A federal judge in Florida on Friday authorized the U.S. Justice Department to unseal grand jury transcripts from the 2005-2007 investigation into Jeffrey Epstein, marking the first major disclosure mandated by a new law signed by President Donald Trump last month.
The ruling by U.S. District Judge Rodney Smith grants the department’s expedited request to release materials previously shielded by grand jury secrecy rules.
A similar request had been denied in August, but the newly enacted Epstein Files Transparency Act explicitly overrides those restrictions for unclassified records.
The bipartisan Epstein Files Transparency Act, passed by the Republican-controlled Congress and signed by Trump on November 19, requires the Attorney General, FBI, and federal prosecutors to disclose all unclassified investigative materials related to Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell by December 19.
Trump had initially opposed releasing the files but changed position shortly before the vote.
The documents are sought by both political opponents and some Trump supporters who allege past administrations concealed Epstein’s connections to prominent figures.
Epstein, who died by suicide in a Manhattan jail in 2019 while facing federal sex-trafficking charges, had reached a controversial 2008 non-prosecution agreement that allowed him to plead guilty only to lesser state charges.
The approved release covers transcripts from the earlier Florida grand jury proceedings that ended without federal charges against Epstein.
The Justice Department is also seeking to unseal additional records from Epstein’s 2019 case and Maxwell’s 2021 prosecution in New York.
The law permits withholding materials that could identify victims, reveal child abuse imagery, or affect active investigations or national security.
Maxwell, currently serving a 20-year sentence for sex trafficking, was recently transferred to a minimum-security facility in Texas.