SOURCE :- THE AGE NEWS
Washington: The US Justice Department is examining whether it wrongly withheld FBI files that contained allegations against President Donald Trump in its release of millions of pages from the investigatory files related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Three summaries of interviews the FBI conducted in 2019 with a woman who had accused Trump of sexually assaulting her are missing from the files, multiple news outlets have reported. The woman had accused Trump of sexually assaulting her decades earlier while she was a minor. No evidence has emerged publicly to corroborate that accusation.
The existence of the summaries – known as 302s in law enforcement parlance – was noted in an index that the Justice Department included in the massive cache of files released over the past three months in response to the Epstein Files Transparency Act. The index suggested that law enforcement agents interviewed the woman on four occasions, writing up a summary in each instance. Only one of the four summaries was included in the release.
The summaries were among the materials that prosecutors gave to defence attorneys as part of the discovery process leading up to the trial of Epstein’s accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell, who was convicted in 2021 on sex-trafficking charges.
Independent journalist Roger Sollenberger first reported on the apparent missing files. The woman who accused Trump also said Epstein assaulted her when she was a minor in the 1980s. In an account that was included in the files, federal officials wrote that the woman had said that Epstein introduced her to Trump and that Trump assaulted her.
FBI agents frequently fill out 302s in cases that never lead to charges, and the accusations in them are generally considered unproven allegations.
Trump has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing in connection to Epstein.
“Several individuals and news outlets have recently flagged files related to documents produced to Ghislaine Maxwell in discovery of her criminal case that they claim appear to be missing,” the Justice Department said in a statement.
“As with all documents that have been flagged by the public, the department is currently reviewing files within that category of the production. Should any document be found to have been improperly tagged in the review process and is responsive to the act, the department will, of course, publish it, consistent with the law.”
Epstein pleaded guilty in 2008 to two charges of soliciting prostitution, including one involving a minor. He was arrested on federal sex-trafficking charges in 2019 and died in federal custody later that year. His death was ruled a suicide. Judges and lawmakers say that over decades, he abused, trafficked and molested scores of girls, many of whom have come forward in court and in other public forums.
Trump had a long-standing friendship with Epstein. He has said that he knew Epstein socially in Palm Beach, Florida, and that they had a falling out in the mid-2000s. Trump has maintained that he did not know about Epstein’s criminal behaviour.
The missing summaries have given Democrats an opportunity to reassert their claim that the Justice Department has improperly withheld documents to shield Trump.
Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer on Thursday (US time) accused US Attorney-General Pam Bondi of covering up potential wrongdoing. He and other Senate Democrats planned to review an unredacted version of the files, which the Justice Department had allowed them to do, he said.
“They’re abusing redactions to hide the truth,” Schumer said. “We’re going to reveal this massive cover-up … we’ll pull on every thread.”
Justice Department officials have said that they did not withhold any information to protect powerful individuals, including Trump. Trump is mentioned more than 1000 times throughout the released files. Being mentioned in a mass trove of investigatory documents does not demonstrate criminal wrongdoing.
Congress passed the bipartisan Epstein Files Transparency Act in November, and Trump signed it into law, setting a December 19 deadline for the Justice Department to release the files. The department struggled to get its arms around the massive project and find an orderly way to make the files available to the public.
The department released an initial tranche of documents on December 19. On January 30, officials released 3 million additional pages of the Epstein files, which was expected to be the final release.
The law mandates the release of all files related to Epstein, with exceptions for materials that might compromise a continuing investigation, disclose the identity of a victim or constitute child sexual abuse material.
In a letter accompanying the latest release of the files, US Deputy Attorney-General Todd Blanche said the department had withheld or redacted about 200,000 pages that it decided were covered by legal privileges, including some related to internal Justice Department debates. The department has also withheld a large number of documents that it said were duplicates of those that were released.
The released documents provide an extensive look at the evidence the department gathered in its effort to prosecute Epstein, a politically connected financier.
To vet the millions of pages, officials dispatched hundreds of lawyers from across the Justice Department to spend weeks reviewing the files and redact any information that might identify victims. The effort required significant time and personnel resources from the department, pulling top prosecutors from Washington, Florida and New York.
But in many instances, officials did not redact identifying information about victims, and seemingly deleted or withheld files that should have been released. The Justice Department has said it set up an email account for people who spot victim information or deleted information to report it so that department officials can review it and make changes when necessary. It is through this process that officials are reviewing the potentially missing interviews about Trump.
The Washington Post
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