NEW YORK — Transcripts of the secret grand jury testimony that led to the sex trafficking indictment of Jeffrey Epstein’s former girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell shouldn’t be released, a judge ruled Monday in a stinging decision suggesting the Justice Department's real motive for wanting them unsealed was to fool the public with an “illusion” of transparency.

Judge Paul A. Engelmayer said in a written decision that federal law almost never allows for the release of grand jury materials and that making the documents public casually was a bad idea.

And the judge also belittled the Justice Department's argument that releasing grand jury materials might reveal new information about Epstein’s and Maxwell’s crimes, calling that premise "demonstrably false.”

After privately reviewing the mat

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