Trump’s Epstein Scandal Takes Damning Turn as Dem Drops New Bombshell
As new revelations in the Jeffrey Epstein saga threaten the president, a legal expert decodes what we just learned—and lays out a roadmap to what will happen now.
TNR’s Greg Sargent takes a critical look at the day’s political news and the stories leading NewRepublic.com, and speaks to leading journalists and newsmakers.
The Jeffrey Epstein scandal has just taken another bad turn for Donald Trump. NPR reports that the Justice Department has withheld key documents from the publicly-released Epstein files. Guess what: They apparently relate to charges that Trump potentially abused a minor. And Congressman Robert Garcia, the ranking Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, also dropped a bombshell, claiming he’s reviewed DOJ materials personally and confirmed that DOJ does appear to have withheld critical FBI interviews. Is this really as bad as it sounds? As University of Michigan law professor Leah Litman explains in this episode, the answer is: Yes, it is. Litman—the author of Lawless, a book about the Supreme Court—demystifies the legal ins and outs of these new revelations, lays out a roadmap to what will happen now, and explains the prospects for achieving real accountability. Listen to this episode here. A transcript is here.
The following is a lightly edited transcript of the February 25 episode of the Daily Blast podcast. Listen to it here.
Greg Sargent: This is The Daily Blast from The New Republic, produced and presented by the DSR Network. I’m your host, Greg Sargent.
The Epstein scandal has just taken another bad turn for Donald Trump. NPR reports that the Justice Department has withheld some files relating to charges that Trump potentially abused a minor. And Democratic Congressman Robert Garcia just dropped a bombshell as well, claiming that he’d reviewed DOJ materials personally and can confirm that the DOJ does appear to have withheld critical FBI interviews. What’s really noteworthy here is that we now see the cover-up becoming a significant part of the story in a freshly vivid way. And interestingly, Trump’s constant treatment of the DOJ as his own personal law firm could now work against him, since the DOJ controls what we learn about what’s in the files. To unravel all this, we’re talking today to University of Michigan law professor Leah Litman, who’s great at decoding this kind of complexity. Leah, great to have you on.
Leah Litman: Thanks for having me.
Sargent: So let’s just set the table this way: The Epstein files, of course, are the materials amassed via federal investigations into Jeffrey Epstein’s pedophilia and sex trafficking. Leah, can you just walk us through what exactly the law obliges the DOJ to do with regard to these files right now?
Litman: So the law obliges the DOJ to actually release the files. They are supposed to redact information—particularly the victims’ names—but they are not supposed to be redacting information about the alleged wrongdoers.
Now, of course, these files contain reports that aren’t credible. Law enforcement officials receive tips that aren’t credible all the time. What makes this latest revelation, I think, so significant is this is an individual who the FBI opted to interview not once, not twice, not three times—four times. This was a serious, credible enough lead that there were multiple interviews and multiple indications that this individual was telling the truth. And that’s what they chose to cover up.
Sargent: And this is what NPR is reporting. So, NPR used a novel trick here: It looked essentially at metadata on the documents to establish that what’s missing from the public release of the files is more than 50 pages of FBI interviews and notes from conversations with the person you just discussed. This is someone who accused Trump of sexual abuse as a minor decades ago. Can you go into that a little bit more?
Litman: Yes. So the allegations are this individual says they met Donald Trump while with Jeffrey Epstein and that, when they were between the ages of 13 to 15, Donald Trump sexually assaulted them.
Now, what the NPR story also indicates is this individual made a similar allegation in lawsuits against Epstein in 2019; that this information was in the information that was relevant to Ghislaine Maxwell’s trial and is indeed with the Maxwell trial team; that, again, the FBI interviewed this individual multiple times and the Epstein estate settled with them.
So those are all indications that what this individual said was credible enough that it became incorporated into a criminal case against Ghislaine Maxwell—that the DOJ deemed it credible enough that law enforcement, the FBI, deemed it credible enough to interview them multiple times, and that the Epstein estate settled with them. So those are all indications that this is a serious allegation, and the allegation itself is, of course, appalling.
I mean, we are dealing with an allegation that the president of the United States is a child rapist. And to say that is alarming and shocking. And this is no longer just a scandal about elite impunity and the president being a pedophile—protecting pedophiles. It is about the president now being an accused pedophile.
