The Trump administration’s move to unseal grand jury information in the Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell cases was always a narrow effort, legally speaking, because grand jury presentations generally deal with narrow sets of evidence presented for the purposes of indicting specific people.

The federal grand juries that indicted Jeffrey Epstein and his former girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell on sex trafficking charges did not hear directly from any of the alleged victims in the case, Justice Department officials said in support of their request to unseal transcripts of the usually secret proceedings.