New reporting from NPR alleges that the Department of Justice withheld 50 pages of FBI interviews and notes related to allegations that a woman made against the president
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NEED TO KNOW
- A new report alleges that President Donald Trump’s Department of Justice withheld some documents from the release of the Epstein files
- Allegedly included in the withheld documents were FBI interviews and notes about a woman who claimed that Trump sexually assaulted her when she was a minor, NPR reported
- The DOJ pushed back against NPR’s report, telling PEOPLE in a statement that some details were “temporarily removed for victim redactions” but have since been restored
- Trump has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing in regard to his friendship with Epstein and last week said he had been “totally exonerated” by the files’ release
President Donald Trump's Department of Justice may have withheld certain documents from their trove of evidence against Jeffrey Epstein that included allegations that Trump sexually abused a minor.
A new report from NPR alleges that, despite Attorney General Pam Bondi claiming earlier this month that the DOJ had released all of the Epstein files, they may have withheld some documents, including 50 pages of FBI interviews and notes.
Those documents, the outlet reported, were regarding allegations made by an unnamed woman who claimed that Trump sexually assaulted her when she was a minor.
"NPR reviewed multiple sets of unique serial numbers appearing before and after the pages in question, stamped onto documents in the Epstein files database, FBI case records, emails, and discovery document logs in the latest tranche of documents published at the end of January," the report detailed. "NPR's investigation found dozens of pages that appear to be catalogued by the Justice Department but not shared publicly."
The DOJ pushed back against NPR's reporting, telling PEOPLE in a statement that the file listing all interviews was "temporarily removed for victim redactions" and restored to the website by Thursday.
"We have not deleted anything," a DOJ spokesperson said, "and as we have always said, all documents responsive were produced, those not fall within one of the following categories: duplicates, privileged, part of an ongoing federal investigation."
The White House referred PEOPLE to a DOJ statement posted on X with similar claims.
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Trump has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing related to his well-documented friendship with Epstein, who died in prison in 2019 while awaiting trial on federal sex trafficking charges. Last week, he told reporters he had been "totally exonerated" by the release of the government's thousands of pages of evidence against the late financier.
The release of the full Epstein files was compelled by Congress, which passed the Epstein Files Transparency Act in November 2025. However, files were released in a slow trickle, with some pages heavily redacted of identifying information.
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Earlier this month, Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin spoke with reporters after he and other members of Congress were permitted to view some of the unredacted files, but he noted that the task was monumental.
"The Department of Justice is under orders from Congress to release the entire Epstein file. They've released 3.5 million documents and they've withheld 3 million documents," he said. "These materials could have been released long ago, but they're just being released now."
The congressman said he believes the DOJ held up the release in part to protect some of the powerful public figures whose names appear in the files.
"I think that the Department of Justice has been in a cover-up mode for many months and has been trying to sweep the entire thing under the rug," he said.
Despite Bondi's Feb. 14 letter to Congress claiming that all the Epstein files had been released and no records were withheld "on the basis of embarrassment, reputational harm, or political sensitivity," Raskin also called into question some of the things the DOJ chose to redact.
One document in particular seemed to refute one of Trump's most common defenses about his friendship with Epstein.
"Epstein's lawyers synopsized and quoted Trump as saying that Jeffrey Epstein was not a member of his club at Mar-a-Lago, but he was a guest at Mar-a-Lago, and he had never been asked to leave," Raskin said. "That was redacted for some indeterminate, inscrutable reason."
"I know it seems to be at odds with some things that President Trump has been saying recently about how he had kicked Jeffrey Epstein out of his club or asked him to leave, and this was at least one report that appears to contradict it," the congressman added.
If you or someone you know has been sexually assaulted, please contact the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673) or go to rainn.org.
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