Report flags missing Trump documents in Epstein files
Washington: Several documents from the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) release of the Jeffrey Epstein files, including FBI interview memos related to a sexual assault complaint filed against President Donald Trump by a survivor of the trafficking ring, were found missing from the public database, American public broadcaster NPR found.
Democrats were quick to accuse the Trump’s administration of the “largest government cover-up in modern history.” The Justice Department responded by saying that it was reviewing whether its cache of documents was “improperly” tagged.
The department had released millions of documents, images and videos in connection with the convicted child sex offender, Jeffrey Epstein, under a transparency law signed last year.
NPR specifically pointed to a 2019 assault complaint filed against Trump by one of the many survivors of Epstein’s trafficking ring.
The woman had claimed that around 1983, Epstein had introduced her to Trump when she was just 13 years old.
According to the records released in January, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) questioned the woman four times, but only one of the interviews was published in the Justice Department’s Epstein Files.
The highest-ranking Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, Representative Robert Garcia, raised questions regarding the alleged missing documents. The House Oversight Committee is the main investigative committee of the US House of Representatives.
“We have a survivor that made serious allegations against the President,” Garcia told CNN. “But there’s a series of documents, and it would appear to be possible interviews, that the FBI conducted with the survivor that are actually missing, that we don’t have access to.”
Trump has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing on his part in connection with Epstein, arguing that the Epstein Files have instead cleared his name.
“In response to these disturbing revelations, DOJ refused to address the specific reasons for the withholding of these materials, noting only that it is suppressing documents that are duplicates, privileged, or part of an ongoing federal investigation,” Garcia said in a statement to NPR.
The woman had first filed a complaint in July 2019, following Epstein’s arrest over federal sex trafficking charges. She provided a detailed account of the sexual assault, which is contained within a 2025 FBI document available in the public database. Notably, the record does not include an assessment of the claim’s credibility.
The memos from the follow-up interviews, conducted in August and October 2019, are not included, according to the NPR report.
Nothing has been removed: DOJ
The DOJ, however, has consistently said that “nothing has been deleted.” In a different statement released on Wednesday, February 25, the Justice Department said media outlets have alleged that documents relating to Epstein’s accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell, are also missing from the records.
Maxwell, Epstein’s longtime confidant, is serving a 20-year prison sentence on a sex trafficking conviction.
“As with all documents that have been flagged by the public, the Department is currently reviewing files within that category of the production,” it said on X.
“Should any document be found to have been improperly tagged in the review process and is responsive to the Act, the Department will of course publish it, consistent with the law,” they added, referring to the Jeffrey Epstein bill passed last year that ordered Trump’s administration to release Epstein Files.
