Justice Dept reviews whether any Epstein-related records mistakenly withheld

The US Justice Department is reviewing whether it improperly withheld FBI interview records in the Jeffrey Epstein case, including uncorroborated allegations against Donald Trump. Missing files were flagged by journalists and Democrats, prompting scrutiny over transparency and redaction practices

Washington: The Justice Department has said it was looking into whether it had improperly withheld documents from the Jeffrey Epstein files after several news organisations reported that some records involving uncorroborated accusations made by a woman against President Donald Trump were not among those released to the public.

The announcement on Wednesday followed news reports saying that a massive tranche of records released by the Justice Department did not include several summaries of interviews that the FBI conducted with an unidentified woman who came forward after Epstein’s 2019 arrest and claimed to have been sexually assaulted by both Trump and Epstein when she was a minor in the 1980s.

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“Several individuals and news outlets have recently flagged files related to documents produced to Ghislaine Maxwell in discovery of her criminal case that they claim appear to be missing,” the Justice Department said in a post on X.

“As with all documents that have been flagged by the public, the Department is currently reviewing files within that category of the production.” Maxwell, Epstein’s longtime confidant, is serving a 20-year prison sentence on a sex trafficking conviction.

It said that if any document is found to have been improperly withheld and is responsive to the federally enacted law mandating the files’ release, “the Department will of course publish it, consistent with the law.” At issue is a series of interviews said to have been conducted in 2019 with a woman who made an allegation against Trump, who has consistently denied any wrongdoing in connection with Epstein.

News reports from recent days say the accuser was interviewed by the FBI four times as it sought to assess her account but a summary of only one of those interviews was included in the publicly released files.

The missing records were earlier reported by the journalist Roger Sollenberger on Substack and NPR, and have since been documented by other news organisations, including The New York Times, MS Now and CNN.

Rep Robert Garcia, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, said in a statement that Democrats on the panel would investigate the withheld records.

He said he had reviewed unredacted evidence logs and “can confirm that the DOJ appears to have illegally withheld FBI interviews” with the accuser.

The Justice Department last month said it was releasing more than 3 million pages of records related to Epstein, who took his own life in a New York jail cell in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.

The department said at the time that, though it was attempting to be transparent, it was also entitled to withhold records that exposed potential abuse victims, were duplicates or protected by legal privileges, or related to an ongoing criminal investigation.

“Some of the documents contain untrue and sensationalist claims against President Trump that were submitted to the FBI right before the 2020 election. To be clear, the claims are unfounded and false, and if they have a shred of credibility, they certainly would have been weaponised against President Trump already,” the department said in a statement last month as it released the records.

The redaction process was quickly revealed to have been flawed, with the department withdrawing some materials identified by victims or their lawyers, along with a “substantial number” of documents identified independently by the government.

Lawyers for Epstein accusers told a New York judge this month that the lives of nearly 100 victims had been “turned upside down” by sloppy redactions in the government’s latest release of records.

The exposed materials include nude photos showing the faces of potential victims as well as names, email addresses and other identifying information that was either unredacted or not fully obscured.

Other uncorroborated claims against Trump and other public figures were included in the publicly available files. The department did not say in its social media post Wednesday why records related to this specific accusation might have been withheld.