Sargent: And using his Justice Department to cover it up.
Litman: Yes. Exactly. And again, we have seen him use the DOJ to go after political enemies. We’ve seen him use the DOJ to protect himself—dropping the cases that the DOJ had elected to bring against him and issuing mass pardons to his supporters, issuing pardons to people who contributed to his campaign or his super PACs, dropping investigations against his friends.
Tom Homan allegedly took a bag with $50,000, and that investigation went nowhere. And now it is the president using the DOJ to cover up allegations that he himself engaged in sexual assault of a minor.
Sargent: So let’s talk about what we know about the woman. She charged that Trump did this quite disgusting thing involving her in 1983, after she was introduced to Trump by Epstein. The timeline gets a little fuzzy here, but I want to bear down on this point. In the summer of 2025, according to NPR, the FBI internally circulated some Epstein-related allegations that discuss Trump, and one of them involves this woman.
And we know that the FBI conducted several interviews with this woman—as you pointed out—but only one of them is in the released files, according to NPR. Just to clarify: What’s being suggested here is that the other several interviews with this woman, potentially about Trump, were not released by the DOJ knowingly. Yes?
Litman: Yes, exactly. That is the allegation. The DOJ and FBI, apparently as part of the process of determining which files they were going to release, prepared a slide deck that was distributed within the executive branch that documented allegations against high-profile individuals.
They didn’t include all of the allegations—the not-credible ones—against Donald Trump and others, but they included this one. So that’s another indication that they treated this one as more serious. And that’s the one that they are alleged to have culled information from and kept the interviews out of the files.
Sargent: Right. And so into this steps Congressman Robert Garcia, who’s the ranking Democrat on the Oversight Committee. He put out a statement that’s something of a bombshell. I’m just going to read it.
“Yesterday, I reviewed unredacted evidence logs at the DOJ. Oversight Democrats can confirm that the DOJ appears to have illegally withheld FBI interviews with the survivor who accused President Trump of heinous crimes. Oversight Democrats will open a parallel investigation into this.”
Leah, let’s break this up into pieces. When Garcia says there, “I reviewed unredacted evidence logs,” he’s saying that the DOJ’s own logs list FBI interviews with this woman that were not in the released files—what you just referenced.
Litman: Exactly. He’s saying that the set of Epstein files that is subject to this transparency and disclosure law—that set of files—contains the interviews with this individual where she alleged Donald Trump sexually assaulted her as a minor. That is what he is saying. And he is also confirming that it’s that material that somehow wasn’t released to the public.
Sargent: Right. So we’ve basically got a number of sets of eyes on this log confirming this. We’ve got NPR essentially confirming it by using metadata, or whatever technique they used there. And we have Congressman Robert Garcia confirming exactly the same thing. He looked at the logs; it showed a number of interviews with this woman. Those interviews were not in the released files.
Litman: Exactly. And that is the cover-up, to the extent it is now the cover-up that is the scandal. But I don’t want to suggest that it is just the cover-up that is a scandal, because the cover-up is appalling.
We have already seen that they are misredacting the documents. They’re not complying with this law, and all of the indications—based on their actions and statements—show they were manipulating this to their political advantage. But I don’t know that we really had evidence or a credible argument that the things they weren’t releasing included allegations of misconduct—not just that Trump knew about Epstein’s misdeeds, not just that Trump was enabling or facilitating it, but that he was participating in it.
Again, just to say: The statement is shocking. We are dealing now with an allegation that the president of the United States raped and sexually assaulted a child and is now using his Department of Justice to try to cover that up. It’s just unbelievable.
Sargent: It’s unbelievable. So, piece number two of what Congressman Garcia said there is this—and presumably, it should be easy to confirm—the GOP Chairman of the House Oversight Committee, James Comer, could do exactly what Robert Garcia did: walk in there, look at the logs, and confirm whether the FBI interviews are missing, right?
Litman: Yes.
Sargent: Obviously, this seems to put a lot of pressure on Republicans as well, unless I’m missing something.
