https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/feb/26/trump-epstein-files-fbi
Epstein files contain explicit but unsubstantiated claim that Trump abused minor
Department of Justice did not release FBI memos when it uploaded millions of pages of files beginning in December
Three memos that describe four interviews conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in 2019 contain explicit but unsubstantiated claims that Donald Trump sexually abused a woman when she was a minor in the early 1980s with the assistance of Jeffrey Epstein, according to a Guardian review of those documents.
The Department of Justice did not release those records when it uploaded millions of pages of files related to Epstein beginning in December. The existence of the missing documents was first reported by independent journalist Roger Sollenberger and subsequently confirmed by NPR, causing outrage in Washington and sparking an investigation from congressional Democrats.
The Guardian obtained the missing FBI form 302 reports, which memorialize 25 pages of agents’ notes from the four interviews conducted in the summer and fall of 2019. The notes describe how the woman came forward to tell agents she recognized Epstein from a photo sent by a childhood friend. Only the first session, in which she did not name Trump, made it into the public release. The Guardian has chosen not to publish the woman’s name.
Her allegations have not been verified, and the FBI never brought charges related to her claims, which at times appear outlandish. Her statements also contradict what is known about Epstein’s life in the early 1980s. The millions of investigative documents released by the DoJ have contained explosive allegations that have led to resignations and arrests, but also specious claims that have later proven false. Trump has consistently denied wrongdoing related to Epstein, and said last week: “I did nothing.”
An administration official confirmed the three missing reports obtained by the Guardian are authentic. The DoJ told NPR “nothing has been deleted” and that any withheld material was either duplicative or privileged, a claim echoed by an administration official to Breitbart, which has also reviewed the files. The three missing documents contain an expanded version of the allegations that were summarized in an internal FBI slideshow about the Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell investigations created in 2025. The DoJ did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“These non-credible accusations against President Trump made in 2019 were in the SDNY files and listed by reviewers as duplicative files, which are not legally required to be released by the Epstein [Files] Transparency Act as it was written by Congress,” an administration official told the Guardian. “The DoJ is continuing its review of the duplicative files as we speak.”
In the documents, the woman told agents she had been sexually abused by Epstein from the age of 13, beginning approximately in 1983, while she was living in Hilton Head Island, South Carolina. She said that when she was between 13 and 15, Epstein took her to a building in either New York or New Jersey, and that they traveled by either plane or car.
Mark Epstein, Jeffrey Epstein’s brother, told the Guardian he had no knowledge of his brother spending summers on Hilton Head in the early 1980s. “I would have known,” he said in a phone call. There is no evidence Trump and Epstein knew each other in 1983. (Trump told New York magazine in 2002 that he had met Epstein 15 years earlier.)
Once in the New Jersey or New York building, she told investigators, she was introduced to Trump and a group of their associates. According to the internal FBI notes, she claimed that when they were alone, Trump “mentioned something to the effect of: ‘Let me teach you how little girls are supposed to be,’” before attempting to sexually assault her. She told agents she bit him, and that Trump then struck her and had her removed from the room.
She also claimed that Epstein and Trump discussed blackmailing people in front of her and that she overheard Trump talking about “washing money through casinos”.
The four interviews, conducted on 24 July, 7 August, 22 August and 16 October of 2019 at the Washington state law offices of her attorney, Barry Brandenburg, also include anecdotes that go beyond her interactions with Trump. Brandenburg did not reply to a request for comment.
She told agents Epstein gave her alcoholic beverages in her early teenage years, which she suspected may have been spiked, offered her cocaine and marijuana and forced her to perform oral sex on him.
The woman said that Epstein “blackmailed her mother through explicit photographs of [her], which resulted in her mother embezzling from her real estate company to pay him. [She] stated that her mother ‘tried to buy back the photos and secrets’ over the years.” She said that her mother was sent to prison in South Carolina for embezzlement, and that Epstein and two other men “assisted” her mother in “fixing” her real-estate books so that she could embezzle funds and pay Epstein blackmail money.
The Guardian was unable to corroborate the account of her mother’s prison term or criminal case, or if it occurred.
The third interview consists largely of the woman describing what she said were years of threats – including “four to five close calls” in which she claimed she was nearly run off roads in Oregon and Washington.
At the fourth and final interview in October 2019, she arrived without her attorney, who had attended all previous sessions, and declined a request to be audio recorded. When agents asked whether she felt comfortable elaborating on her contact with Trump, she questioned what the point would be, given that “there was a strong possibility nothing could be done”.
The Guardian has identified a woman matching the biographical details in the FBI records. She has faced several fraud and theft charges in Washington and, in 2023, a felony charge for the exploitation of an elderly person in Georgia. It is not clear how those cases were resolved.
In 2020, a Jane Doe joined a lawsuit against Epstein’s estate with allegations and biographical details that match those in the FBI interviews. She later dropped her claims and it is unknown whether she received a financial settlement. Her lawyer in that case, Lisa Bloom, declined to comment.
The US congressman Robert Garcia, the top Democrat on the House oversight committee, said he visited the justice department to examine unredacted files and could not locate them. The Republican oversight committee chair James Comer also said lawmakers would be looking into the allegations that accusations of Trump assaulting a minor were removed from the Department of Justice’s database.
“There is definitely, in my opinion, evidence of a cover-up happening,” Garcia told NBC News in the wake of the first reports. “The FBI clearly investigated, and now those documents are gone.”
In a letter to attorney general Pam Bondi, Garcia demanded “a full accounting” of why the files had been withheld, writing that the DoJ had “illegally withheld FBI interviews with a survivor who accused President Trump of heinous crimes”.
Consider us impressed
Nice: you just finished reading article
the past year. It seems you really value our work. We really value you too.We couldn’t help but notice though that while you’re a loyal Guardian reader, you’re not a recent supporter. (As you likely know, we are reader-funded. No billionaires behind the scenes here!) With dedicated people like you who haven’t contributed yet or recently, we often find one of two things are going on.
First: perhaps you simply don’t have anything to spare right now. If that's the case, we want you to know: we value your readership as much as those who can contribute, and please keep reading, as much as you like, forever. One of the wonderful values shared by Guardian readers around the globe is a desire to ease the burden for others. So ignore these appeals: our community of supporters has your back.
But if you can afford to spare something, here’s what we also know: most likely you’ve thought about giving, but for whatever perfectly human reason, you haven’t got round to it yet. So perhaps today is the day? We know – you’ve finished reading what you came to read, and you have other things to get on with. But we promise it’s quick, and even more: we promise it matters. We survive entirely because people like you decide to respond to messages like this.
While all support is gratefully received, and even $5 helps, please consider a monthly contribution: it takes less than a minute to set up, and it’s the best way to make the biggest impact – helping sustain our fearless, independent journalism for the long haul. We’re not going anywhere; we hope you’ll stick with us too. Thank you for helping protect the non-billionaire-owned press.
Related stories
More from News
Most viewed
donald, The orange faced oligarch
