The United States Department of Justice released three previously withheld FBI interview reports from the Jeffrey Epstein files in which a woman made uncorroborated allegations against President Donald Trump, claiming he sexually abused her when she was a minor in the 1980s, the DOJ’s rapid response account confirmed on X.
“What we found through extensive review is that a published 302 – additionally disclosed in a published spreadsheet – had subsequent 302s that were coded as ‘duplicative.’ After this was brought to our attention, we reviewed the entire batch with the similar coding and discovered 15 documents were incorrectly coded as duplicative,” the statement reads. “Additionally, the Southern District of Florida separately determined that 5 prosecution memos that were initially marked as privileged could be released while still protecting the privileged materials. All 20 of these documents are now live in the library in data set 12. We will also make available all files coded as duplicative in unredacted form for Members of Congress to review in the Congressional Reading Room.”
The DOJ’s statement didn’t include an explanation why the records were marked as duplicative beyond possible human error and its database still doesn’t include the handwritten notes from the interviews. The FBI reportedly interviewed the woman, whose name was redacted, four times between July and October 2019 and the woman accused Epstein of abuse each time.
The woman also claimed that Epstein once took her to either New York or New Jersey when she was between the ages of 13 and 15 years old, at which point he introduced her to Trump and claimed she was abused by the future president during the trip. The woman declined to give more details about the alleged interaction with Trump during a fourth interview in October 2019.
The woman alleged that the incident with Trump occurred in the early-to-mid 1980s, a period in which Epstein and Trump weren’t known to be in contact. Trump has denied any wrongdoing in connection with his long relationship with Epstein, which reportedly ended around 2004 amid a property dispute and has publicly claimed that the files previously released by his appointed Department of Justice exonerate him.
The Justice Department is obligated to release all files related to the Epstein case in adherence with the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which was signed into law by Trump in November after some prior pushback, with redactions only supposed to be made to protect victims and ongoing investigations.
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