DoJ releases Epstein files containing uncorroborated abuse allegations against Trump

The US justice department released additional files related to Jeffrey Epstein on Thursday, including FBI memos describing interviews with a woman who made uncorroborated allegations against Epstein and Donald Trump.The documents were not included in the justice department’s earlier releases of Epstein-related records, which began in December. Justice department officials have said the files were initially withheld because they were mistakenly categorized as duplicates.Trump has consistently denied any wrongdoing related to Epstein or any knowledge of Epstein’s criminal activity.The materials released on Thursday, which The Guardian obtained and reported on last week, describe a series of FBI interviews conducted in 2019 with a woman who alleged that she had been sexually assaulted by Epstein, and by Trump, in the 1980s, when she was a minor. The woman had contacted the FBI shortly after Epstein’s 2019 arrest on federal sex trafficking charges.Her allegations have not been verified, and the FBI never brought charges related to her claims. The Guardian reported last week that some of her statements appear to contradict what is known about Epstein’s life in the early 1980s.In a statement to The Guardian, Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, called the woman’s allegations “completely baseless” and said that they are “backed by zero credible evidence”.“The total baselessness of these accusations is also supported by the obvious fact that Joe Biden’s department of justice knew about them for four years and did nothing with them – because they knew President Trump did absolutely nothing wrong,” Leavitt said. “As we have said countless times, President Trump has been totally exonerated by the release of the Epstein Files.”In January, the justice department said that “some of the documents contain untrue and sensationalist claims against President Trump that were submitted to the FBI right before the 2020 election”.“To be clear, the claims are unfounded and false, and if they have a shred of credibility, they certainly would have been weaponized against President Trump already,” they added.On Thursday, the justice department said in a statement that it had “reviewed public allegations” that some documents were missing from the Epstein files release and said that it had identified “15 documents were incorrectly coded as duplicative”.“Additionally, the Southern District of Florida separately determined that five prosecution memos that were initially marked as privileged could be released while still protecting the privileged materials,” they said. “All 20 of these documents are now live.”The new release comes as Democrats last week launched an investigation into whether the justice department had intentionally withheld materials in its releases of the Epstein files related to allegations involving Trump.It also comes as last week, five Republicans on the House oversight committee joined Democrats to subpoena Pam Bondi, the US attorney general, to answer questions about the justice department’s investigation into Epstein, and its handling of the document releases.