The top Democrat on the congressional committee investigating Jeffrey Epstein has accused the US Justice Department of withholding files containing allegations of sexual abuse of a minor made against President Donald Trump. Robert Garcia, a member of the House Oversight Committee, said he personally viewed documents with these allegations that have not been made public.
In response, the Justice Department stated "NOTHING has been deleted," adding that documents were withheld only if they were "duplicates, privileged, or part of an ongoing federal investigation." Trump has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing related to the Epstein case and recently claimed he has been "totally exonerated."
White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said on Tuesday that Trump has done more for Epstein's victims than anyone before him. Epstein, the late convicted sex offender, was friends with Trump for years before they fell out in the early 2000s.
The Justice Department has released millions of files showing findings from federal Epstein investigations. The staged releases were prompted by legislation signed by the president, who had earlier resisted disclosing the materials. Some files were redacted, and officials acknowledged others were not released at all.
Garcia said the files he saw "make it clear" that a woman "made additional, specific allegations" against Trump that "are not reflected" in records made public by the department. He wrote to US Attorney General Pam Bondi demanding their publication.
Bondi's Justice Department accused Democrats on the committee of "misleading the public while manufacturing outrage from their radical anti-Trump base." In a separate statement, the department said it would review whether any files were improperly withheld.
As a Congress member, Garcia is legally permitted to view unredacted versions of released Epstein files at the department, as the House Oversight Committee conducts its own Epstein investigation. Democrats on the committee said Wednesday this is "the largest government cover-up in modern history."
Garcia's letter to Bondi followed US media reports suggesting three FBI witness interviews with an alleged Epstein victim are missing from publicly released files. NPR first reported that indexes and serial numbers in the files indicate the FBI conducted four interviews with the woman in 2019 as part of its investigation into Epstein's accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell, jailed in 2022 for sex trafficking. But three interview summaries and related notes, totaling over 50 pages, are not available on the Justice Department's website.
According to one heavily redacted document, the woman told federal agents Epstein raped her as a minor in the early 1980s. Other file entries indicate a woman—confirmed by Garcia in unredacted documents to be the same accuser—alleged she was sexually abused by Trump between 1983 and 1985, when she would have been 13 to 15 years old.
This allegation also appears elsewhere in the Epstein files, in an FBI-compiled list of allegations against Trump from callers to its national Threat Operation Center tip line. Many tips in that document appear dismissed by investigators as not credible, with no supporting evidence provided. However, FBI agents marked this allegation for follow-up, sending it to a Washington field office "to conduct interview."
Contacted by the BBC on Wednesday, the Justice Department referred to a statement after the January Epstein file release, saying, "Some of the documents contain untrue and sensationalist claims against President Trump."
Source: www.bbc.com