The FBI kept handwritten notes from an interview with a woman who told investigators that Donald Trump sexually assaulted her when she was just 13 years old. Those notes, according to a new report, were never made public. And what they reveal goes further than what investigators put in their official summaries.
The woman, a South Carolina native, told federal agents that she was trafficked by Jeffrey Epstein, who brought her to either New York or New Jersey in 1984. She said she was introduced to Trump during that trip. She was about 13 years old at the time.
The Post and Courier, the South Carolina-based newspaper that has been digging into the Epstein files for months, first revealed that roughly 30 pages of documents tied to her case were never released. Now, the paper has gone a step further.
The outlet has now reported that key details found in the FBI’s handwritten notes never made it into the official, typed-up summaries known as 302s. Those are the documents the Department of Justice eventually released to the public.
The differences matter. In the official 302 summaries, the woman appeared somewhat uncertain about how she traveled with Epstein.
“He drove her and/or flew her to either New York or New Jersey,” one summary read. “She was introduced to someone with money, money, money. It was Donald Trump.”
The handwritten notes, however, tell a slightly different story. They suggest Epstein both drove and flew her to New York and New Jersey, with no “or” in between. That distinction is not small. If true, it would legally constitute underage sex trafficking, according to the Post and Courier.
The notes also describe the woman overhearing Trump and Epstein talking about business matters, including a casino. She said Trump “did not like her from the get-go,” and then went on to describe the alleged assault in detail.
The woman told investigators that Trump ordered everyone out of the room, unzipped his pants, and pushed her head toward him. She said she bit him, after which he punched her in the head.
The 302 also noted that the woman had “two additional interactions” with Trump. But when agents tried to ask her about them, she reportedly asked to move on to a different subject.
In March, the Department of Justice released summaries of three FBI interviews with the woman. Those interviews were conducted between August and October 2019. The release came only after significant public pressure, following earlier reports that the files had been missing from the DOJ’s public database.
The DOJ has denied any wrongdoing in how it handled the files. A spokesperson told The Daily Beast, “There are no missing pages and the Department categorically rejects this media-created myth.”
The same statement added: “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.”
The White House has also pushed back hard on the woman’s account. Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt addressed the matter directly.
“The total baselessness of these accusations is also supported by the obvious fact that Joe Biden’s Department of Justice knew about them for four years and did nothing with them, because they knew President Trump did absolutely nothing wrong,” Leavitt said.
She added: “As we have said countless times, President Trump has been totally exonerated by the release of the Epstein Files.”
But investigative journalists at the Post and Courier say the story is not that simple. They reviewed all 30 pages of the FBI’s handwritten notes and found that agents also wrote down names of potential witnesses, including the names of teenage girls who allegedly attended a pool party on Hilton Head Island where Epstein appeared. Those names were never made visible in the publicly released 302s.
One of the women named in those notes told the paper that she was never contacted by the FBI. That raises serious questions about whether investigators ever followed up on the leads the woman gave them.
The Post and Courier also found that a fourth interview with the accuser, conducted in 2019, was never made available for the paper to review. That interview has not been publicly released either.
The broader fight over the Epstein files is far from over. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island has demanded the DOJ preserve all related documents and follow the law. Former Attorney General Pam Bondi, who oversaw much of the file release process, was ousted by Trump on April 2. She is still expected to testify before a congressional committee on April 14 about the DOJ’s handling of these files.
What these newly surfaced notes make clear is this: the official record that Americans were given was not the full picture. Whether that gap was accidental or intentional is exactly the question that Congress, journalists, and the public are still trying to answer.
