Trump and Epstein

"I’ve been totally exonerated." This is a statement that cult leader, convicted felon, and failed President Donald Trump has constantly repeated when asked about his relationship with convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein and the Epstein files. Whenever Trump says anything, there is a better-than-even chance that he is lying. When it comes to Trump and Epstein, that chance goes much higher, almost reaching metaphysical certainty. With regard to Trump's claim to have been "totally exonerated," there has been no investigation undertaken that could exonerate him. More importantly, there are significant indications that, were such an investigation to take place, Trump would not be exonerated. In recent days, there has been evidence presented that the Department of Justice is illegally withholding documents from the Epstein files that implicate Trump in potentially illegal sex acts.

The details of how the withheld documents were discovered are complicated. But the first to report that files involving Trump had been illegally withheld was independent journalist Roger Sollenberger. As Sollenberger reports, Trump's name appears on a list of "prominent names" included in an internal DOJ slideshow. Two allegations appear under Trump's name. The first states:

[REDACTED] stated Epstein introduced her to Trump who subsequently forced her head down to his exposed penis which she subsequently bit. In response, Trump punched her in the head and kicked her out. (date range: 1983-1985, [REDACTED] would have been 13-15).

The second allegation was:

[REDACTED] remember Epstein introduced her to Trump saying "This is a good one, huh?" and Trump responded "Yes". (date range roughly 1984, [REDACTED] would have been 13).

According to Sollenberger, the slideshow was "created last summer, around the time Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche interviewed [Ghislaine] Maxwell". After the interview, Maxwell was moved to a lower-security prison. Again, according to Sollenberger, the first allegation originally came via the FBI hotline that was collecting tips about Epstein. A list of tips collected shows that a friend of the alleged victim called the tip line and provided the allegation. According to notes on the list, the FBI contacted the friend, who identified the alleged victim, and the case was sent to the "Washington Office" to conduct an interview with the alleged victim.

Sollenberger noted that the slideshow attributed the allegation to the victim, not the tip line. Therefore, Sollenberger surmised that the FBI must have interviewed the alleged victim. He was then able to find an interview record, a so-called 302, of an interview that the FBI’s Seattle, Washington field office conducted in 2019 with the alleged victim. However, while the alleged victim provided detailed information about abuse she suffered from Epstein, Trump was only mentioned in the context of a photo on her telephone that showed Trump and Epstein together. Sollenberger did note, however, that several files related to the case were missing from the archive released by the DOJ.

NPR then took up the story at this point, reporting that "The Justice Department has withheld some Epstein files related to allegations that President Trump sexually abused a minor". NPR reviewed case file logs and discovered several missing documents. Like Sollenberger, NPR found the interview that the alleged victim had conducted with the FBI, but also discovered that a total of four interviews had been conducted. Only a record of the first had been released. NPR found that "Of 15 documents listed in a log of the Maxwell discovery material for this first accuser, only seven are in the Epstein files database. Those missing also include notes that accompany three of the interviews."

U.S. Representative Robert Garcia then went to the Department of Justice, where he is supposed to be provided access to all the released files in unredacted form. He then released a statement saying, "Yesterday, I reviewed unredacted evidence logs at the Department of Justice. Oversight Democrats can confirm that the DOJ appears to have illegally withheld FBI interviews with this survivor who accused President Trump of heinous crimes." This indicates that the missing files are not included in the database located at the DOJ either.

In case all of this is confusing, Talking Points Memo has a very good summation:

In 2019, a woman came forward and spoke to the FBI claiming that Donald Trump had assaulted her in the early 1980s. In her allegations, Jeffrey Epstein essentially provided her to Trump. Other files in the Epstein trove say that the FBI conducted four interviews with the woman. But only one of them was released in the larger trove — one that detailed her accusations against Epstein. Meanwhile, Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA), the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, says he went to view the unredacted version of the files that members of Congress can access and the missing interviews aren’t there either.

NPR also noted odd occurrences involving documents related to the second allegation. That was the alleged meeting between an underage victim and Trump at Mar-a-Lago. This individual is considered credible and testified at Maxwell's trial. NPR found that several documents in the released archive were withdrawn. Some were subsequently returned, but at least one is still missing.

The importance of the second allegation is not that Trump necessarily was involved in abuse — the survivor made no such allegation in that instance. Rather, it provides evidence that Trump was aware of Epstein's involvement with minors. Trump has claimed not to have known about such things.

Ever since the beginning of Trump's second term, there have been concerns that the DOJ, a formerly independent department that Trump has subverted into his own personal law office, would hide Trump's involvement with Epstein. Now there is evidence that the department is doing exactly that. The first allegation described above has significant holes and may well not be true. However, that is difficult to evaluate without seeing the three interview records that have been withheld. One of the grounds for withholding documents is that they are part of an ongoing investigation. An enterprising reporter should ask the DOJ whether there is an open investigation of Trump having sexually assaulted an underage girl. If the DOJ confirms that there is not, that would remove that justification for not releasing the records. If the DOJ refuses to make such a confirmation, however, that would be very interesting.