The U.S. Justice Department has released additional files connected to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, including descriptions of interviews with a woman making allegations against President Donald Trump, a onetime Epstein friend.
The department said Thursday the files had been “incorrectly coded as duplicative,” and therefore not originally published. The department has faced scrutiny in Congress over its handling of the documents, which it is required to make public as part of the Epstein Transparency Act, which was spurred by efforts from both Democratic and Republican legislators.
Some of the new records pertain to a woman who contacted the FBI shortly after Epstein’s 2019 arrest and claimed that a man named “Jeff” living in Hilton Head, S.C., had raped her there in the 1980s when she was around 13 years old. The woman told the agents she didn’t know the man’s identity at the time, but decades later concluded he was Jeffrey Epstein when a friend texted her his photo from a news story.
The woman was interviewed four times by FBI agents and over time added a host of other claims, including that Epstein had schemed to have her mother sent to prison, beaten her, arranged sexual encounters with other men and once flew her to either New Jersey or New York sometime in the mid ’80s, where she claimed to have bitten Trump after he tried to sexually assault her.
She eventually declined to answer additional questions and broke off contact with agents, according to the files.
‘Completely baseless’
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, to Politico, called the woman’s claims “completely baseless accusations, backed by zero credible evidence.”
The Justice Department has cautioned that some of the documents include “untrue and sensationalist claims” against Trump.
It is not precisely known when the Epstein and Trump relationship began, but the earliest period that has been offered publicly to date has been the late 1980s.
Trump told New York magazine in 2002 that he’d known Epstein for 15 years. The article portrayed Epstein as an enigma but did not hint at improper behaviour.
Separately, a former executive at a Trump-owned Atlantic City casino between 1987 and 1990 described seeing his boss with Epstein on more than occasion.
Records previously released by the department show Trump flew several times on Epstein’s plane in the 1990s, which Trump has denied, even as flight logs included passengers names such as Marla Maples, his wife between 1993 and 1997, and his children Tiffany Trump and Eric Trump.
WATCH | Former president denies knowledge:
Former U.S. president Bill Clinton told the House oversight committee about his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, emphasizing from the start that he did nothing wrong and had no knowledge of crimes committed by the late, convicted sex offender during their relationship.
Trump has claimed he never had knowledge of Epstein’s sexual abuse, though according to an FBI interview record with the local police chief in Palm Beach that was recently released, Trump allegedly called the chief and said “everyone has known he’s been doing this,” when the financier was first accused of sexual misconduct in 2006.
Trump has said his association with Epstein ended before then, though conflicting stories have emerged as to why — ranging from competition over some Florida real estate, to allegations about Epstein’s behaviour at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate.
Epstein was convicted on state charges in Florida in 2008 that included solicitation of prostitution with a minor. He served more than one year of his sentence, and in 2019 died in a New York City prison at 66, while awaiting a federal trial. The death was ruled a suicide.
The investigations and reporting undertaken since have not established the existence of an Epstein residence in Hilton Head or elsewhere in South Carolina.
Commerce secretary to testify
Democrats have accused Trump’s administration of concealing records related to the president, and the House oversight committee voted this week to subpoena Attorney General Pam Bondi so lawmakers can question her about how the government is handling the disclosures.
As well, Howard Lutnick, Trump’s commerce secretary, said he would agree to testify to the oversight committee. Lutnick has backtracked about when his relationship with Epstein ended, as subsequent emails released by the Justice Department contradicted his earlier claims.
WATCH | Former president denies knowledge of Epstein crimes:
Former U.S. president Bill Clinton told the House oversight committee about his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, emphasizing from the start that he did nothing wrong and had no knowledge of crimes committed by the late, convicted sex offender during their relationship.
The committee last week deposed former president Bill Clinton and his wife, former secretary of state Hillary Clinton. According to video since released of those sessions, she testified she doesn’t recall ever meeting Epstein, while he said Epstein had offered his plane for use a number of trips as he sought to establish the Clinton Foundation just after his presidency ended.
The former president said in his deposition he never saw anything untoward on the flights, and that had he known of any possible Epstein crimes: “I would have turned him in myself.”
Both Clintons said they had a fairly extensive relationship through 2010 with Epstein’s friend Ghislaine Maxwell, who in 2022 was sentenced to 20 years in federal prison for helping to lure underaged girls for Epstein. The Clintons each said the relationship was informed by the fact that for several years she was dating a tech executive who was good friends with the couple.
