Washington, United States. The US Justice Department released FBI records on Thursday summarizing interviews with an unidentified woman who made accusations against President Trump related to an alleged sexual encounter. The department cautioned that some documents include untrue and sensationalist claims.
FBI interviews and newly disclosed summaries
FBI agents interviewed the woman four times in 2019 as part of their investigation into accused sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. The Justice Department had previously released a log confirming the interviews took place but published a summary of only one meeting, in which the woman accused Epstein of molesting her when she was a teenager.
The newly disclosed records, posted on the department’s website, show the woman also claimed Trump attempted to force her to perform oral sex after Epstein introduced her to the future president in New York or New Jersey in the 1980s, when she was between 13 and 15 years old.
White House response and department caution
White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said in a statement that the woman’s claims are “completely baseless accusations, backed by zero credible evidence.”
The Justice Department cautioned that some of the documents include “untrue and sensationalist claims made against President Trump.” Reuters could not independently confirm the accuracy of the woman’s allegations, and FBI records suggest agents stopped speaking with her in 2019.
Document coding issue and release on X
The Justice Department said in a post on the social media platform X that the records released Thursday were among 15 documents it had “incorrectly coded as duplicative” and not published as a result.
Congressional scrutiny and subpoena vote
The disclosure comes as the Justice Department faces scrutiny in Congress over its handling of documents from the Epstein investigation, which it is required to make public. Democrats have accused Trump’s administration of concealing records related to Trump, and a committee in the House of Representatives voted to subpoena Attorney General Pam Bondi so lawmakers can question her about how the government is handling the disclosures.
Trump’s statements and prior records
Trump has said his association with Epstein ended in the mid-2000s and that he was never aware of the financier’s sexual abuse. Records previously released by the department show Trump flew several times on Epstein’s plane in the 1990s, which Trump has denied.
After the financier was first accused of sexual misconduct, Trump called the police chief in Palm Beach to say that “everyone has known he’s been doing this,” according to an FBI interview record.
Final interview details
In the report of the woman’s final interview, conducted in October 2019 during Trump’s first presidency, agents asked whether she would be willing to provide more information about Trump. The agent wrote that she “asked what the point would be of providing the information at this point in her life when there was a strong possibility nothing could be done about it.”
What do you think lawmakers should prioritize when reviewing the Justice Department’s handling of Epstein-related disclosures?
