and prosecutors with the Justice Department’s national security division were diverted from other assignments to review thousands of documents and a vast trove of video evidence, including footage from video cameras in the prison.

At a cabinet meeting last week, Ms Bondi defended her decision not to release most of the material to the public, saying that most of the video evidence was child sexual abuse material.

But that has done little to quell calls for transparency among some Trump supporters and members of Congress from both parties, who are exploring legislative options to pressure the department and the F.B.I. to release more files and videos.

House Republicans, under pressure from Democrats and their own angry constituents, agreed on Thursday night to lay the groundwork for a potential vote calling on the Justice Department to release material from the investigation. The measure is nonbinding and has not been scheduled for a vote, but it reflected a widening gulf between Mr. Trump and Congress on the issue.

Representative Dan Goldman, a New York Democrat who has pushed for the release of more records, dismissed Ms. Bondi’s move on grand jury testimony as a meaningless stunt.

“Nice try @AGPamBondi,” he wrote in a social media post. “What about videos, photographs and other recordings?”

Michael Gold contributed reporting.

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