A federal judge in Florida on Wednesday denied a request from the Trump administration to unseal grand jury transcripts from an investigation into sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein. The administration made the request amid political pressure to release further information regarding the disgraced financier, including his so-called client list. 

The Justice Department petitioned the court last week to release the transcripts from Southern District of Florida grand jury investigations into Epstein in 2005 and 2007, and requested to transfer the petition to the Southern District of New York, where Epstein died in 2019 while awaiting trial for federal sex-trafficking charges. 

United States District Judge Robin Rosenberg denied the request in a 12-page opinion Wednesday, saying she could not legally release the transcripts under the guidelines that govern grand jury secrecy set by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit because the government had not requested the grand jury’s findings for use in a judicial proceeding. She further stated that the legal standard for transfer of the petition to another district is not met in this case.

The government had justified its request saying the guidelines supporting grand jury secrecy no longer apply to the investigation because of Epstein’s death. It further argued “the public’s strong interest in the historical investigation into Jeffrey Epstein constitutes a special circumstance justifying public discourse.”

“Public officials, lawmakers, pundits and ordinary citizens remain deeply interested and concerned about the Epstein matter,” Attorney General Pam Bondi and her deputy, Todd Blanche, wrote in a motion to the court seeking to unseal the transcripts. “The time for the public to guess what they contain should end.”

Trump and Bondi have come under intense pressure to release further details about Epstein and his clients. Bondi had promised to release investigative files relating to Epstein but later released a joint memo with the FBI indicating no further material will be forthcoming.

The administration has separately pushed to release transcripts from 2019 and 2020 Southern District of New York federal grand jury investigations into Epstein and transcripts from a grand jury investigation into Epstein’s associate Ghislaine Maxwell, who was convicted in 2021 and is serving 20 years in prison.