NPR: Justice Department withheld Epstein files detailing allegation Trump sexually abused 13-year-old girl

NPR reports that the Justice Department has illegally withheld Epstein files naming president Donald Trump as the subject of child sexual abuse allegations. It also removed from public view documents from the Epstein files that named Trump in other contexts.

These include what appear to be more than 50 pages of FBI interviews, as well as notes from conversations with a woman who accused Trump of sexual abuse decades ago when she was a minor. NPR reviewed multiple sets of unique serial numbers appearing before and after the pages in question, stamped onto documents in the Epstein files database, FBI case records, emails and discovery document logs in the latest tranche of documents published at the end of January. NPR's investigation found dozens of pages that appear to be catalogued by the Justice Department but not shared publicly. …

The reporting allowed the House Oversight Committee's ranking member, Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) to review the omission directly.

"Yesterday, I reviewed unredacted evidence logs at the Department of Justice. Oversight Democrats can confirm that the DOJ appears to have illegally withheld FBI interviews with this survivor who accused President Trump of heinous crimes," Garcia stated.

Various other documents have been "scrubbed from public view," NPR reports, and remain hidden. It appears the documents revealed by NPR refer to documents that have not been made available.

The woman who directly named Trump in her abuse allegation claimed that around 1983, when she was around 13 years old, Epstein introduced her to Trump "who subsequently forced her head down to his exposed penis which she subsequently bit. In response, Trump punched her in the head and kicked her out." Out of more than three million pages of files released by the Justice Department in recent months, this specific allegation against Trump only appears in copies of the FBI list of claims and the DOJ slideshow. But a review of FBI case file logs and discovery documents turned over to Maxwell and her attorneys in the criminal case against her point to one place the claim could have come from — and how serious investigators took it. The FBI interviewed this Trump and Epstein accuser four times. That is according to an FBI "Serial Report" and a list of Non-Testifying Witness Material in the Maxwell case that were also released under the Epstein Files Transparency Act.

In November, Congress passed a law requiring the DoJ to release the Epstein Files—the vast trove of documents, evidence and other information held by investigators regarding billionaire sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein and his associates—in December, redacting only the names of victims. The DoJ failed to do so and has since released tranches of the documents in piecemeal form, with names of Epstein associates often redacted. Epstein died in prison awaiting trial in 2019; he was convicted of soliciting prostitution from a child in 2008, a "sweetheart deal" that allowed him to continue his lifestyle.

Trump, a close friend of Epstein who appears with him in various photographs and videos, insists he has been "exonerated" by the Epstein Files that his Justice Department still largely withholds.