NEW YORK (AP) — A Justice Department request to unseal grand jury transcripts in the prosecution of chronic sexual abuser Jeffrey Epstein and his former girlfriend is unlikely to produce much, if anything, to satisfy the public’s appetite for new revelations about the financier’s crimes, former federal prosecutors

say.

Attorney Sarah Krissoff, an assistant U.S. attorney in Manhattan from 2008 to 2021, called the request in the prosecutions of Epstein and imprisoned British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell “a distraction.”

“The president is trying to present himself as if he’s doing something here and it really is nothing,” Krissoff told The Associated Press in a weekend interview.

Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche made the request Friday, asking judges to unseal transcripts from grand jury proceedings that resulted in indictments against Epstein and Maxwell.