The release followed reports that documents were being withheld. The Justice Department said the documents were “erroneously encrypted.”
The Justice Department has released an FBI interview with a woman who said she was introduced to Donald Trump by Jeffrey Epstein and was sexually and physically abused by Trump when she was a minor, a move the White House called “completely baseless.”
The announcement followed multiple reports that documents related to the charges against Trump were being withheld. The Justice Department said it was withholding records that were “incorrectly coded as duplicates.”
The woman, whose name was redacted, said in a 2019 interview with the FBI that she traveled with Epstein to New York or New Jersey when she was 13 to 15 and met President Trump in a “very tall building with a big room.” She said multiple people were present and Trump asked everyone to leave the room and then sexually assaulted her.
White House Press Secretary Caroline Levitt said in a statement on March 6, “These are completely unfounded accusations and are devoid of any credible evidence.”
Trump has repeatedly denied wrongdoing in his relationship with Epstein. He has not been charged in connection with the investigation.
The Miami Herald reported that the woman who accused President Trump of sexual assault has stopped cooperating. After the woman made her initial complaint, the FBI asked her in a subsequent interview if she was comfortable “disclosing details of her contacts with Mr. Trump,” and asked her “at this point in her life, what was the point in providing information when there was likely nothing could be done about it,” according to a summary of the interview.
The Epstein File Transparency Act requires the Justice Department to release all investigative files it maintains related to disgraced financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, who has been accused of sexually assaulting more than 1,000 women and girls. He died by suicide in custody while awaiting trial on federal sex trafficking charges.
The records contain unsubstantiated allegations against a number of high-profile individuals.
In one previously released 2019 FBI interview, the woman spoke about meeting a man later identified as Epstein when she was around 13 years old. He said his mother, who worked in real estate, placed an ad for “renters and owners” for babysitting services.
The woman said Epstein responded to the ad and met him at his home, where he gave her drugs and alcohol and sexually assaulted her. According to an interview summary, she said he assaulted her multiple times.
In response to questions about the women’s allegations and whether they led to further investigation, the Justice Department shared part of a news release the agency issued in January when millions of Epstein records were made public, saying, “Some of the documents contain false and sensational allegations against President Trump that were submitted to the FBI just before the 2020 election.”
“Let me be clear: these allegations are baseless and false, and if they had any credibility, they would undoubtedly already have been used as a weapon against President Trump,” the statement continues.
An NPR investigation found that 53 pages of records related to the accusations against Trump appear to have been suppressed by the Justice Department. Despite the release of some records, 37 pages are still missing from the Justice Department’s database, NPR reported.
Contributor: Sarah Wyer
