The Justice Department has posted three FBI memos online describing interviews related to unsubstantiated sexual assault allegations against President Donald Trump that were missing from the massive Epstein dossier released by the Justice Department.
A CNN analysis has found that dozens of witness interviews are missing from online evidence archives related to the Jeffrey Epstein investigation, all recorded in so-called “302” memos that lay out what interviewees told FBI agents. 302 does not include other corroborating information or the attorney’s opinion.
Among the missing records were three memos about an interview with a woman who told agents that Epstein repeatedly physically and sexually abused her decades ago, starting when she was about 13 years old, and who accused Trump of sexually assaulting her.
Trump has consistently denied wrongdoing related to Epstein. White House press secretary Carolyn Leavitt described the FBI interview claims in a statement Thursday as “completely baseless accusations that lack credible evidence.” She also questioned the credibility of the accuser, whose name was redacted from the documents, pointing to her criminal record.
Levitt added: “The fact that these allegations are completely baseless is also evidence that Joe Biden’s Department of Justice has been aware of these allegations for four years but took no action against them because they knew President Trump did absolutely nothing wrong.”
FBI agents interviewed the woman four times, but there is only one memo documenting the July 2019 interview in a DOJ database released earlier this year. In that interview, the woman claimed she was repeatedly abused by Epstein when she was a minor in South Carolina. She made no accusations against Trump in that interview.
Latest FBI interviews released
The newly released documents cover three additional interviews with the woman in August and October 2019.
In a second interview, the woman described more abuse by Epstein and several of his male associates. She said that sometime between the ages of 13 and 15, Epstein “drove and/or flew her to New York or New Jersey” and that she was taken to a “very tall building.” She said that’s where Epstein introduced her to Trump.
Trump asked everyone to leave the room where they were meeting and “mentioned something to the effect of ‘Let me teach you what a little girl should look like,'” according to an account of the woman’s comments in the interview. He then unzipped his pants and pushed her head “down on his penis,” she told agents.
The woman told agents she bit Trump, who then hit her and said “something to the effect of, ‘Get this little bitch out of here.'”
In a later interview, the woman told agents she heard Trump and Epstein talking about Epstein blackmailing others and that she heard Trump “talking about laundering money through casinos.”
About three weeks later, during the woman’s third FBI interview, agents wrote that she described receiving threatening phone calls that she believed were related to Epstein or Trump, as well as several incidents in which she was “nearly run off the road by other cars.”
During the fourth interview – about two months after her last meeting with FBI agents – unlike the previous meetings, the woman did not have an attorney present. She told law enforcement officials she was uncomfortable being recorded and asked them, “What’s the point?” Agents wrote that charges may be filed after the statute of limitations expires.
The memo states that agents encouraged her to “go home and spend as much time as possible considering further conversations with agents.”
It’s unclear whether the FBI investigated the woman’s claims. An email sent between FBI agents last summer and included in Justice Department documents noted that “an identified victim claimed to have been abused by Trump but ultimately refused to cooperate,” although it did not specify whether that victim was the same person as the accuser.
The lawsuit against Epstein’s estate includes accusations made by one of the victims against the financier – that he abused her in South Carolina and took her to parties with “well-known, wealthy men” in New York City – that are consistent with some of the claims the woman made in an FBI interview. She did not mention Trump by name in the lawsuit.
According to court records from May 2021, the victim, identified as “Jane Doe 4,” was “deemed ineligible for compensation” by the Epstein Victims Compensation Program, a system set up to independently review victims’ claims. It’s unclear why she was deemed ineligible.
She voluntarily dismissed the lawsuit in December 2021, and her attorney told The Washington Post & Courier in January that she received a financial settlement from the estate. Her attorney declined to comment to CNN last week.
The Justice Department did not explain why it had not released descriptions of witness interviews related to Trump, but said in a statement last week that it had launched a review to see if any documents were “inappropriately flagged during the review process.” If that happens, the department said it would release them, the statement said.
By law, the Justice Department can withhold documents that are duplicative, privileged or part of an ongoing federal investigation.
Issues with the editing process
The department has been heavily criticized for its redaction process and has had to delete documents, edit redactions and republish multiple times. One of the most alarming issues reported is victims’ identities or photos being released without their knowledge.
On Wednesday, the Justice Department also re-released some images to the Epstein archive that had been temporarily removed after being flagged for possible nudity.
A department official told CNN that thousands of images still need to be republished, which will also be done on Thursday.
Three months after the documents were released, Justice Department employees are still spending hours a week working on them, fixing redactions and publishing errors, senior Justice Department officials told CNN. The official said about 1% of the 3 million documents contained redactions.
“Usually in life, it’s good to do 99 percent of things right, but then there are a lot of mistakes,” the person said.
There are no active U.S. investigations into people linked to Epstein
The Justice Department is not currently investigating any individuals linked to Jeffrey Epstein, a senior Justice Department official said Thursday.
At this time, without any new information, the official does not expect anyone to be charged in connection with Epstein.
Trump previously directed the department to investigate Epstein’s ties to prominent Democrats. The investigation, led by Manhattan U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton, has not resulted in any new cases.
Isabelle Khurshudyan and Samatha Waldenberg contributed to this report
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