00:00Grand jury requests, accusations from Elon Musk and birthday book drawings, it's the scandal the
00:06U.S. president can't seem to escape. Trump's constant attempts to distance himself from sex
00:11offender Jeffrey Epstein have yet to be successful, with a U.S. judge rejecting a Trump administration
00:16request to unseal transcripts from previous grand jury investigations into Epstein. This request
00:22followed reports in May that the U.S. president was told by an attorney general that he was
00:27amongst the hundreds of names in documents connected to the late convicted pedophile. Trump then denied
00:32the conversation happened, the White House called it a fake news story, and a memo from the Justice
00:36Department and FBI said there was no such list. This led to Trump directing the attorney general to
00:42seek release of all grand jury materials. However, on Wednesday, a federal judge in Florida said the
00:48court's hands are tied when it comes to releasing transcripts from Epstein's initial investigation
00:52in 2005. The wealthy financer pled guilty to state charges of procuring a person under 18 for
00:59prostitution and solicitation of prostitution in 2008 after cutting a deal with prosecutors in Florida
01:05that allowed him to escape more severe federal charges. He was later arrested in 2019 on federal
01:12sex trafficking charges before he was found dead in his cell at a jail in New York City about a month
01:17after he was arrested. The U.S. president's previous ties to Epstein have caused mounting pressure for
01:23his administration, with Trump promising to release such files about the well-connected sex offender.
01:28Although it's been clarified that being named in the documents is not evidence of any wrongdoing,
01:32the Trump administration were hoping this would shut down conspiracies, which believe there are
01:36concealed videos of crimes that were committed and that Epstein's clients are being protected.
01:41The Department of Justice's request to release these files were declined, as it did not meet any of
01:46the extraordinary exceptions under U.S. law that can make them public.
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