A federal judge in Florida agreed on Friday that the Justice Department may unseal grand jury transcripts tied to the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, ruling that a new federal transparency law overrides decades-old secrecy protections.
U.S. District Judge Rodney Smith held that the Epstein Files Transparency Act of 2025, signed by President Donald Trump on Nov. 19, supersedes the confidentiality rules governing federal grand juries, according to a two-page decision. The statute requires the attorney general to publish all unclassified DOJ records connected to the late Epstein and his former partner, Ghislaine Maxwell, within 30 days.
The ruling does not immediately release the transcripts, leaving it to the DOJ to determine the timing and method of publication. Still, it marks the first concrete step toward disclosure after years of failed attempts by outside groups to pry the records loose.
Smith’s decision stands in contrast to prior federal rulings in both Florida and New York, where three separate judges denied similar requests on the grounds that grand jury secrecy laws barred any release. Those judges also suggested the sealed material was unlikely to contain new evidence beyond what was already public.
GHISLAINE MAXWELL PUSHES BACK ON FULL TRANSPARENCY FOR EPSTEIN FILES
The transcripts and related grand jury documents in both jurisdictions were used to bring the sex-trafficking charges against Epstein in 2019 and later for Maxwell, his associate and one-time girlfriend, in 2021. They represent only a sliver of the broader cache of investigative records covered by the new transparency mandate.
Separate petitions to unseal grand jury material in the New York cases are expected to have decisions over whether they can be released in the coming days.
