Attorney General Pam Bondi just flipped the script on President Donald Trump, directly undercutting his claim that the Jeffrey Epstein case is nothing more than a hoax. In a late-night filing, Bondi and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche asked a Manhattan court to unseal the Grand Jury transcripts tied to the Epstein sex trafficking investigation, acknowledging that there’s intense public demand for the truth, reported Fox News.
In the filing, the Justice Department pointed to a memo released on July 6, 2025, which reignited national attention on both Epstein and his longtime associate Ghislaine Maxwell. “Attention given to the Epstein and Maxwell cases has recently intensified,” the document stated. “There is undoubtedly a clearly expressed interest from the public in Jeffrey Epstein’s and Ghislaine Maxwell’s crimes.”
This shift from Bondi marks a major break with Trump’s narrative. While he’s dismissed the Epstein fallout as a Democratic smear job, the DOJ’s own words now directly contradict him, admitting “there is abundant public interest in the investigative work conducted by the Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation into those crimes.”
The filing confirmed that nearly all of Epstein’s known victims have now been contacted. If the court does allow the Grand Jury transcripts to be unsealed, the government said it will take extra care to protect victims’ identities. The memo was signed by Bondi, Blanche, and Jay Clayton — Trump’s own pick for U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, according to the Daily Beast.
For Bondi, this is a sharp turn. Earlier this year, she faced backlash from Trump loyalists after organizing a “scoop” event for MAGA influencers. They were shown binders of Epstein-related documents that turned out to be mostly public and dated. The stunt was widely mocked. That same month, she appeared on Fox News claiming to have Epstein’s infamous black book, said to include names of powerful figures allegedly involved in sexual abuse. The book still hasn’t been made public.
Now the DOJ appears to be taking a very different tone. While they are pushing to unseal the Grand Jury transcripts at Trump’s direction, getting a judge to sign off won’t be easy. These records are among the most tightly guarded documents in the legal system, and the court is expected to weigh heavily on the side of victim privacy.
And even if the records are released, the filing says any information identifying victims or “third parties” who haven’t been charged will be blacked out, leaving much of the explosive material still under wraps.
Meanwhile, Trump has continued stirring controversy by refusing to rule out a pardon for Maxwell. On Tuesday, though, he made a rare admission. He acknowledged that Virginia Giuffre — one of the most high-profile Epstein victims — had indeed been recruited by Epstein while working as a spa attendant at Mar-a-Lago when she was just 17. That lines up with her 2016 deposition, where she described sitting outside the women’s locker room reading a massage book when Maxwell approached her.
“She told me that she knew somebody who was looking for a traveling masseuse. If the guy likes you, then you know, it will work out for you. You’ll travel. You’ll make good money,” Giuffre recalled.
Giuffre tragically died by suicide earlier this year. Epstein died in 2019 while in jail awaiting trial. Maxwell is currently serving a 20-year sentence for her role in the trafficking operation.