Litman: I mean, I would certainly hope so. And this is just another example of: How much are Republicans in Congress going to lay over and “bend the knee” and allow Donald Trump to run absolute roughshod over laws and Congress’s own powers?
Because you’re right. Congress could—if it wanted to, tomorrow—have all of the Oversight members go look at those documents and confirm that the DOJ is illegally withholding material that contains allegations of wrongdoing by the president.
Sargent: It sure seems that way, and I suspect that Republicans aren’t going to do that. But let me ask you this: Is there any legal means for forcing the DOJ’s hand here, now that such a clear circle seems to have been drawn around specific missing files?
Litman: So it’s a little unclear what the legal recourse is to the extent you’re asking about litigation, because in order to bring suit, you would need to identify a plaintiff who is injured by the failure to disclose those particular files.
I am certainly not in a position to speculate about whether the individual who made those allegations would want to bring suit. I’m not, honestly, sure that a court would say that individual even had “standing” to bring suit. And so that leaves us in this situation where you have a law that ostensibly applies to the executive branch, and it’s unclear how that law will be enforced in a world where the majority in Congress doesn’t seem to care.
Sargent: Could the White House or DOJ—or both, I guess—use some sort of legal trickery to somehow evade legal responsibility for the release of these particular files?
Litman: If you’re asking about legal responsibility in the sense of litigation? Absolutely. They could say whoever brings the lawsuit doesn’t actually have standing to do so. That would allow a court to dismiss the case before they even ascertain whether the Department of Justice is in compliance with this suit. So yes, there are many avenues that they could pursue to try to evade such a ruling.
Sargent: What else could they say? Like, something a little more direct than just playing the “standing” card.
Litman: They could say there’s no “cause of action.” There is no legal authorization to bring suit. They could say a court doesn’t have the authority to actually order the release of information within the DOJ’s possession. The list goes on. I don’t want to do their jobs for them—since they have crap lawyers and they are also running on a shortage of lawyers—but they could certainly try.
Sargent: Right. And so if a court did order the release and the DOJ refused, then it would go up to the Supreme Court, presumably.
Litman: Yes.
Sargent: Okay. So could a Democratic-controlled House subpoena these specific files next year, presuming Democrats win?
Litman: Absolutely.
Sargent: And then, when the DOJ refuses to release them, go to court to compel it?
Litman: Yes, they could. And just to go back to my “hobbyhorse”—this is part of why the courts matter. Because you can also imagine, even in a world where you have a Congress trying to enforce the law, you can imagine courts—and specifically this Supreme Court—getting in their way.
Recall that when Donald Trump was subject to subpoenas by the New York District Attorney’s Office and a grand jury, as well as Congress, the Supreme Court essentially “slow-walked” those cases and injected a legal standard, and required courts to make additional findings that delayed the ability to actually enforce those subpoenas.
Sargent: Yeah, so what might that look like? So let’s just imagine a Democratic-controlled House is there in 2027. One of its first acts, I guess, would be to draw up very specific subpoenas, right? Saying “these files”—I mean, there may be many other revelations by the time 2027 rolls around—but just for the sake of argument, they could really be clear and specific and say, Release these, DOJ. What would happen then? How would it unfold? What would the timeline look like?
Litman: So the timeline would really be in the lower court’s hands in some ways. And so depending on which court it goes to, you can imagine some judges “slow-walking” it. Think of Judge Aileen Cannon in the obstruction of justice and documents case, who drew out that case for so long it effectively prevented the case from ever going to trial—even though it was one of the more straightforward ones.
So it depends a little bit on what court it goes before. Now, once it’s before a court, the president and the DOJ are going to object to those subpoenas, and they will likely argue that the subpoenas raise “separation of powers” concerns because Congress is demanding presidential documents.
In the Supreme Court’s opinion that I was alluding to earlier, Trump v. Mazars, the Court basically added a bunch of language that suggested, historically, those sort of demands were resolved by the political branches without involving courts. And once you go to court, then the Supreme Court added: Courts can assess the separation of powers considerations as to whether Congress is entitled to the information, or separation of powers considerations instead counsel hesitation and mean the executive branch has some discretion as to whether it can actually disclose them. So that is going to be part of the fight in a world where Democrats retake the House and try to go to court to actually enforce subpoenas.
