Jessica Roth: ‘There Are a Whole Bunch of Reasons’ DoJ Might Withhold Epstein Grand Jury Records Despite Judge’s Order

RUSH EXCERPT:

ROTH: “Yeah, so I‘m skeptical that there‘s going to be all that much that constitutes grand jury material that‘s released. Because, remember, this was a case that was not presented to a grand jury for an indictment in Florida. The federal case was resolved before that happened. By this very sort of favorable non-prosecution agreement that Alexander Acosta negotiated with Epstein. But if there were witnesses who testified before the grand jury, the transcript of their testimony would be released, as could be documents that were obtained in response to a grand jury subpoena. So could be phone records. It could be bank records, et cetera. So that‘s the kind of material that would be encompassed within grand jury records. But I do think that there‘s actually an interesting question about whether the government would still try to hold back some of that material, because the Epstein transparency act allows the Department of Justice to redact and withhold material if doing so is necessary to protect an ongoing investigation. So that could be a Rationale for withholding some of the material that the judge‘s order otherwise would seem to order. Release. Also to protect the privacy of survivors. So there are a whole bunch of reasons why the Department of Justice might still withhold information covered by the judge‘s order and reason to think that the judge‘s order actually when required disclosure in the first instance in all the materials that exists.”