US judge rejects justice department bid to unseal Epstein grand jury materials

The ruling comes days after Donald Trump directed Attorney General Pam Bondi to release the transcripts, as pressure grows on his administration to publish the disputed Epstein client list.

However, on Wednesday, US district judge Robin Rosenberg rejected the bid due to guidelines governing grand jury secrecy.

Under US law, grand jury materials are generally kept confidential unless exceptions warrant their release - conditions that Ms Rosenberg said did not apply in this case.

The judge ruled that the government's argument of 'extensive public interest' and the need for 'transparency to the American public 'did not satisfy the legal threshold for unsealing documents under 'special circumstances'.

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The materials relate to grand juries held in Florida in connection with an investigation into Epstein in 2005 and 2007.

The following year, Epstein pleaded guilty to prostitution-related charges involving underage girls, in exchange for the Justice Department's agreement not to prosecute him on similar charges.

He served 13 months in prison and agreed to register as a sex offender under the plea deal.

Epstein was found dead in his cell at a federal jail in Manhattan in August 2019 while he awaited trial on sex trafficking charges.

The death was ruled a suicide.

Last week, Trump filed a $10 billion (£7.5 billion) lawsuit against the Wall Street Journal's parent company Dow Jones and its owner Rupert Murdoch over claims he wrote a 'bawdy' birthday note to Epstein.

He denied writing the message, calling it a 'fake thing', after the major US newspaper reported his name appeared on the note.

It was supposedly part of a leather-bound album gifted to Epstein for his 50th birthday, roughly three years before sexual abuse allegations emerged about the infamous financier and socialite.

The alleged letter includes a hand-drawn image showing the silhouette of a naked woman with a typed letter of an imagined conversation between the two.

The paper claimed the letter concludes "Happy Birthday - and may every day be another wonderful secret", and featured the signature "Donald".

The note is part of several documents that were examined by the Department of Justice when it first investigated Epstein and Maxwell years ago, according to sources familiar with the issue.

Earlier this month, a joint investigation between the FBI and the Department of Justice said there was 'no credible evidence' that Epstein kept a ‘client list’ to blackmail prominent political and business leaders.

There have been conspiracy theories swirling around for years regarding the nature of Epstein's death and who was involved in his activities.