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(The Hill) – On January 30, the Department of Justice unveiled an overwhelming collection of over 3 million pages of documents linked to Jeffrey Epstein, a convicted sexual predator. The sheer scale of this release was staggering.
Given the volume, it was always likely that uncovering significant details would take time, as journalists and researchers meticulously sift through the extensive data.
This prediction proved accurate. Recently, major news organizations reported on critical findings initially brought to light by an independent journalist, highlighting crucial documents that seem absent from public view.
The details are complex, but here’s what you need to understand.
What is the core of the controversy?
Notably, documents from three out of four FBI interviews, which apparently involve a woman accusing both President Trump and Epstein of sexual assault decades ago, appear to be missing from the recent document release.
The woman made the claims in 2019, but they date back to the 1980s, when she was a minor.
Her allegation against Trump is uncorroborated. The president has denied all wrongdoing in relation to his friendship with Epstein, which ended roughly two decades ago.
Also, The Guardian late on Thursday published a story in which it said its reporters had obtained the missing documents and that the woman’s claims “at times appear outlandish.”
What’s the broader explanation?
The latest release of the Epstein files includes a 2021 catalogue of material provided to Ghislaine Maxwell’s legal team.
Maxwell, Epstein’s sometime-girlfriend, was tried and convicted of sex trafficking charges at the end of that year. The data set lists “non-testifying witness material.”
It includes anonymized reference to four interviews relating to one person, who has the case number 3501.045.
Of those four interviews, only one appears to have been publicly released.
In that interview, the woman makes detailed allegations of rape by Epstein but makes no allegation of abuse against Trump.
The president is mentioned only in relation to a friend sending the woman a photograph. In her interview with FBI agents, the woman notes she still has this photo saved in her cellphone messages but asks if she can crop it so it shows only Epstein.
When she was asked why she wanted to crop the photo, she hesitated, and the notes reflect that her “attorney advised [she] was concerned about implicating additional individuals, and specifically any that were well known, due to fear of retaliation.” The photo, according to the FBI account of the interview, was “a widely distributed photograph” of Epstein and Trump.
The strand of the Epstein story centering on this woman was first brought to light by independent journalist Roger Sollenberger.
Sollenberger, and subsequently outlets including NPR, The New York Times and CNN, have traced details about the woman in question that match a woman who made the serious but unproven allegation of sexual assault against Trump.
Some commentators have pointed to the fact that four interviews took place as a sign that investigators believed the woman to be credible. But her credibility would not, in itself, prove any specific claim to be true. Furthermore, The Guardian’s story noted that it had “identified a woman matching the biographical details in the FBI records. She has faced several fraud and theft charges in Washington and, in 2023, a felony charge for the exploitation of an elderly person in Georgia. It is not clear how those cases were resolved.”
What does the DOJ and the White House have to say?
The Department of Justice (DOJ) is adamant that it has done nothing wrong and is not hiding anything for nefarious reasons.
In one social media post earlier this week, the DOJ said that “NOTHING has been deleted.” The post asserted: “ALL responsive documents have been produced unless a document falls within one of the following categories: duplicates, privileged, or part of an ongoing federal investigation.”
This has not quelled disquiet around the story, however.
The Hill reported on Thursday that several Republican senators were putting pressure on the DOJ to release all possible files. Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.), asked whether material containing this woman’s allegations should be held back, replied: “I don’t know how else to say it: Release the documents.”
On Wednesday, the DOJ said that it was conducting a review because “several individuals and news outlets have recently flagged files related to documents produced to Ghislaine Maxwell.”
It added that if any file was discovered to have been kept out of the public eye when it should not have been, “the Department will of course publish it, consistent with the law.”
Trump has not addressed this specific element of the controversy in any in-depth way, but, speaking with reporters last week, he claimed he had “been totally exonerated” in the Epstein matter.
White House statements to multiple news outlets this week have echoed that claim.
What about Democrats?
Democrats, especially those serving on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which has been probing the Epstein matter, have been scathing.
On Wednesday, the House Oversight Democrats’s account on the social platform X asserted: “The Department of Justice continues to change its story. The facts are clear: documents related to a survivor who accused Donald Trump and Jeffery Epstein of abuse when she was a minor are missing from the released files.”
Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.), the committee’s ranking member, told MS NOW on Tuesday that he had gone to the Department of Justice in person to probe the matter further.
“Those additional documents seem to be missing,” Garcia said, “and that’s something that I confirmed as of yesterday in my visit to the Department of Justice. The idea that there is a possible cover-up or that we are hiding actual documentation of an alleged crime by the President of the United States … is incredibly serious.”
Where does the story go from here?
The focus on the story has become so intense that pressure for disclosure of the interview notes is intense. However, the new reporting from The Guardian may dilute at least some of that pressure.
Meanwhile, the problem for those pressing for disclosure is, if the DOJ says it has valid reasons for not making the interviews public, it is hard to definitively prove them wrong.