Ghislaine Maxwell's defense team told the court on Tuesday that it opposes a judge releasing grand jury transcripts in her sex trafficking case after the Trump Department of Justice moved to unseal them.
Maxwell's attorneys wrote in court papers that the unsealing would jeopardize her appeal to the Supreme Court and that their client could not take an "informed position" since the court had declined to let her defense team see the transcripts in advance.
"Jeffrey Epstein is dead. Ghislaine Maxwell is not," her attorney wrote. "Whatever interest the public may have in Epstein, that interest cannot justify a broad intrusion into grand jury secrecy in a case where the defendant is alive, her legal options are viable, and her due process rights remain."
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The move by Maxwell, while expected, adds to the obstacles the DOJ must overcome to release grand jury transcripts from Epstein's and Maxwell's cases. The department had requested the material after President Donald Trump called for Attorney General Pam Bondi to do more to assuage public outcry about the DOJ's initial decision last month to withhold any further information about Epstein's case.
Trump, who was among the many high-profile figures in Epstein's social circle, had previously brushed off growing calls from MAGA supporters to unveil more information about Epstein's case after the late financier was accused in 2019 of engaging in sex trafficking and sexual abuse of underage women.
But a renewed public focus on Trump's relationship with Epstein prompted the president to shift his stance and claim that while some of the files were fabricated by Democrats, the DOJ should release what it could.
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DOJ leaders, for their part, walked back their promises to unveil new details about Epstein's case and instead said in July in a memo that they had nothing further to disclose. They said the FBI thoroughly searched through Epstein's case files and found no information that would allow them to bring charges against third parties and that much of the information was under court-ordered seals or contained confidential information about victims.
The memo sparked fierce backlash, which has led to the DOJ's series of recent moves surrounding Epstein and his former girlfriend and associate Maxwell. In addition to asking the court to unseal grand jury transcripts, which the DOJ revealed Monday night contained no new information, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche also met with Maxwell and questioned her for two days.
The DOJ is now considering releasing the audio file of Blanche's interview with Maxwell, which took place in Florida. Maxwell had been serving out a 20-year prison sentence in Tallahassee before she was abruptly transferred to a minimum security facility in Texas that has been described as having a cushy environment compared to other prisons.
Adding to the mounting pressure on the Trump administration and DOJ was a subpoena issued by House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., on Tuesday to the DOJ seeking Epstein's full case file by Aug. 19.
Fox News' David Spunt and Breanne Deppisch contributed to this report.
