Court documents are not all the government has on Epstein, law professor sayspublished at 20:11 British Summer Time
Ali Abbas Ahmadi
Live reporter
As Trump continues to speak at a ceremony in the White House, we’re listening across to see if he makes mention of the Epstein files. We’ll keep you up to speed with the latest from the US president.
The documents that Trump has ordered to be released include only the testimony that was heard by the grand jury before Epstein’s death, Carl Tobias, a professor at University of Richmond’s School of Law, tells the BBC.
He adds that these testimonies were used to determine whether the prosecution had enough evidence to continue to trial.
There’s so much evidence that was collected and it is likely being kept by the FBI or the Department of Justice – and we cannot even be sure if these court documents will be released, he says.
Attorney General Pam Bondi will have to “convince the judge who convened the grand jury at the time to make them public,” he says.
“They’re sensitive – and you always want to protect the information, the informants if you will, people who might have testified, the children allegedly abused, all those kinds of questions.”
Bondi needs to “show why it’s in the public interest to know release them”, Tobias explains.
He added that the details in the documents could be redacted, saying that is a “tool the judge could use to limit what then becomes public information”.
The professor adds that it is difficult to know how long this process will take. It depends on “how much of it raises questions that trouble the judge… and how many resources the judge has”, Tobias says.