President Donald Trump’s vow to seek the release of the Jeffrey Epstein grand jury transcripts is being dismissed as nothing but smoke and mirrors.
Facing scrutiny over his relationship with the disgraced financier and fury from his base over the administration’s failure to release new information in the case, Trump announced in a social media post that he had asked Attorney General Pam Bondi to “produce any and all pertinent Grand Jury testimony, subject to Court approval.”
Bondi—who has been facing calls from MAGA to resign over her failure to produce new Epstein revelations—responded minutes later, writing in a social media post, “President Trump—we are ready to move the court tomorrow to unseal the grand jury transcripts.”
It wasn’t clear if she was referring to Epstein’s 2006 prosecution in Florida, which ended in a plea deal, or his 2019 prosecution in New York, where he was indicted and died by suicide in jail while awaiting trial for sex trafficking charges.
Democratic lawmakers and legal experts alike, however, quickly poked holes in Bondi’s pledge. Federal law generally prohibits releasing grand jury transcripts, and the nature of the proceedings themselves would have been limited in scope.
“Nice try @AGPam Bondi,” Rep. Daniel Goldman, a Democrat from New York, wrote in a post on X. “What about videos, photographs and other recordings? What about FBI 302’s (witness interviews)? What about texts and emails?”
That’s where any evidence about Trump and other high-profile associates would be, whereas the grand jury testimony would only be related to Epstein and his accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell, the former prosecutor added.
During a grand jury hearing, the prosecutor isn’t trying to secure a guilty verdict—they just need to convince a jury that there’s enough evidence to try the case. Instead of proving the charges beyond a reasonable doubt, prosecutors just have to show there are reasonable grounds to believe a crime was committed, a standard known as probable cause.
Democratic Reps. Ro Kanna of California and Jamie Raskin of Maryland expressed similar concerns, with Raskin—who is the ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee—telling CNN that congressional Democrats are also interested in Epstein’s emails, correspondence, phone calls, and other evidence.
“Everybody can see through it—it’s slicing the baloney extremely fine,” Raskin said during an appearance on Laura Coates Live.
Kanna also pointed out during a House Rules Committee meeting on Thursday night, where Republicans voted down a Democratic-led measure to advance the release of the Epstein documents, that courts usually don’t release grand jury testimony.
Even if Bondi immediately requests the transcripts to be made public, it could be a long time before any information is released—if ever.
Under the federal rules of criminal procedure, grand jury proceedings are secret unless the court authorizes disclosure based on a limited set of statutory exceptions.
Barb McQuade, a professor at the University of Michigan Law School, wrote in a social media post that Trump’s order was a “meaningless trick” because a court cannot violate federal Rule 6(e) prohibiting public disclosure.
University of Alabama law professor and MSNBC analyst Joyce Vance wrote in a Substack post that the reason grand jury proceedings are kept secret is to protect the integrity of the investigation, prevent witness intimidation, and protect the reputations of people who are not indicted.
To get the material disclosed, the requesting party needs to convince the court that the need for the information outweighs the interest in keeping it secret.
“All of the possible impediments to releasing grand jury material may well be the point for Trump,” Vance wrote. “He can say, yet again, that he tried and the courts stood in his way. Even a delay, while lawyers brief the matter and a judge schedules a hearing, could work in Trump’s favor if the fickle public loses interest in the issue and moves on, and he lives to fight another day, yet again.”
If the administration were serious about releasing the files, it could have put the process in motion a long time ago, Politico reporter Kyle Cheney pointed out in a social media post.
The Daily Beast has reached out to the White House and the Department of Justice for comment.
“If there was a ‘smoking gun’ on Epstein, why didn’t the Dems, who controlled the ‘files’ for four years, and had Garland and Comey in charge, use it? BECAUSE THEY HAD NOTHING!!!” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Friday.
