A federal judge today denied the government’s request to unseal grand jury transcripts from its investigation into Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, a longtime companion of Epstein who is serving a 20-year prison sentence for sexually exploiting and abusing teenage girls.

Unsealing the transcripts would mean applying a “special circumstances” exception to the secrecy of grand juries, wrote the judge supervising Maxwell’s case, Paul A. Engelmayer.

Permitting such an exception “casually or promiscuously” would erode confidence in people called to testify before future grand juries, Engelmayer wrote.

“This factor weighs heavily against unsealing,” the judge wrote in his order today.

The ruling comes as President Donald Trump tries to subdue criticism and conspiracy theories from his

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