Democrats on Wednesday (February 25, 2026) accused U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration of the “largest government cover-up in modern history” over reports that it withheld documents relating to allegations that the Republican leader sexually abused a minor.

The Justice Department said it is reviewing its Epstein files to see if any were handled “improperly” but denied any wrongdoing.

The department has released millions of pages from files connected to notorious sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein under a transparency law enacted last year. But public broadcaster NPR found gaps in the files tied to one woman’s 2019 assault complaint against Mr. Trump.

Mr. Trump has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing, arguing that the DOJ’s so-called “Epstein Files” release exonerated him.

Indexes and serial numbers attached to the investigative materials into Epstein’s trafficking ring indicate that FBI agents conducted four interviews with the accuser and generated summaries and accompanying notes, NPR reported.

Only one summary — focused largely on her allegations against Epstein — appears in the public database.

The remaining three summaries and related notes, totaling more than 50 pages, are not available on the Justice Department’s website, according to NPR‘s review of the document numbering. The New York Times and cable network MS NOW reported similar findings.

“This is largest government cover-up in modern history. We are demanding answers,” the Democrats on the House Oversight Committee said in statement posted to social media.

‘Improperly tagged’

In a statement Wednesday (February 25, 2026) evening, the Justice Department said some media outlets have alleged that files related to Epstein accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell are also missing from records released to the public.

“As with all documents that have been flagged by the public, the Department is currently reviewing files within that category of the production,” it said on X.

“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,” it said, alluding to the bipartisan bill passed last year that ordered the Trump adminstration to release all its Epstein files.

The woman at the heart of this episode of the Epstein drama first contacted authorities in July 2019, shortly after Epstein’s arrest on federal sex trafficking charges.

Later internal references in the released files describe her as alleging that the disgraced financier introduced her to Mr. Trump and that Mr. Trump assaulted her in the mid-1980s, when she was 13 to 15 years old.

A 2025 FBI document in the public database recounts that claim but does not include an assessment of its credibility. The detailed memos from the follow-up interviews — conducted in August and October 2019, according to the indexes — are not included.

Robert Garcia, the top Democrat on the Oversight Committee, said he reviewed unredacted evidence logs at the Justice Department and reached the same conclusion.

“Oversight Democrats can confirm that the DOJ appears to have illegally withheld FBI interviews with this survivor,” Ms. Garcia said, adding that Democrats would open a parallel investigation and demand the missing records be provided to Congress.

The Justice Department argues that any material not posted falls within categories allowed under the law, including duplicates, privileged records or documents tied to an ongoing federal investigation.

Asked for comment, the Justice Department earlier Wednesday (February 25, 2026) referred AFP to a social media response in which it denied deleting files and said documents temporarily removed for victim-related redactions or to remove personally identifiable information will be restored.

Democrats argue that the missing interview records do not fit the categories cited by the department.

Los Angeles Olympics chief Casey Wasserman apologised on Saturday (January 31, 2026) after decades-old flirty emails between him and Jeffrey Epstein’s jailed former girlfriend appeared in a fresh cache of files related to the investigation into the late convicted sex offender.

Mr. Wasserman, the chairman of the organising committee for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics, said his 2003 email exchanges with Ghislaine Maxwell — who is serving a 20-year sentence for trafficking underage girls for Epstein — took place before her crimes were known.

“I deeply regret my correspondence with Ghislaine Maxwell which took place over two decades ago, long before her horrific crimes came to light,” Mr. Wasserman (51) said in a statement obtained by AFP.

Mr. Wasserman’s emails to Maxwell were among millions of new pages released from the Epstein files by the U.S. Justice Department on Friday (January 30, 2026), adding fresh fuel to the politically explosive case that has dogged U.S. President Donald Trump.

In his statement on Saturday (January 30, 2026), Mr. Wasserman emphasised that he had “never had a personal or business relationship with Jeffrey Epstein.”

“As is well documented, I went on a humanitarian trip as part of a delegation with the Clinton Foundation in 2002 on the Epstein plane,” Mr. Wasserman said.

“I am terribly sorry for having any association with either of them.”

Maxwell was sentenced to 20 years in prison in 2022 after being convicted the previous year of helping Epstein recruit, groom, and abuse underage victims. Federal prosecutors said Maxwell had helped procure girls — some as young as 14 — for Epstein between 1994 and around 2004.

