Trump admin better-placed than courts to release Epstein files, judge says

FILE PHOTO: Epstein's lawyer Reid Weingarten addresses Judge Richard Berman during a hearing in the criminal case against Jeffrey Epstein, who died earlier in the month, in what a New York City medical examiner ruled a suicide, in a courtroom sketch at Federal Court in New York, U.S., August 27, 2019. REUTERS/Jane Rosenberg/File Photo

NEW YORK (Reuters) -A U.S. judge said on Wednesday that the Trump administration is in a better position than federal courts to release materials that would satisfy public curiosity about the late financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein's sex trafficking case.

In rejecting the Justice Department's bid to unseal records from the grand jury that indicted Epstein in 2019, Manhattan-based U.S. District Judge Richard Berman wrote that the 70-odd pages of materials the grand jury saw paled in comparison to the 100,000 pages the government has from its Epstein investigation but is not releasing.