DOJ withheld and removed Epstein-file records tied to a Trump sexual-abuse allegation

On February 24, 2026, NPR published an investigation finding that the Justice Department's public Epstein-files database — assembled and released earlier in the year as a transparency measure — was missing dozens of pages of FBI records tied to a woman's allegation that Donald Trump sexually abused her in the early 1980s, when she was approximately 13 years old. NPR reported that the FBI had interviewed the accuser four times but that only one of those interviews appeared in the public release, with roughly 53 pages of interview notes and related records withheld or removed. Comparing the dataset first posted on January 30 against the documents later available on the Department's website, NPR found that some files had been briefly taken down and reposted while others remained absent, and that records concerning a separate witness from the Ghislaine Maxwell prosecution had also been removed from public view.

The Justice Department declined to answer NPR's specific questions, saying that unpublished materials were privileged, duplicative, or under ongoing review; a White House spokeswoman said President Trump "has done more for Epstein's victims than anyone before him." After NPR's report, the Department posted some additional pages, though dozens remained missing. Democrats on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee announced an investigation into whether the omissions were deliberate, with Ranking Member Robert Garcia arguing that withholding the records would conflict with the November law requiring the administration to release all Epstein-case files in its possession; the committee's Republican chair separately said he would examine NPR's findings.

The Standing records the selective withholding and removal of these records — not the underlying abuse allegation, which remains an accusation the White House disputes. The recorded abuse of power is the executive branch controlling the disclosure of government records that bear on the conduct of its own leader: assembling a public-transparency release while keeping back the pages most damaging to the President, on shifting and unexplained grounds. The Department's stated justifications — privilege, duplication, and ongoing review — are contested and unresolved, and are noted here for the reader's own judgment.