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By Kate Plummer
Senior US News Reporter
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A Democratic lawmaker has said that "serious allegations" about President Donald Trump appear to be missing from the Justice Department's cache of files associated with the late sex offender, Jeffrey Epstein.
Robert Garcia, of California, said on Tuesday he had reviewed the unredacted documents—available to members of Congress—and said some files listed in an official log appeared to be missing, including those relating to a woman who alleged in 2019 that Trump forced her to perform oral sex and struck her in the head after Epstein introduced them.
Trump has always denied any wrongdoing and the White House has called the allegations "false and sensationalist."
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The lead was included in an internal FBI PowerPoint slide deck detailing "prominent names" in the Epstein and Maxwell investigations last fall.
Contacted for comment, the Justice Department referred Newsweek to an X post by a subsidiary account that said "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," it added. "ALL responsive documents have been produced unless a document falls within one of the following categories: duplicates, privileged, or part of an ongoing federal investigation."
The White House referred Newsweek to a DOJ press release, which said: "This production may include fake or falsely submitted images, documents or videos, as everything that was sent to the FBI by the public was included in the production that is responsive to the Act. Some of the documents contain untrue and sensationalist claims against President Trump that were submitted to the FBI right before the 2020 election. To be clear, the claims are unfounded and false, and if they have a shred of credibility, they certainly would have been weaponized against President Trump already."
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Why It Matters
More than 3 million pages of documents related to Epstein, a convicted sex offender who died in a New York jail in 2019 while awaiting further charges, were released by the Justice Department under the Epstein Files Transparency Act after widespread clamour for more transparency. The department has said the files not part of an ongoing federal investigation are available to members of Congress in unredacted form.
Yet Garcia's claim raises questions about transparency and the handling of unverified allegations that involve public officials.
What to Know
In a video on X, Garcia said he had viewed unredacted versions of the file, as permitted to members of Congress under a February arrangement with the Justice Department.
Garcia, the ranking member on the House Oversight Committee, showed an image of the official Epstein files log, which had been edited to highlight interviews and documents he said he could not find.
The nine highlighted entries were dated from July to October 2019. Three were described as related to "interview 302, three carried the description "interview notes," one was labeled "photograph," another a "law enforcement report," and another "license records."
"Oversight Democrats have been investigating the handling of serious allegations by a survivor against Donald Trump when she was a minor," he wrote in a caption accompanying the X video post. "We have now confirmed that some of the documents related to this survivor appear to be missing from the files."
An NPR investigation, published Tuesday, found notes from the woman and 50 pages of FBI interviews were missing, according to analysis of gaps in serial numbers and metadata in the files.
A separate CNN review also said that dozens of FBI witness interviews from Epstein's investigation appear to be missing from the files, including three interviews related to a woman who accused Trump of sexually assaulting her.
The outlet said that an evidence log provided to attorneys for Ghislaine Maxwell, an Epstein associate, includes serial numbers for some 325 FBI witness interviews, but that more than 90 of these records are not on the DOJ's website.
The Epstein Files Transparency Act allowed the DOJ to redact records in specific instances, including documents that "would jeopardize an active federal investigation or ongoing prosecution" and records that "contain personally identifiable information" about victims that would "constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy."
The Attorney General was also permitted to redact "child sexual abuse materials" and images about "death, physical abuse, or injury" as well as information deemed "to be kept secret in the interest of national defense or foreign policy."
The Justice Department has removed and reuploaded thousands of pages in recent weeks in a bid to fix improperly redacted victim names.
Some of the documents said to have been deleted could be present elsewhere in the files with different or redacted serial numbers.
Releasing the 3 million files on January 30, the Justice Department said, "Some of the documents contain untrue and sensationalist claims against President Trump that were submitted to the FBI right before the 2020 election. To be clear, the claims are unfounded and false, and if they have a shred of credibility, they certainly would have been weaponized against President Trump already."
What People Are Saying
DOJ Rapid Response, an official Justice Department X account, responded to Garcia's comments on Tuesday, saying Democrats on the House Oversight Committee "should stop misleading the public while manufacturing outrage from their radical anti-Trump base."
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," it added.
A Justice Department spokesperson told CNN on Tuesday: “We have not deleted anything, and as we have always said, all documents responsive were produced." They said documents not included in the release were either “duplicates, privileged, (or) part of an ongoing federal investigation."
A White House spokesperson told NPR: "Just as President Trump has said, he's been totally exonerated on anything relating to Epstein," White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson told NPR in a statement. "And by releasing thousands of pages of documents, cooperating with the House Oversight Committee's subpoena request, signing the Epstein Files Transparency Act, and calling for more investigations into Epstein's Democrat friends, President Trump has done more for Epstein's victims than anyone before him. Meanwhile, Democrats like Hakeem Jeffries and Stacey Plaskett have yet to explain why they were soliciting money and meetings from Epstein after he was a convicted sex offender."
Robert Garcia in a statement on Tuesday: "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 by a survivor.
“Yesterday, I reviewed unredacted evidence logs at the Department of Justice. Oversight Democrats can confirm that the DOJ appears to have illegally withheld FBI interviews with this survivor who accused President Trump of heinous crimes. Oversight Democrats will open a parallel investigation into this.
"Under the Oversight Committee’s subpoena and the Epstein Files Transparency Act, these records must immediately be shared with Congress and the American public. 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."
What Happens Next
Garcia said that Democrats on the House Oversight Committee will open an investigation into the allegedly missing documents.
Update 2/26/26, 9:24 a.m. ET: This article was updated with a response from the White House.
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