BREAKING: Federal judge says 'no' to DOJ request to unseal Ghislaine Maxwell transcripts

On Monday, a judge denied a request to unseal transcripts from the grand jury trial that indicted Ghislaine Maxwell. This comes as the case with Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein has been a main focus in the national discourse over the past several months.

The New York judge denied a request from the DOJ to unseal the transcripts. Judge Paul A. Engelmayer wrote in the decision that the release of the materials in a “casually or promiscuously” fashion could risk “unraveling the foundations of secrecy upon which the grand jury is premised.” 

“And it is no answer to argue that releasing the grand jury materials, because they are redundant of the evidence at Maxwell’s trial, would be innocuous. The same could be said for almost any grand jury testimony, by summary witnesses or others, given in support of charges that later proceeded to trial,” the judge added in the decision. 

The DOJ tried to ask for the documents to be unsealed as there has been suspicions surrounding Epstein and Maxwell after a DOJ memo detailed that Epstein killed himself, did not keep an incriminating "client list," and that there was no evidence of third parties participating in the crimes committed by the disgraced financier and his former girlfriend. 

It is not clear what the transcripts of the grand jury trial that indicted Maxwell would entail or reveal, given that that the DOJ has said the trial did not have witness testimony aside from those who were in law enforcement at the time. 

Maxwell was interviewed by the DOJ recently and was moved from a Florida prison to a prison camp in Texas. It was reported that during the meetings with the DOJ, Maxwell said that she never saw Trump engage in concerning behavior. Maxwell answered questions regarding "about 100 different people" when she met with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche for a total of nine hours over two days.