By Jan Wolfe and Jack Queen
WASHINGTON, Dec 9 (Reuters) - A U.S. judge on Tuesday cleared the Justice Department to release grand jury documents in the criminal case against Jeffrey Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell, who is in prison for sex trafficking underage girls with the deceased financier.
U.S. District Judge Paul Engelmayer in New York granted the Justice Department's request to unseal the records under a new law requiring the Attorney General to release all unclassified files related to its investigations of Epstein and Maxwell. A Florida judge issued a similar order in Epstein's case last week.
The records are eagerly sought by both President Donald Trump’s political opponents and members of his own base who have sought greater transparency in the government's investigation. The documents could also shed more light on Epstein's ties to rich and powerful people, including Trump.
Trump, who said he ended his friendship with Epstein long before the financier’s 2019 arrest, had opposed the release of the files but reversed course shortly before lawmakers voted on the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which he signed on November 19.
Many Trump voters believe his administration has covered up Epstein’s ties to powerful figures and obscured details surrounding his death in a Manhattan jail in 2019 as he faced federal sex trafficking charges. Epstein's death was officially ruled a suicide.
The scandal has been a thorn in Trump's side for months. He previously amplified conspiracy theories about Epstein and vowed to release the files but now says they are a Democratic hoax aimed at distracting from his administration's accomplishments.
Maxwell is serving a 20-year prison sentence following her 2021 trial conviction for child sex trafficking and other offenses, though she maintains her innocence. During an interview with a top Justice Department official in July, Maxwell said she never saw Trump behave inappropriately.
(Reporting by Susan Heavey, Katharine Jackson, and Jan Wolfe; editing by Scott Malone, Chizu Nomiyama and Chris Reese)
