Donald Trump's administration has asked a judge to keep secret the names of individuals who had monetary transactions with disgraced financier and convicted child abuser Jeffrey Epstein, according to NBC.
Tom Winter, National Law Enforcement and Intelligence Correspondent for NBC, reported on Saturday that "the Justice Department on Friday asked a federal judge overseeing the case of deceased sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein to deny a request from NBC News to unseal the names of two associates who received large payments from him in 2018," citing court documents in the case.
According to the report, "The Justice Department cited privacy concerns expressed by the two individuals as the reason for not making their names public."
"The first associate received a payment of $100,000 from Epstein and the second associate received a payment of $250,000, both in 2018, days after the Miami Herald began publishing a series of investigative stories where victims criticized a plea deal he received in Florida in 2008," the outlet reported. "The payments became public after Epstein was indicted and arrested in New York in 2019 and asked to be released on bail."
The report goes on to describe the nature of the payments from Epstein.
"Federal prosecutors in New York filed a memorandum on July 16, 2019, that argued Epstein should remain in jail to prevent him from tampering with witnesses," NBC reported. "They cited the payments he made to the two individuals, which began two days after the Miami Herald began publishing its stories on Epstein’s plea deal, also known as a nonprosecution agreement, or NPA."
Prosecutors at the time reportedly said, "This individual is also one of the employees identified in the Indictment, which alleges that she and two other identified employees facilitated the defendant’s trafficking of minors by, among other things, contacting victims and scheduling their sexual encounters with the defendant at his residences in Manhattan and Palm Beach, Florida.”
"Prosecutors said in the filings that Epstein’s payments may be evidence of 'efforts to influence witnesses,'" the report states.