Karoline Leavitt dodges explosive Epstein question

During Tuesday’s press briefing, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt appeared to once again side-stepped questions about recordsdata associated to the Jeffrey Epstein intercourse trafficking case as the administration continues to face stress to release the recordsdata to the public.

Leavitt was requested if the White House had any remark on a choose’s current ruling, saying that the grand jury testimony in the prison case of Epstein affiliate Ghislaine Maxwell shouldn’t be launched to the public.

“We think that is unfortunate. The president wants to see credible evidence released. As for the appeal process, I would send you to the Department of Justice for that,” Leavitt said in response to the reporter’s question.

Political commentator and writer Brian Tyler Cohen was fast to call out Leavitt’s obvious dodging of the question about Epstein on social media, saying that the administration has the recordsdata and would release them if they needed to.

“THE WHITE HOUSE LITERALLY HAS ALL OF THE EPSTEIN FILES AT THEIR DISPOSAL. If they want them released, they would simply release them. They’re playing their supporters for absolute fools and morons,” Cohen wrote on the social media platform X.

U.S. District Judge Paul A. Engelmayer ruled Monday, that transcripts of grand jury testimony that led to intercourse trafficking prices against Epstein’s longtime confidante Maxwell shouldn’t be launched. Engelmayer stinging choice recommended the Trump administration’s real motive for wanting them unsealed was to idiot the public with an “illusion” of transparency.

Engelmayer said in a written choice that federal law nearly never permits for the release of grand jury supplies and that making the paperwork public casually was a unhealthy concept.

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The choose also belittled the Justice Department’s argument that releasing grand jury supplies may reveal new data about Epstein’s and Maxwell’s crimes, calling that premise “demonstrably false.”

The choice was a blow to President Donald Trump, who had called for the release of transcripts as he seeks to dispel rumors and quell criticism about his long in the past involvement with Epstein, who killed himself in jail in 2019. Trump campaigned on a promise to release recordsdata associated to Epstein, but was met with criticism — including from many of his own supporters — when the small quantity of information launched by his Justice Department lacked any real bombshells.

Trump has always denied any wrongdoing relating to the Epstein case, has not been accused of any crimes by law enforcement and has never been recognized as the subject of any investigation.

In his ruling, Engelmayer wrote that after privately reviewing the grand jury transcripts, anybody acquainted with the evidence from Maxwell’s 2021 intercourse trafficking trial would “learn next to nothing new” and “would come away feeling disappointed and misled.”

“The materials do not identify any person other than Epstein and Maxwell as having had inappropriate 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,” Engelmayer said.

He said the supplies also don’t reveal new areas where crimes occurred, new sources of Maxwell and Epstein’s wealth, the circumstances of Epstein’s death or the trail of the federal government investigation.

The best argument to release the transcripts is likely to be that “doing so would expose as disingenuous the Government’s public explanations for moving to unseal,” Engelmayer wrote.

“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,” he said.

Another federal choose is weighing whether or not to release transcripts from the separate grand jury continuing that led to Epstein’s indictment.

Maxwell, Epstein’s ex-girlfriend, is serving a 20-year prison sentence for serving to Epstein inappropriately abuse a number of underage women. Her lawyer, Bobbi Sternheim, declined remark. The Justice Department didn’t reply to requests for remark.

The Epstein saga has again grow to be a national flashpoint years after Epstein served jail time and registered as a intercourse offender after pleading guilty to Florida prostitution offenses in a 2008 deal that let him keep away from federal prices then.

Trump raised questions about Epstein’s death, and Trump allies stoked conspiracy theories that darkish secrets and techniques have been coated up to shield highly effective people. Some of those allies received highly effective positions in Trump’s Justice Department and promised to pull back the curtain on the Epstein investigation — but then announced this summer time nothing more could be launched and a long-rumored Epstein “client list” doesn’t exist.

The about-face amplified the clamor for transparency. After attempting unsuccessfully to change the subject and denigrating his own supporters for not transferring on, Trump told Attorney General Pam Bondi to ask courts to unseal the grand jury transcripts.