The Justice Department withheld and removed documents from its public database related to sexual abuse allegations against President Trump that also mention Jeffrey Epstein, according to an investigation by NPR published Tuesday .
Some files were not made public despite a federal law requiring their release. The missing records include more than 50 pages of FBI interviews and notes from conversations with a woman who accused Trump of sexual abuse when she was a minor decades ago, the investigation found .
NPR reviewed serial numbers stamped on documents in the Epstein files database, FBI case records, emails and discovery logs. The review found dozens of pages that appear to be catalogued by the Justice Department but were not shared with the public .
The documents in question relate to two women. One woman accused Trump of sexually abusing her around 1983, when she was approximately 13 years old. According to files that were released, the woman claimed Epstein introduced her to Trump, who then forced her head toward his exposed penis. She said she bit him, and he punched her and kicked her out .
FBI records show agents interviewed this accuser four times. Only the first interview, conducted July 24, 2019, appears in the public database. That interview does not mention Trump. Of 15 documents listed in discovery material for this accuser, only seven are in the Epstein files database .
The second woman, who testified in the criminal trial of Ghislaine Maxwell, told FBI investigators that Epstein took her to Trump's Mar-a-Lago club to meet him when she was a minor. Epstein told Trump, "This is a good one, huh," according to an interview report .
That interview was removed from the Justice Department website after its initial publication Jan. 30 and was later republished Feb. 19, according to document metadata .
The Justice Department declined to answer NPR's questions about why specific files were withheld or removed .
White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson told NPR that Trump "has done more for Epstein's victims than anyone before him." She said Trump has been "totally exonerated on anything relating to Epstein" and pointed to his signing of the Epstein Files Transparency Act and cooperation with congressional inquiries .
The White House previously referred to a Justice Department statement that the Epstein files contain "untrue and sensationalist claims" about the president .
In a Feb. 14 letter to Congress, Attorney General Pam Bondi and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said no records were withheld or redacted "on the basis of embarrassment, reputational harm, or political sensitivity, including to any government official, public figure, or foreign dignitary" .
A DOJ spokesperson said the department is working to address concerns from victims and handle additional redactions of personal information. The statement said that because of the volume of material, the website "may nevertheless contain information that inadvertently includes non-public personally identifiable information or other sensitive content" .
Lawmakers from both parties have criticized the Trump administration's handling of the Epstein file release in recent weeks. Some have accused the Justice Department of violating the law and operating without transparency in its redaction process .
Robert Glassman, an attorney for the woman who testified against Maxwell, sharply criticized the process. He said the Justice Department was ordered to release information to be transparent but instead released victim names .
The documents were released under the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which Trump signed in November 2025. The act mandated the disclosure of materials related to Epstein, who died by suicide in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges .
The Justice Department released more than three million pages of files in late January. An initial scan by The New York Times found Trump's name appeared infrequently in the documents .
Data from the DOJ website showed that searches for "Donald Trump" in the database dropped from 5,361 hits on Jan. 30 to 1,474 by Feb. 5. The Justice Department attributed holds on some documents to privileges, duplicates and exceptions in the act such as depictions of violence .