U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi angered President Donald Trump’s base by hyping up her review of the Jeffrey Epstein “files” on TV and handing out “Phase 1” binders to right-wing influencers who visited the White House, only to throw cold water months later on a menu of long-running conspiracy theories in one fell swoop. In response, the DOJ quickly moved to put out the fire through multi-pronged efforts to unseal grand jury information in the courts. A federal judge has now said the “entire premise” of one unsealing motion is “demonstrably false” in asserting that “new information of any consequence” would be revealed, calling into question why the request for the grand jury materials was made at all.

Not to be confused with a separate DOJ motion for unsealing within the Southern District of New York in Epstein’s years-dormant criminal case, in which the DOJ was reminded that Epstein victims needed to be notified, the motion we discuss was filed in Ghislaine Maxwell’s sex-trafficking case, even as the convicted Epstein accomplice awaits the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision on whether or not to hear her appeal.

U.S. District Judge Paul Engelmayer, who is now presiding over the case because Maxwell’s trial judge was promoted to the Second U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, rejected the government’s motion on Monday. While doing so, the judge suggested that DOJ was more interested in conducting a public relations-style blitz in federal court than it was making in a persuasive legal argument in genuine favor of disclosure in the “public interest.”

“The Government has not cited any case finding such materials to present a ‘special circumstance’ that justifies the exceptional step of unsealing grand jury materials. There is none. The one colorable argument under that doctrine for unsealing in this case, in fact, is that doing so would expose as disingenuous the Government’s public explanations for moving to unseal,” Engelmayer stated. “A member of the public, appreciating that the Maxwell grand jury materials do not contribute anything to public knowledge, might conclude that the Government’s motion for their unsealing was aimed not at ‘transparency’ but at diversion—aimed not at full disclosure but at the illusion of such.”

Although the Second Circuit may allow “disclosure of grand jury materials” in “special circumstances,” even if Rule 6(e) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure “bars disclosure of grand jury matters by persons privy to them: grand jurors, attorneys for the Government, court reporters, operators of recording devices, and interpreters,” the DOJ fell well short of showing these circumstances were “exceptional,” the judge wrote.

“The doctrine is to be applied only in ‘exceptional circumstances,’ and it does not justify granting ‘garden variety’ petitions for disclosure unauthorized by Rule 6(e),” Engelmayer said. “The burden is on the requestor to demonstrate that disclosure is appropriate, and ‘the baseline presumption [is] against disclosure.'”

“The Government’s invocation of special circumstances, however, fails at the threshold,” the judge added later. “Its entire premise—that the Maxwell grand jury materials would bring to light meaningful new information about Epstein’s and Maxwell’s crimes, or the Government’s investigation into them—is demonstrably false.”

The Trump administration could try to shift blame to the judge, a Barack Obama appointee, for blocking further Epstein-related disclosures, but Engelmayer’s ruling was clear that there was just about “nothing new” for the public to learn about Epstein’s crimes from the release of Maxwell grand jury material and case exhibits, the overwhelming bulk of which is already a matter of “public record.”

The judge pointed out that he himself had been handed a “binder” from the DOJ that did not contain smoking guns.

“The Court’s review confirmed that unsealing the grand jury materials would not reveal new information of any consequence. In response to the Court’s order, the Government supplied the Court with a binder highlighting any information that the Government had been unable to determine is public. Only scattered words, clauses, and occasional sentences are highlighted. These items are few and far between,” Engelmayer said. “The highlighted snippets supply, at most, tertiary details about the same conduct that was the focus of Maxwell’s month-long trial. The same is so for the exhibits put before the grand juries. Save inconsequential portions of a few exhibits, these were received in evidence at Maxwell’s trial. Some were reproduced in the Maxwell indictments.”

Engelmayer went so far as to say a citizen well-educated on the ins and outs of the Epstein-Maxwell saga would “learn next to nothing new” from the grand jury materials the DOJ asked to unseal.

“Insofar as the motion to unseal implies that the grand jury materials are an untapped mine lode of undisclosed information about Epstein or Maxwell or confederates, they definitively are not that,” the judge said. “A ‘public official,’ ‘lawmaker,’ ‘pundit,’ or ‘ordinary citizen’ ‘deeply interested and concerned about the Epstein matter,’ and who reviewed these materials expecting, based on the Government’s representations, to learn new information about Epstein’s and Maxwell’s crimes and the investigation into them, would come away feeling disappointed and misled.”

In case there was room for misinterpretation, Engelmayer stated that when it comes to these documents, “There is no ‘there’ there.”

“The materials do not identify any person other than Epstein and Maxwell as having had sexual contact with a minor. They do not discuss or identify any client of Epstein’s or Maxwell’s. They do not reveal any heretofore unknown means or methods of Epstein’s or Maxwell’s crimes,” the denial said. “They do not reveal new venues at which their crimes occurred. They do not reveal new sources of their wealth. They do not explore the circumstances of Epstein’s death. They do not reveal the path of the Government’s investigation.”

Recall that the DOJ’s court filings came amid intense criticism of the Trump administration’s widely perceived as unsatisfactory handling of the “Epstein files,” which many of his supporters believe contain dark truths about the government’s role in aiding and abetting — and covering up — global grooming and sex-trafficking of young girls for abuse by the political elite, the famous, and some of the wealthiest men on earth.

On the contrary, DOJ said on July 6 that its “systematic review” found “no incriminating” Epstein “client list” (though many believe one to exist), “no credible evidence […] that Epstein blackmailed prominent individuals as part of his actions,” and no evidence that Epstein was killed in jail by anyone other than himself before he could face a federal sex-trafficking trial in New York, during Trump’s first term.

Trump, clearly frustrated by the backlash and “ridiculous amount of publicity given” to Epstein, his former longtime friend, and blaming Democrats for it all, posted on July 17 that he asked Bondi to “produce any and all pertinent Grand Jury testimony, subject to Court approval.”

Just two minutes later, Bondi posted, “President Trump—we are ready to move the court tomorrow to unseal the grand jury transcripts.” And that’s what the DOJ did, a week before Trump’s former criminal defense attorney turned Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche interviewed the incarcerated Maxwell. A prison move for Maxwell followed, and so did speculation about whether a pardon could be coming for someone the president has multiple times wished well.

Trump had also reportedly been briefed by Bondi in May about his name coming up in the Epstein files.