The Department of Justice went 0-for-3 in requests to release grand jury testimony and evidence in the Jeffrey Epstein case, and a legal expert explained what could come next as the public clamors for more information about the notorious sex offender's crimes.
A federal judge on Wednesday rejected the DOJ's efforts to unseal the transcripts and exhibits, finding the government itself was the “logical party” to release the files and describing its motion as a "diversion," and CNN legal analyst Elie Honig analyzed the court decision.
"It turns out this was all mostly a show, according to this judge and other judges who've looked at this, you know, the administration, including the president himself made a big deal about, well, we're going to go to the courts and we're going to ask them to show you the grand jury transcripts," Honig told "CNN News Central." "Sounds good, right? Well, according to Judge Richard Berman yesterday and other judges, it turns out the grand jury materials were a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of the files, under 1 percent, according to yesterday's ruling. The information contained in the grand jury transcripts was already essentially entirely known to the public, and the request to unseal was not even within the law in the first place, which is why DOJ just went 0-for-3. All three of their motions were rejected."
Host John Berman asked Honig to map out what could come next, as DOJ is expected to being turning over Epstein-related records to lawmakers in response to a subpoena from the House Oversight Committee.
"What does it make you wonder, then, about the disclosure to Congress, right? Berman said. "Tomorrow is the day that oversight chair James Comer says that the DOJ will begin handing over some documents, but we don't know what, given what these judges now say, the Justice Department tried to do. What do you think we might see?"
Honig speculated that almost anything was possible.
"I'm wondering about almost everything here," Honig said. "We really only know one thing about what's going to happen tomorrow, which is that DOJ is going to turn over some of the files, not the grand jury files, but the rest of the case, the 99-plus percent of the case over to Congress. But there's so many questions here, John. First of all, how much of that file the whole thing, all 300 or so gigabytes or some smaller section? How are they going to choose what within that whole section are they going to turn over? Are they going to redact out names? Are the documents going to show us other people who were involved in criminality? If there are names of people who were co-conspirators with Epstein or [Ghislaine] Maxwell, will their names be blacked out, and then the second part of that is, how's Congress going to handle the documents?"
"Once all the documents arrive on Capitol Hill, are they going to post them online for all of us to see? Are they going to review them first? Are they going to show us some all or none of those documents? So we know there's going to be important movement tomorrow, but there's a lot that we need to see how it's going to play out."
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