The Department of Justice withheld critical FBI interview records from the massive Epstein files database, including documents related to a woman who accused President Donald Trump of sexually assaulting her when she was a minor, according to investigations by CNN and NPR.
More than 90 FBI witness interview records appear missing from the over 3 million pages released by the DOJ beginning in December 2025, a CNN review found. Among those absent documents are three interviews with a woman who told federal agents that Jeffrey Epstein repeatedly abused her starting when she was approximately 13 years old in the early 1980s, and who also accused President Trump of sexual assault during that period.
The DOJ published the files after President Trump signed the Epstein Files Transparency Act into law on November 19, 2025, legislation requiring the department to make public all investigative materials related to the convicted sex offender. Epstein died in a federal jail on August 10, 2019, while facing sex trafficking charges.
Rep. Robert Garcia, the ranking Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, called the missing documents a potential crime. “We have a survivor that made serious allegations against the president,” Garcia told CNN. “But there’s a series of documents, and it would appear to be possible interviews, that the FBI conducted with the survivor that are actually missing, that we don’t have access to.”
The woman contacted the FBI hotline around July 10, 2019, after recognizing Epstein from a photograph. Federal agents conducted four separate interviews with her over several months in 2019, generating more than 50 pages of notes. Only the first interview session made it into the public release, and that document was heavily redacted.
Independent journalist Roger Sollenberger first discovered the discrepancy by comparing document serial numbers from evidence logs provided to attorneys for Ghislaine Maxwell with the files posted on the DOJ website. Maxwell, Epstein’s longtime associate, was convicted in December 2021 on five sex trafficking-related counts and sentenced to 20 years in prison.
The evidence log lists about 325 FBI witness interview records, but over a quarter of those documents don’t appear in the public database. The missing records span interviews conducted across multiple states including New York, Washington, Oregon and Georgia.
A DOJ spokesperson denied removing any documents. “We have not deleted anything, and as we have always said, all documents responsive were produced,” the spokesperson said. The department claimed that excluded materials were either duplicates, privileged or part of ongoing federal investigations.
President Trump has consistently denied any wrongdoing connected to Epstein and said last week that the files had “totally exonerated” him. The White House called the allegations “false and sensationalist” in a statement.
The handling of the Epstein files has drawn sharp criticism from investigative reporters and survivors alike. Julie K. Brown, the Miami Herald reporter whose groundbreaking work exposed much of the Epstein network, told PBS NewsHour that the heavily redacted release shows ongoing inequality. The fact that powerful men’s names remain hidden while some victims’ identities were exposed, she argued, demonstrates “two systems of justice in this country.”
Andrew McCabe, former FBI deputy director and CNN contributor, emphasized the importance of witness interview documentation in building criminal cases. “It’s the most basic and important brick in the wall that becomes the investigation,” McCabe said.
The DOJ’s 3.5 million page release involved more than 500 attorneys and reviewers who spent weeks examining materials from six primary sources: the Florida and New York cases against Epstein, the New York case against Maxwell, investigations into Epstein’s death, a Florida case involving Epstein’s former butler, multiple FBI investigations, and an Office of Inspector General probe. The production included more than 2,000 videos and 180,000 images.
Garcia announced that Oversight Committee Democrats would open an investigation into the apparently missing documents. “Covering up direct evidence of a potential assault by the President of the United States is the most serious possible crime in this White House cover-up,” the California Democrat said.
The controversy has drawn international attention, with The Guardian reporting that the United Kingdom has pursued more aggressive institutional accountability regarding Epstein’s network than American authorities. Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, the former prince stripped of his royal titles, was arrested last week on suspicion of misconduct in public office related to information revealed in the Epstein files.
Survivors of Epstein’s abuse expressed frustration with the incomplete release. “All of us have been looking for our victim statements,” said Jess Michaels, an Epstein victim. She accused the Justice Department of “gaslighting the entire country.”
