|
 |
This story cannot go away.
The missing Epstein files that are in the news right now are ones that contain mulitiple FBI interviews with a woman who made accusations that Trump assaulted her in the 1980’s when she was 13 years old. These interviews were done in 2019, smack dab in the middle of Trump’s first time in office. If the FBI thought they were not credible, why interview her multiple times? Why were they not included in the massive dump of Epstein files?
The woman came forward days after Epstein was arrested on sex trafficking charges in 2019. She also said Epstein repeatedly assaulted her when she was a minor.
From the NYTimes: It is unclear why the materials are missing. The Justice Department said in a statement to The Times on Monday that “the only materials that have been withheld were either privileged or duplicates.” In a new statement on Tuesday, the department also noted that documents could have been withheld because of “an ongoing federal investigation.” Officials did not directly address why the memos related to the woman’s claim were not released. On Wednesday afternoon, the Justice Department said in a new statement that it was reviewing which documents were released in connection to the index.
A lawyer who previously represented the woman in a lawsuit against Mr. Epstein’s estate declined to comment.
Probably because they’ve been threatened.
According to the Times, more than 50 pages of investigative materials related to her claims are not in the publicly available files. The missing materials were reported earlier by the journalist Roger Sollenberger on Substack and by NPR.
Here is the powerful detailed original report from NPR.
Representative Robert Garcia of California, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, is on this. For more details, and there are more in here, I strongly recommend you read the Time’s piece and NPR’s piece.
“We are witnessing a White House cover-up of serious allegations against the president by a survivor,” Garcia said in a statement to NPR. “We demand Attorney General Pam Bondi come clean about why these documents are being hidden, comply with our legally binding subpoena by sharing all records, and tell the American people if their president is under investigation for allegations of sexual assault.”
In Garcia’s letter to the DOJ, he wrote: “In response to these disturbing revelations, DOJ refused to address the specific reasons for the withholding of these materials, noting only that it is suppressing documents that are 'duplicates, privileged, or part of an ongoing federal investigation.”
Below are some videos about this, a few I saw just this morning.
There’s more news, of course. I just wanted to focus on this since I did’t write about it much yet. I realized the other day while talking to students via zoom in Denmark that I don’t draw many feminist cartoons right now. I have tons in the archives that sadly still ring true. I post one below. But so much is consuming me/us about our democracy.
Thanks for being here. Stay well and focused.
 |
