NEED TO KNOW
- A federal judge ruled that grand jury materials from the Ghislaine Maxwell case can be unsealed
- The judge made his ruling after the Justice Department submitted a motion asking them to be unsealed
- Another judge is weighing a similar motion from the Department of Justice related to files from the Jeffrey Epstein case
A federal judge said the Justice Department can unseal grand jury records from the sex trafficking case against Ghislaine Maxwell.
Maxwell, the longtime co-conspirator of Jeffrey Epstein, is serving a 20-year sentence after being convicted of sex trafficking in 2021.
The Associated Press reported that Judge Paul A. Engelmayer granted a motion submitted by the Department of Justice requesting to unseal the records from the Maxwell case, including grand jury transcripts, which are not usually made public.
According to The New York Times, Engelmayer cited a law signed by President Donald Trump that compelled the Justice Department to release files related to the Epstein and Maxwell cases.
A separate motion regarding the Epstein case is in front of a different judge, who has not yet ruled, per the paper.
Epstein controversially died by suicide in a New York City jail in 2019, as he was set to face federal sex trafficking charges.
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The Epstein files have been the subject of a major political fight to pressure the Trump administration to release them.
Trump was a longtime acquaintance of Epstein, the disgraced billionaire financier, before they eventually had a falling out.
Epstein also had high-profile connections with figures like former Prince Andrew and former President Bill Clinton, as well as ex-Harvard president Larry Summers, who announced he would step back from public engagements after it came out that he had corresponded with Epstein the day before he was arrested.
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