type: timeline_event
The Department of Justice released more than 1,000 previously withheld pages from the Epstein files on March 5-6, 2026, following an NPR investigation that revealed dozens of pages had been suppressed. The newly released documents included summaries of three FBI interviews conducted in 2019 with a woman from South Carolina who alleged she was sexually assaulted by both Jeffrey Epstein and Donald Trump when she was between 13 and 15 years old, during the mid-1980s.
An FBI email and a DOJ PowerPoint slide deck included in the release described the accuser's account in detail. The documents showed the FBI had conducted multiple interviews with the woman, who stated that Epstein introduced her to Trump and that Trump subsequently sexually assaulted her. Trump has repeatedly denied all such allegations.
The documents had not previously been made public despite congressional mandates requiring release of the Epstein files. DOJ officials cited incorrect database coding -- the files were marked "duplicative" -- as the explanation for the omission. Critics noted the explanation was difficult to credit given the politically sensitive nature of the content.
The release came alongside what the DOJ described as the complete case file from the 2006 investigation into Epstein and Maxwell. Even after the March release, 37 pages of records remained missing from the public database, including interview notes, a law enforcement report, and license records. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt dismissed the allegations as "completely baseless accusations, backed by zero credible evidence."
The episode illustrated how the Epstein files release process -- nominally a transparency exercise -- had been shaped by decisions about what to code as duplicative and what to withhold, with politically sensitive allegations about the sitting president appearing in the last tranche released only after press scrutiny.