The Donald Trump/Pam Bondi Reality Show, Titled, "The Epstein Files!"

In Donald Trump and Pam Bondi's latest scheme designed to fool the gullible, Trump demanded the release of the Jeffrey Epstein grand jury transcripts, and Attorney General Bondi dutifully filed a motion asking a New York judge to order the release of the transcripts. Those transcripts - which represent a small fraction of the Epstein files - contain the testimony of the witnesses who were placed before the grand jury in connection with the 2019 indictment of Epstein and the 2020 indictment of his co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell.

Let me not bury the lede: these transcripts likely contain zero information about Donald Trump, for at least three reasons:

Reason 1: The Department of Justice (where I worked for 24 of my 30 years as a federal prosecutor) has had these transcripts in its possession since they were created in the Epstein and Maxwell investigations in (or before) 2019 and 2020. After a prosecutor places a witness before the grand jury to testify, a transcript of that testimony is generated and given to the prosecutor. That grand jury transcript becomes part of the prosecution's file, is summarized by the assigned prosecutor and included in a lengthy document called a Case Impression Memo (CIM) or sometimes called a Prosecution Report (pros report). The grand jury testimony, and all other evidence in the case, is then discussed with the prosecutor's supervisory chain as the investigation progresses and moves toward a possible indictment. Any number of people at both the US Attorney’s Office handling the case, and up the supervisory chain at the Department of Justice, have every reason to be fully aware of exactly what the witnesses testified about in the grand jury.

Epstein was indicted by the grand jury back in 2019, which means all witnesses would have appeared in the grand jury no later than 2019. Epstein's co-conspirator, Maxwell, was indicted by the grand jury in the summer of 2020, so the witnesses who testified to the grand jury about Maxwell's crimes would have done so in 2020 or earlier.

Who was the Attorney General ultimately in charge of those investigations in 2019 and 2020? Donald Trump's former protector, Bill Barr.

Does anyone really think that if those investigations uncovered evidence implicating Trump in Epstein's crimes, Bill Barr would have directed his DOJ lawyers to focus on, dig into, and fully investigate any allegations of Trump wrongdoing? Even more laughable is the notion that Bill Barr would have insisted that his DOJ lawyers put witnesses before the grand jury to testify about any Trump wrongdoing, such that there would be sworn testimony documenting said wrongdoing that later could be used to hold Trump accountable for his conduct.

Reason 2: The Department of Justice has been in possession of the Epstein and Maxwell grand jury transcripts since 2019 and 2020. All grand jury testimony is secret and may not be disclosed publicly by DOJ prosecutors without a court order permitting disclosure. So, the Epstein grand jury transcripts, documenting the testimony of the witnesses that Bill Barr's DOJ decided to present to the grand jury back in 2019 and 2020, are, indeed, protected by grand jury secrecy provisions. But that simply means they can't be released publicly. Folks inside the Department of Justice with a need to know what's in those transcripts, have had access to them for years, and there is a little doubt that Bondi knows exactly what the witnesses said in the grand jury in the Epstein and Maxwell cases.

Stating the obvious, before Trump demanded the release of the Epstein grand jury transcripts, he could simply have asked Pam Bondi, ‘Is there anything in those transcripts that implicates, or even mentions, me?’ Once Bondi answered that question, Trump could decide whether he wanted to demand their public release or not. So, when he took his little fingers and typed, “Based on the ridiculous amount of publicity given to Jeffrey Epstein, I have asked Attorney General Pam Bondi to produce any and all pertinent Grand Jury testimony, subject to Court approval”, isn’t it safe to assume that Trump already knew there would be nothing in those transcripts damaging to him?

Reason 3: Trump expressly put the power to decide exactly what should be released (assuming the New York judge grants Bondi's motion to release the transcript), in the hands of who? His consigliere, Pam Bondi.

Trump directed that only “pertinent” information be disclosed publicly. Do we really think Bondi would deem that any evidence tending to incriminate Donald Trump was “pertinent” and order it released? Really?!

There are plenty of other reasons to conclude that this administration and this Department of Justice will never release any evidence that would reflect poorly on Trump. And even apart from the administrations’s determination to cover-up any Trump wrongdoing, the judge may not grant Bondi’s motion to release the transcripts, which would actually be a decision squarely supported by Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 6(e) (setting out the authorized reasons for disclosure). Of course, if the judge denies Bondi's motion to disclose, can't you already hear Trump whining, bitching, and moaning about the ‘lunatic, radical, left-wing judge’ who denied the motion to disclose?

Moreover, given that the grand jury transcripts are only a tiny fraction of the evidence amassed during the Epstein and Maxwell investigations, those transcripts are perhaps the least likely place to find evidence of Trump's involvement with Epstein. If such evidence existed, it would far more likely be found in evidence that was obtained by search warrants - things like videos and DVD recordings, electronic communications, surveillance tapes, audio recordings, client lists, and the like. That kind of evidence represents the comprehensive Epstein files, and is far more likely to be a treasure trove of information about who was involved in the horrifically criminal and abusive conduct of Epstein and Maxwell.

But suffice it to say, the three above-listed reasons make clear that Trump and Bondi's pursuit of releasing grand jury transcripts is insulting, and only likely to fool the gullible into concluding Trump and Bondi seek transparency regarding what Trump did or didn’t do together with his longtime friend, Jeffrey Epstein.