House Oversight Committee Ranking Member Robert Garcia said Oversight Democrats will open an investigation into whether the Justice Department unlawfully withheld FBI interviews with a woman who made 2019 allegations of sexual assault on a minor against President Donald Trump linked to Jeffrey Epstein.
Garcia said he reviewed unredacted evidence logs at DOJ and that Democrats believe FBI interviews with the survivor were withheld despite a committee subpoena for all documents and requirements under the Epstein Files Transparency Act. He called for immediate production of records.
The announcement follows an NPR report alleging DOJ withheld Epstein files related to Trump and removed others. DOJ responded on X that âNOTHING has been deleted,â stating documents may be temporarily pulled for victim redactions or removal of personally identifiable information and then restored online. DOJ also stated it produced all responsive documents unless they were duplicates, privileged, or part of an ongoing federal investigation.
NPR reported that materials connected to Ghislaine Maxwellâs case indicate the accuser was interviewed four times, but only the first 2019 interviewâwhere Trump was not mentionedâwas included in the recent public release, and that page serial numbers suggest dozens of catalogued pages were not shared.