Democrats on the House Oversight Committee have accused the Justice Department of withholding documents related to an allegation that President Donald Trump sexually assaulted a minor in the 1980s.
Scripps News senior national correspondent Alexandra Miller has been leading our coverage of the Epstein files. Watch her report.
The Democrats said the allegation was made in 2019 and should have been included in the millions of documents released following passage of the Epstein Files Transparency Act.
"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 House Democrats said in a statement.
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.Oversight Democrats can confirm that the DOJ appears to have illegally withheld FBI… pic.twitter.com/QplRVZ8FNA
— Oversight Dems (@OversightDems) February 24, 2026
The Justice Department responded by accusing Democrats of “manufacturing outrage,” saying no documents have been improperly withheld or 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 Justice Department said in a statement. "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."
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According to an NPR investigation, Justice Department records indicate that certain FBI interview notes and related documents involving a woman who accused Trump of sexually assaulting her decades ago were cataloged internally but were not included in the public release of Epstein-related files.
Independent journalist Roger Sollenberger first reported that the FBI had interviewed the accuser, raising questions about why related materials were not publicly posted.
The woman told authorities Trump sexually assaulted her about 40 years ago, when she was 13, and that she said Jeffrey Epstein introduced her to Trump, according to NPR. The allegations were documented in FBI interview summaries and case logs, according to NPR’s review of Justice Department indexes and internal records.
NPR found that while references to the allegation appeared in some internal Justice Department materials, the underlying interview notes and related pages were not publicly released as part of the document dump.
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Trump has repeatedly denied wrongdoing and has sought to distance himself from Epstein. He has never been charged with a crime related to the late financier.
When the Justice Department began releasing files under the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which was signed into law by Trump, it noted there were “untrue and sensationalist claims” about the president.
