After intense public pressure and criticism from lawmakers on both sides of the political spectrum, President Trump has called for a federal judge to release grand jury testimony related to the disgraced late financier Jeffrey Epstein, who was accused of sexually trafficking children.
The Department of Justice has also formally asked the federal court judge who was assigned to the Epstein case to unseal the testimony. In a motion filed Friday to the Southern District of New York, Attorney General Pam Bondi wrote: "Given the public interest in the investigative work conducted by the Department of Justice and Federal Bureau of Investigation into Epstein, the Department of Justice moves the Court to unseal the underlying grand jury transcripts in United States v. Epstein, subject to appropriate redactions of victim-related and other personal identifying information."
On Saturday morning, Trump posted about the request on his Truth Social account, writing: "I have asked the Justice Department to release all Grand Jury testimony with respect to Jeffrey Epstein, subject only to Court Approval. With that being said, and even if the Court gave its full and unwavering approval, nothing will be good enough for the troublemakers and radical left lunatics making the request. It will always be more, more, more. MAGA!"
However, Trump continues to distance himself from Epstein, and denies that he had any involvement in the allegations against the disgraced financier, who died in jail in 2019 while awaiting trial on federal child sex trafficking charges. (Epstein's death was ruled a suicide. Ghislaine Maxwell, who helped run the trafficking ring that ensnared young teenagers, was convicted and sentenced to 20 years in prison in 2022.)
This past week, Trump lashed out at both Democrats and members of his own party interested in the Epstein materials, calling them "stupid" and "foolish" in comments he made at the White House. On Wednesday, Trump wrote on his Truth Social account: "Their new SCAM is what we will forever call the Jeffrey Epstein Hoax, and my PAST supporters have bought into this 'bull*****' hook, line, and sinker."
Epstein's imprisonment and death have spurred a number of conspiracy theories, including one amplified by several prominent individuals who serve in the Trump administration that his death is evidence that the government is actually run by a "deep state" determined to undermine the president.
Much of the public pressure to release materials related to Epstein has come from both media influencers and rank-and-file Trump supporters, many of whom have been intensely interested in such conspiracy theories, and some of whom have publicly aired their disappointment that Trump had seemed to renege on campaign-era assurances that he wanted to see the files released.
On Friday, President Trump filed a federal lawsuit against The Wall Street Journal and its owner, Rupert Murdoch, accusing the news outlet of defaming him in a report published Thursday that said Trump had written a birthday card to Epstein in 2003 that included sexually suggestive language and a lewd drawing. The president maintains that he did not draw or write any of these materials.
The suit, filed in the Southern District of Florida, alleges that the Journal "falsely claimed that he [Trump] authored, drew, and signed a card to wish the late–and utterly disgraced–Jeffrey Epstein a happy fiftieth birthday."
The suit asks for at least $10 billion in damages and also names the Journal's parent company, NewsCorp (which also includes Fox News); NewsCorp chief executive Robert Thomson; and Khadeeja Safdar and Joseph Palazzolo, the two Journal reporters who wrote the story.
Republican and Democrat lawmakers alike have been calling for the release of files on the Epstein case. On Thursday, AP reported that House Speaker Mike Johnson said, "All the credible evidence should come out." On Tuesday, Kentucky Republican Rep. Thomas Massie introduced a discharge petition to force a House vote on releasing the complete Epstein files. "We all deserve to know what's in the Epstein files, who's implicated, and how deep this corruption goes," Massie wrote in a post on X.
On Weekend Edition Saturday, Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) also called for all files related to Epstein to be released. "We need full transparency," Khanna said. "We need the interview memos to see which rich and powerful men were involved with Jeffrey Epstein. We need to see the emails, the texts. We need to of course protect victim identity. But the president promised this when he campaigned. Pam Bondi, the attorney general, promised this."
Khanna said that the need for transparency with the Epstein documents goes far beyond the particulars of this case. "It goes to the heart of trust in the government," Khanna said. "It goes to the heart of whether our government is granting impunity to the rich and the powerful who may have abused, assaulted, abandoned young girls, or whether we're going to stand up for children and stand up for truth. And many people view it as an issue of whether our government in Washington has been corrupted."
Earlier this month, the DOJ released a two-page memo saying that after an "exhaustive review," it and the FBI found no evidence that Epstein kept a "client list" of people involved in the alleged sex trafficking, or that Epstein blackmailed prominent and powerful associates. The DOJ memo contradicted past statements made by Bondi.
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