Justice Department says it's reviewing whether any Epstein-related
records were mistakenly withheld
[February 26, 2026]
By ERIC TUCKER
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department said Wednesday that it was
looking into whether it had improperly withheld documents from the
Jeffrey Epstein files after several news organizations 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 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.
“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 organizations, including The New York Times, MS Now and CNN.
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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 weaponized 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.
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