Sargent: And so what sort of timing are we talking about here? I mean, I guess in a sense, if Democrats were to win the White House in 2028, the Democratic president or—well, I guess whoever the Attorney General is—could just release these files, right? Is there any chance at all, presuming there’s a Democratic House, that we see those files sooner than that?
Litman: There’s a chance. I would not put it at a very high chance. And again, that is just because of my very low confidence in this Supreme Court’s willingness to actually take seriously Congress’s interest in that information and their ability to enforce subpoenas that are directed against the executive branch.
I mean, this Court has such an expansive view of presidential power and seems to think that, you know, the acts of investigation and prosecution are such core, exclusive executive prerogatives that they could say Congress isn’t in a position to litigate and enforce that—which, again, is appalling and should trouble us all. But I just kind of want to be real about the problem that this Supreme Court creates.
Sargent: What exactly is—or would be—the legal basis for just saying that a congressional subpoena doesn’t count?
Litman: What would be the legal basis? I mean, what’s the legal basis for presidential immunity, Greg? That’s not in the Constitution, and yet the Supreme Court found it like magic. I mean, what’s the legal basis for Justice Thomas in the tariffs opinion saying that the president has the powers of a crown?
I mean, the president isn’t king, and yet Justice Thomas basically wanted to make him one. And so this Supreme Court has been salivating—foaming at the mouth—to expand presidential power that they are willing to add things to the Constitution that just aren’t there.
I mean, at the oral argument in a recent case, Justice Amy Coney Barrett basically said, Well, couldn’t we just adopt the unitary executive theory without actually specifying where in the Constitution it is? And so their willingness to engage in that sort of shooting-from-the-hip, Gestalt sense of “this has to be what the Constitution means, but I don’t actually need to explain it,” is part of what we’re working with.
Sargent: What would be the ostensible basis? Like, in other words, what would be the Supreme Court’s “cover story” in this case?
Litman: They would say that Article II vests the executive power in the president, and that the executive power includes the power to conduct investigations, law enforcement, and prosecutions. And because those are core executive powers, Congress cannot enact laws that force the executive branch’s hand in those matters.
Sargent: Boy, I guess that’s certainly possible. Just to wrap this up: Is there a role for whistleblowers here? Is there some other way the files come out? And let’s just really go for it here—do you think the files will come out?
Litman: There is absolutely a role for whistleblowers. I mean, we are seeing the importance of whistleblowers with respect to exposing misconduct of ICE and DHS. We have seen the importance of whistleblowers in many other matters, exposing some of the acts of Judge Emil Beauvais while he was in the Department of Justice.
So, yes, whistleblowers could play a significant role. Do I think we are going to see these files in the short term? I don’t think we’re going to see them before the midterms. Do I think we will see them eventually? Yes.
But it is just so wild to me that over the last few weeks, it is clear that England is “out-no-kinging” us with respect to the Epstein files. They have actually instituted criminal proceedings against former members of the monarchy. And we are living in a world in which the president is obstructing the release of files mandated by law that potentially implicate him in criminal wrongdoing. And our legal system is so messed up, it’s unclear what the fix is for that.
Sargent: Yeah, I mean, that’s the bottom line for me as well. In other places, people are being held accountable here; nobody’s being held accountable.
Litman: Yes, exactly. And I don’t want to resign ourselves to that inevitability, but we should acknowledge that accountability here, realistically, requires winning control of the House and likely the White House as well.
Sargent: Which, of course, is a doable thing—even though it probably shouldn’t come down to that.
Litman: No, and that’s why we should keep harping on this, right? Because people care about the fact that the president is now accused of sexual assault. People also care about the fact that he is using the DOJ to cover up his alleged crimes. And so, in that way—whether it is whistleblowers, public opinion, or public outcry—this stuff matters, even if we can’t go to court to fix it tomorrow.
Sargent: We say it on the pod all the time, but if you needed another reason to elect Democrats to control the House, you’re seeing it right now.
Folks, if you enjoyed this, make sure to check out Leah’s book on the Supreme Court, which is just as unsparing as the stuff she’s just said here. It’s called Lawless. Leah, it’s always great to talk to you. Thanks for coming on.
Litman: Thanks for having me.
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