Daijiworld Media Network - Washington
Washington, Feb 26: The United States Department of Justice (DOJ) said on Wednesday that it is reviewing whether certain documents were improperly withheld from the publicly released files related to the late financier Jeffrey Epstein, following reports that some records involving uncorroborated allegations against Donald Trump were missing.
Several news organisations reported that a large tranche of documents recently released by the department did not include multiple summaries of FBI interviews conducted in 2019 with an unidentified woman. The woman reportedly alleged that she had been sexually assaulted by both Trump and Epstein when she was a minor in the 1980s. Trump has consistently denied any wrongdoing in connection with Epstein.
In a post on X, the Justice Department said that certain files related to materials produced to Ghislaine Maxwell during discovery in her criminal case had been flagged as potentially missing.
“As with all documents that have been flagged by the public, the Department is currently reviewing files within that category of the production,” the statement read. It added that if any document is found to have been improperly withheld and falls under the federal law mandating release, it “will of course publish it, consistent with the law.”
Maxwell, a longtime associate of Epstein, is serving a 20-year prison sentence following her conviction on sex trafficking charges. Epstein died by suicide in a New York jail cell in 2019 while awaiting trial on federal sex trafficking charges.
According to reports, the unidentified accuser was interviewed four times by the FBI, but only one summary was included in the public release. The issue was first highlighted by journalist Roger Sollenberger on Substack and by NPR, and later documented by outlets including The New York Times and CNN.
Representative Robert Garcia, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, said the panel would examine the matter. He stated that he had reviewed unredacted evidence logs and claimed that the DOJ appeared to have “illegally withheld FBI interviews” with the accuser.
Last month, the Justice Department released more than three million pages of records related to Epstein. At the time, it noted that certain documents could be withheld if they exposed potential victims, contained duplicates, were protected by legal privileges, or related to ongoing investigations.
The redaction process has drawn criticism after some materials were temporarily withdrawn due to flawed redactions, including documents containing identifying details of alleged victims. Lawyers representing Epstein accusers told a New York judge that the lives of nearly 100 victims had been disrupted by the improper handling of sensitive information.
The DOJ did not specify in its latest statement why records tied to the particular allegation against Trump may have been excluded from the initial release.