The daughter of former FBI Director James B. Comey persuaded a federal judge last year to block the public disclosure of a trove of government evidence against Jeffrey Epstein and his associate, Ghislaine Maxwell, keeping hidden much of what is now considered to be the “Epstein files.”
Maurene Comey, whom President Trump fired without explanation this week, was one of the assistant U.S. attorneys in charge of prosecuting Maxwell and Epstein on sex trafficking charges. On Jan. 30, 2024, she urged U.S. District Judge Paul G. Gardephe to keep secret the thousands of pages of evidence compiled against the two after an extensive FBI investigation and Justice Department prosecution that resulted in Maxwell’s conviction.
The judge agreed, and the evidence remained locked down.
The court order is one of the reasons the White House has not released more information about the case to the public, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Thursday.
Her explanation follows mounting pressure on Mr. Trump to release all the information related to Epstein’s sex trafficking operation, namely, an alleged client list.
“Those are questions for the judges who have the information under seal,” Ms. Leavitt said. “So that would have to be requested, and a judge would have to approve of that. It’s out of the president’s control.”
The list of information kept secret under the judge’s order includes Epstein’s business and financial records, phone call logs, travel records, statements from “dozens of witnesses,” as well as the discussions among law enforcement and grand jury testimony.
Epstein was never prosecuted by the federal government. He was found dead in his New York City jail cell on Aug. 10, 2019, and authorities ruled it a suicide.
Maxwell, who is serving 20 years in prison on multiple sex trafficking convictions, is appealing.
Ms. Comey argued in court documents that the government’s extensive files from the investigation and prosecution of Maxwell must remain concealed in case of a retrial. If exposed, the material could influence future witness testimony, result in the destruction of evidence, chill or intimidate witnesses, or reveal the “scope and nature” of the government’s investigation, she said.
The judge sided with Ms. Comey in an order signed in June 2024. The order denied a public records request from the media outlet Radar Online, which is seeking access to the Epstein material under the Freedom of Information Act.
Maxwell has been unsuccessful in appealing her conviction but is still trying.
Her attorney this year asked the Supreme Court to review her case, arguing that Maxwell should have been shielded from federal prosecutors under the terms of Epstein’s 2007 plea deal in Florida on prostitution charges involving a minor. The deal included a “no-prosecution agreement” prohibiting prosecutors from charging co-conspirators. A high court refusal of the case would end all of Maxwell’s avenues to appeal and the government’s rationale for keeping the files hidden from the public.
Although many of the documents are sealed under a court order, Mr. Trump is facing increasing calls from his MAGA base to reveal an alleged list of high-profile names that Epstein supposedly kept and to whom he trafficked underage girls.
The Justice Department this month denied the existence of a client list, but Attorney General Pam Bondi acknowledged that hundreds of “porn” tapes exist involving underage girls. It’s unclear whether any tapes involve men other than Epstein.
In a two-page memo, Justice Department officials said much of the material is subject to a court order to remain sealed.
“Through this review, we found no basis to revisit the disclosure of those materials and will not permit the release of child pornography,” the memo stated. The material, officials said, “did not expose any additional third parties to allegations of illegal wrongdoing.”
Documents made public from a civil trial revealed the names of rich and powerful people who flew on Epstein’s private jet, among them former President Bill Clinton, tech billionaire and philanthropist Bill Gates, and rock star Mick Jagger. Mr. Trump was logged on seven flights in the 1990s, and some of them included his then-wife, Marla Maples, and their daughter.
Mr. Trump denies ever traveling to Epstein’s home in the Virgin Islands, where many of the sex crimes with underage girls took place. He said he banned Epstein from his Mar-a-Lago club in 2007 and that the two had not spoken in more than 15 years.
Democrats have seized on the Epstein files, claiming Mr. Trump is keeping them from the public to protect himself or that he has reneged on a promise to be transparent about releasing all the information.
Sen. Ron Wyden, Oregon Democrat and a top lawmaker on the Senate Finance Committee, said Thursday that he had reviewed “portions of the file” in person at the Treasury Building last year and found 4,725 wire transfers amounting to more than $1 billion from just one of Epstein’s bank accounts. The files also showed Epstein used Russian banks now under U.S. sanctions to process payments for sex trafficking and that the women and girls he victimized came from Russia, Belarus, Turkey and Turkmenistan. At the time, he did not publicly call for the Biden administration to investigate the case, but now he says a probe should begin under the Trump administration.
“These are all potential leads the Department of Justice ought to be digging into,” Mr. Wyden said. “This is about years and years of international sex trafficking. None of this is a hoax. None of it is a scam. It’s insulting to the intelligence of the American people when Trump and Bondi say there’s nothing here to investigate.”
Ms. Comey was fired this week and was not given an explanation why. She was terminated after the opening of a Justice Department investigation into her father’s tenure at the FBI and his launch of a now-discredited investigation into whether Mr. Trump colluded with Russians to win the 2016 election. The investigation included secret spying on Mr. Trump’s campaign.
Earlier this year, Mr. Comey was questioned by the FBI after posting on social media an image of seashells depicting “86 47,” which was viewed as an incitement of violence against Mr. Trump.
Ms. Comey had been leading the violent and organized crime unit in the U.S. attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York. Her office spent weeks and millions of dollars prosecuting Sean “Diddy” Combs on sex trafficking and racketeering charges, but the jury convicted him of a much lesser offense of transporting women across state lines for prostitution.
