The US justice department withheld documents from the Epstein files that allege Donald Trump sexually abused a minor, according to reports.
More than 50 pages missing from the release contain notes from several interviews the FBI conducted with a woman who claimed she was abused by Mr Trump in 1983, when she was around the age of 13.
The department of justice (DoJ) did not respond to questions from National Public Radio (NPR), which uncovered the missing files, about why they have not been published.
The Trump administration has already been accused of summarily deleting files from the release despite a law mandating the release of the entire government archive.
On Tuesday, Democrats in the house oversight committee said they could “confirm” that the “DoJ appears to have illegally withheld FBI interviews with a survivor”.
The committee, which is structurally bipartisan but divided on party lines, is meant to investigate corruption and malfeasance in the executive branch.
“For the last few weeks, Oversight Democrats have been investigating the FBI’s handling of allegations from 2019 of sexual assault on a minor made against president Donald Trump,” the Democrats on the committee said.
“Covering up direct evidence of a potential assault by the president of the United States is the most serious possible crime in this White House cover-up.”
The explosive allegation threatened to overshadow Mr Trump’s State of the Union Address on Tuesday evening at the Capitol. Several Epstein victims were invited to attend.
Through an examination of the serial numbers attached to every document in the vast Epstein files archive, NPR found that 53 pages were inexplicably missing.
Those pages contain the FBI’s notes on a series of interviews detailing an allegation, summarised elsewhere in the files, that Mr Trump forced an Epstein victim’s head “towards his exposed penis, which she subsequently bit”.
The woman told investigators she was aged between 13 and 15 at the time and claimed that after the incident Mr Trump “punched her in the head and kicked her out”.
Unlike most of the tips received through the FBI’s National Threat Operations Centre, this one was actively followed up.
Paedophile Jeffrey Epstein
FBI agents spoke to the woman in question four times, starting in 2019, according to documents uncovered by Roger Sollenberger, an independent journalist.
Ultimately the woman “refused to co-operate” in a potential investigation into Mr Trump, one New York FBI agent emailed a colleague in July 2025.
The Epstein files do contain the notes on one interview that agents conducted with the woman, in which she details how she was groomed and abused by Epstein. In this interview, her attorney said the woman was “concerned about implicating additional individuals, and specifically any that were well known, due to fear of retaliation”.
The FBI agents noted that, in identifying Epstein, she handed them a “widely distributed” photograph of the disgraced financier that had been cropped to remove Mr Trump.
Several Democrat senators described the NPR story as proof that the release of the Epstein files had been manipulated to protect the reputation of the president.
Senator Mark Warner of Virginia said: “Well: reporting confirms it − the justice department withheld Epstein files that contained allegations about Trump abusing a minor.”
The president has long denied any participation in or knowledge of Epstein’s crimes.
The woman’s claim against him is included in a 2025 PowerPoint presentation compiled by the justice department, summarising a number of allegations made against “prominent names”.
Her name has been redacted. It is marked with two asterisks that appear to indicate a “criminal history”.
In response to requests for comment, both the White House and the department of justice directed The Telegraph to a statement posted on X by the latter’s “Rapid Response” unit.
“Oversight Democrats should stop misleading the public while manufacturing outrage from their radical anti-Trump base,” it reads.
“The Justice Department has repeatedly said publicly AND directly to NPR prior to deadline − NOTHING has been deleted. If files are temporarily pulled for victim redactions or to redact Personally Identifiable Information, then those documents are promptly restored online and are publicly available.”
The statement then referred to the exceptions to the law mandating publication of all the files, which include “duplicates, privileged, or part of an ongoing federal investigation”.
Separately, former Harvard University president and economist Larry Summers will resign from his teaching role at the end of the academic year, just months after his relationship with Epstein was revealed.
Mr Summers has been on leave since November, and will not be returning to the university before his final day, according to the New York Times.
The economist has also resigned from his role as co-director of the Mossava-Rahmani Centre for Business and Government, according to a Harvard spokesperson.
Jason Newton, the spokesperson, confirmed to the Times that Mr Summers’ resignation comes “in connection with the ongoing review by the University of documents related to Jeffrey Epstein that were recently released by the government”.
