Ghislaine Maxwell Records To Be Released After Judge Grants DOJ Request

Records related to the sex-trafficking case against Jeffrey Epstein’s associate Ghislaine Maxwell will be released after a federal judge granted a request from the Justice Department on Tuesday.

U.S. District Judge Paul Engelmayer said that grand jury transcripts and materials from the investigation into Maxwell could be unsealed following the passage of the Epstein Files Transparency Act last month, The Hill reported.

“The Act unambiguously applies to the discovery in this case,” Engelmayer ruled. With Engelmayer’s decision, hundreds more documents related to the investigation into Epstein and Maxwell’s sex trafficking crimes could soon be available to Americans.

The Justice Department asked two federal judges in New York to unseal the grand jury transcripts in November as the Trump administration seeks to release more information and move past the Epstein case, an issue that has plagued the administration throughout President Donald Trump’s second term. The Epstein Files Transparency Act, signed by Trump on November 19, requires the Justice Department to make Epstein-related documents public by December 19.

Engelmayer said he remains concerned about the identities of victims being released and criticized the Justice Department for moving to unseal the grand jury documents in July “without giving notice to Maxwell’s and Epstein’s victims,” NBC News reported.

Engelmayer’s order comes days after another federal judge ruled that grand jury documents related to the 2005 and 2007 investigations into Epstein should also be made public. U.S. District Judge Rodney Smith said that the bill calling for the release of the Epstein files signed by Trump last month prevails over the standard rules safeguarding the secrecy of grand jury documents.

Maxwell, who preyed on young girls and brought them to Epstein’s multiple estates and infamous island, was convicted of five federal counts related to sex trafficking. She is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence.

Earlier this year, Maxwell agreed to sit down with the Justice Department and answer questions on Epstein and his connections to wealthy and powerful people, including Trump. During her interview with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, Maxwell said that she “never saw any man doing something inappropriate with a woman of any age.” When asked about Trump, she said he was “always very cordial and very kind to me” and was “a gentleman in all respects.”

Maxwell also said she disagreed with the Justice Department’s conclusion that Epstein died by suicide in his Manhattan jail cell in 2019.

“I do not believe he died by suicide,” Maxwell said, but added that she had no idea who could have been behind his death.

Maxwell is reportedly planning to ask the Trump administration to review an application for commutation. After her interview with the Justice Department, Maxwell was transferred to a minimum-security women’s prison.

Trump Changes Tune On Releasing Video Of Second Strike On Suspected Drug Boat

President Donald Trump denied on Monday that he ever supported releasing video of the second strike on a suspected drug boat as controversy continues to swirl around the U.S. military’s actions in the Caribbean in early September.

Trump said last Wednesday that “whatever” Secretary Pete Hegseth’s War Department had, “we’d certainly release, no problem.” On Monday, however, the president told reporters at the White House that he never agreed to make the full video of the second strike public.

“Mr. President, you said you would have ‘no problem’ with releasing the full video of that strike on September 2 off the coast of Venezuela,” one reporter stated.

“I didn’t say that,” the president replied. “You said that, I didn’t say that.”

Trump added, “Whatever Pete Hegseth wants to do is okay with me.”

Hegseth has come under fire from Democrats and some Republicans after the “double-tap” strike on a boat that the Trump administration said was trafficking illicit drugs to the United States. The administration released a 29-second unclassified video showing the first strike on September 2, but the full video of the follow-up strike has been shown to only a select few lawmakers.

Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, are scheduled to meet with top intelligence committee lawmakers on Tuesday behind closed doors. The Trump officials will likely be asked more questions about the “double-tap” strike during the meeting.

Trump told POLITICO in a wide-ranging interview released on Tuesday that he watched the footage of the second strike and continues to give Hegseth his full confidence.

“He’s doing a great job,” Trump said, adding that he doesn’t care if Hegseth testifies under oath about the strike.

The president said that the footage was “not pretty,” but added, “It looked like they were trying to turn back over the boat, but I don’t get involved in that.”

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) said on Sunday that he watched the footage of the second strike, adding that he would not have “any problem” with releasing the footage to the public.

“It’s not gruesome. I didn’t find it distressing or disturbing. It looks like any number of dozens of strikes we’ve seen on Jeeps and pickup trucks in the Middle East over the years,” Cotton said. He added that he would understand if the War Department had concerns about releasing the footage, since it could reveal too much to drug cartels about how the U.S. military is conducting the strikes.

Democrats who saw the footage are calling on the administration to release the video. Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA), the ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee, said the footage of the second strike was “deeply disturbing.”

“There were two survivors on an overturned boat. When they were finally taken out, they weren’t trying to flip the boat over. The boat was clearly incapacitated,” Smith said. “A tiny portion of it remained capsized, the bow of the boat. They had no communications device. Certainly they were unarmed.”

“Any claim that the drugs had somehow survived that attack is hard to really square with what we saw,” he added. “So it was deeply disturbing. It did not appear that these two survivors were in any position to continue the fight.”

When asked if the War Department would release the additional footage, Hegseth said over the weekend that the administration is currently “reviewing the process,” and did not commit to releasing the full video.

“Whatever we were to decide to release, we’d have to be very responsible about reviewing that right now,” Hegseth added.

After Trump ramped up border security upon returning to office, he moved his attention to preventing drugs from reaching American shores. The strikes on the suspected “narcoterrorists,” which began in September, have taken out 23 boats and 87 suspected drug runners.

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