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Case 1:20-cr-00330-PAE Document 809 Filed 08/11/25 Page 30 of 31

That admonition requires courts applying the Second Circuit’s “special circumstances” exception to grand jury secrecy to invoke it only in rare, “exceptional circumstances,” mindful of the precedent that unsealing would set. In re Craig, 131 F.3d at 103. The exception, after all, derives from a district court’s supervisory authority over grand juries, id. at 102 & n.2, which carries with it the duty to safeguard “the traditional functioning of the institution,” United States v. Williams, 504 U.S. 36, 51 (1992). Applying the exception casually or promiscuously, as the Government’s motion to unseal the summary-witness grand jury testimony here invites, would risk “unravel[ing] the foundations of secrecy upon which the grand jury is premised,” In re Craig, 131 F.3d at 103, and eroding confidence by persons called to testify before “future grand juries,” Douglas Oil Co., 441 U.S. at 222, that the general rule of secrecy still holds.
This factor weighs heavily against unsealing. Granting the Government’s motion would bloat the “special circumstances” doctrine, which to date has warranted disclosure in only a tiny number of cases, all involving unique testimony by firsthand witnesses to events of obvious public or historical moment. And it is no answer to argue that releasing the grand jury materials, because they are redundant of the evidence at Maxwell’s trial, would be innocuous. The same could be said for almost any grand jury testimony, by summary witnesses or others, given in support of charges that later proceeded to trial.

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