Epstein took his own life in 2019 while in prison awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges. Maxwell was arrested and charged for her crimes in 2020.

The Justice Department on Friday (August 22, 2025) released transcripts of interviews its No. 2 official did with Jeffrey Epstein’s imprisoned former girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell as the Trump administration scrambles to present itself as transparent amid a fierce backlash over an earlier refusal to disclose a trove of records from the sex-trafficking case.

The disclosure represents the latest Trump administration effort to repair self-inflicted political wounds after failing to deliver on expectations that its own officials had created through conspiracy theories and bold pronouncements that never came to pass.

By making public two days worth of interviews, officials appear to be hoping to at least temporarily keep at bay sustained anger from President Donald Trump’s base even as they continue to sit on other evidence they had suggested was being prepared for public release.

Maxwell recalled knowing about Trump and possibly meeting him for the first time in 1990, when her newspaper magnate father, Robert Maxwell, was the owner of the New York Daily News.

“I may have met Donald Trump at that time, because my father was friendly with him and liked him very much,” Maxwell said, according to the transcript.

Maxwell said her father was fond of Trump’s then-wife, Ivana, “because she was also from Czechoslovakia, where my dad was from.” Maxwell, a onetime socialite who was convicted in 2021 of helping lure teenage girls to be sexually abused by Epstein, was interviewed over the course of two days last month by Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche at a Florida courthouse.

After her interview, Maxwell was moved from the low-security federal prison in Florida where she had been serving a 20-year sentence to a minimum security prison camp in Texas. Neither her lawyer nor the federal Bureau of Prisons have explained the reason for the move.

The Epstein case had long captured public attention in part because of the wealthy financer’s social connections over the years to prominent figures including Prince Andrew, former President Bill Clinton and Trump, who has said his relationship with Epstein ended years before. Epstein was arrested in 2019 on sex-trafficking charges, accused of sexually abusing dozens of teenage girls, and was found dead a month later in a New York jail cell in what investigators described as a suicide.

The saga has consumed the Trump administration over the last month following an abrupt two-page announcement from the FBI and Justice Department that Epstein had killed himself despite conspiracy theories to the contrary, that a “client list” that Attorney General Pam Bondi had intimated was on her desk did not actually exist and that no additional documents from the high-profile investigation were suitable to be released.

The announcement produced outrage from conspiracy theorists, online sleuths and Trump supporters who had been hoping to see proof of a government coverup, an expectation driven in part by comments from officials including FBI Director Kash Patel and Dan Bongino, who on podcasts before taking their current positions had repeatedly promoted the idea that damaging details about prominent people were being withheld.

Mr. Patel, for instance, said in at least one podcast interview before becoming director that Epstein’s “black book” was under the “direct control of the director of the FBI.” The administration had an early stumble in February when far-right influencers were invited to the White House in February and provided by Ms. Bondi with binders marked “The Epstein Files: Phase 1” and “Declassified” that contained documents that had largely already been in the public domain.

After the first release fell flat, Ms. Bondi said officials were poring over a “truckload” of previously withheld evidence she said had been handed over by the FBI and raised expectations of forthcoming releases.

But after a weekslong review of evidence in the government’s possession, the Justice Department said last month that no “further disclosure would be appropriate or warranted.” The department noted that much of the material was placed under seal by a court to protect victims and “only a fraction” of it “would have been aired publicly had Epstein gone to trial.”

Faced with fury from the base, Mr. Trump sought to quickly turn the page, shutting down questioning of Bondi about Epstein at a White House Cabinet meeting and deriding as “weaklings” supporters who he said were falling for the “Jeffrey Epstein Hoax.” The kerfuffle also created bitter divisions within the administration, as Bondi and Bongino angrily clashed at a White House meeting last month. Bongino was uncharacteristically silent on social media for several days after that.

A federal judge in New York who presided over the sex trafficking case against the late financier Jeffrey Epstein has rejected the government’s request to unseal grand jury transcripts.

The ruling on Wednesday (August 20, 2025) by federal Judge Richard Berman in Manhattan came after the judge presiding over the case against British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell also turned down the government’s request.

Maxwell is serving a 20-year prison sentence after her conviction on sex trafficking charges for helping Epstein sexually abuse girls and young women.

Epstein died in jail awaiting trial. A Justice Department spokesperson declined to comment.