WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Division mentioned Wednesday that it was wanting into whether or not it improperly withheld paperwork from the Jeffrey Epstein files after a number of information organizations reported that some information involving uncorroborated accusations made by a girl in opposition to President Donald Trump weren’t amongst these launched to the general public.
The announcement adopted information studies saying {that a} large tranche of information released by the Justice Department didn’t embrace a number of summaries of interviews that the FBI carried out with an unidentified lady who got here ahead after Epstein’s 2019 arrest and claimed to have been sexually assaulted by each Trump and Epstein when she was a minor within the Nineteen Eighties.
“A number of people and information shops have lately flagged information associated to paperwork produced to Ghislaine Maxwell in discovery of her legal case that they declare look like lacking,” the Justice Division mentioned in a publish on X. “As with all paperwork which have been flagged by the general public, the Division is at present reviewing information inside that class of the manufacturing.” Maxwell, Epstein’s longtime confidant, is serving a 20-year jail sentence on a intercourse trafficking conviction.
It mentioned that if any doc is discovered to have been improperly withheld and is conscious of the federally enacted legislation mandating the information’ launch, “the Division will in fact publish it, according to the legislation.”
At situation is a sequence of interviews mentioned to have been carried out in 2019 with a girl who made an allegation in opposition to Trump, who has persistently denied any wrongdoing in reference to Epstein. Information studies from latest days say the accuser was interviewed 4 instances however a abstract of solely a kind of interviews was included within the publicly launched information.
The lacking information had been earlier reported by the journalist Roger Sollenberger on Substack and NPR, and have since been documented by different information organizations, together with The New York Occasions, MS Now and CNN.
Rep. Robert Garcia, the highest Democrat on the Home Oversight Committee, mentioned in an announcement that his panel would examine the withheld information. He mentioned he had reviewed unredacted proof logs and “can affirm that the DOJ seems to have illegally withheld FBI interviews” with the accuser.
The Justice Division final month mentioned it was releasing greater than 3 million pages of information associated to Epstein, who took his personal life in a New York jail cell in 2019 whereas awaiting trial on intercourse trafficking expenses. The division mentioned on the time that, although it was making an attempt to be clear, it was additionally entitled to withhold information that uncovered potential abuse victims, had been duplicates or protected by authorized privileges, or associated to an ongoing legal investigation.
“Among the paperwork comprise unfaithful and sensationalist claims in opposition to President Trump that had been submitted to the FBI proper earlier than the 2020 election. To be clear, the claims are unfounded and false, and if they’ve a shred of credibility, they actually would have been weaponized in opposition to President Trump already,” the division mentioned in an announcement final month because it launched the information.
The redaction course of was quickly revealed to have been flawed, with the division withdrawing some supplies recognized by victims or their attorneys, together with a “substantial quantity” of paperwork recognized independently by the federal government.
Legal professionals for Epstein accusers instructed a New York decide final month that the lives of almost 100 victims had been “turned the other way up” by sloppy redactions within the authorities’s newest launch of information. The uncovered supplies embrace nude photographs displaying the faces of potential victims in addition to names, electronic mail addresses and different figuring out info that was both unredacted or not absolutely obscured.
Different uncorroborated claims in opposition to Trump and different public figures had been included within the publicly out there information. The division didn’t say in its social media publish Wednesday why information associated to this particular accusation may need been withheld.
Eric Tucker, The Related Press