As DOJ releases more Epstein documents, survivors brace for impact — again - MS NOW

The Justice Department has now produced FBI memos from three 2019 interviews of a woman who accused both Jeffrey Epstein and Donald Trump of sexually assaulting her when she was a teenager in the 1980s, after reports that the DOJ may have purposely withheld them from public release as required.

The memos were released on the heels of news reports that more than 40,000 files had been either withheld or or taken down from the DOJ’s Epstein documents site.

The DOJ acknowledged that an unknown number of images had been “temporarily pulled down for review due to some flagged for nudity,” and that they have been republished on a rolling basis, including 25,000 [on March 5].”

Epstein survivors are now bracing themselves for whatever else could be added to DOJ’s online library — and warning the Justice Department that further exposure of survivors’ personal information will be seen not as an inadvertent error but as a willful act.

Marina Lacerda, who appeared as Minor Victim #1 in the DOJ’s 2019 indictment of Epstein, told MS NOW that a “beyond incompetent” DOJ has made her skeptical that this newest release will protect survivors like her.

“Every time files are released, it’s like survivors are just left holding on, waiting. It feels almost deliberate. Why can’t we just have one comprehensive release of all the files, so we don’t have to go through this piecemeal? Haven’t they put us through enough?” Lacerda said.

By Thursday night, the DOJ also said the three FBI interview memos from 2019 had been “incorrectly coded as duplicative,” that 12 other documents from the same “batch” were also incorrectly withheld from production, and that five memos prepared by Florida federal prosecutors originally withheld because of privilege concerns could now be produced without compromising the privileged material.

According to the Justice Department, all 20 documents – none of which was published to the public previously – are available through its online library of Epstein-related files.

NPR reported last week that more than 50 pages of notes and memos reflecting FBI interviews with the woman who accused Trump were missing from the site. MS NOW found that of at least four interviews the FBI conducted with the woman related to the Epstein investigations, only one memo — and no handwritten notes — reflecting such an interview was included on the DOJ site.

In response last week to NPR’s reporting, White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson told the outlet, “just as President Trump has said, he’s been totally exonerated on anything relating to Epstein … and by releasing thousands of pages of documents, cooperating with the House Oversight Committee’s subpoena request, signing the Epstein Files Transparency Act, and calling for more investigations into Epstein’s Democrat friends, President Trump has done more for Epstein’s victims than anyone before him.

With this latest announcement of more documents to come, it is not clear whether the Justice Department has completed its intended production, leaving survivors and their allies anxious once again.

A lawyer for a survivor, who requested anonymity for their client and themself due to ongoing safety and privacy concerns, told MS NOW, “The way this has been handled under the pretense of helping survivors has caused irreparable harm to the same human beings it purported to protect.”

“The survivors continue to be non-consensually exposed many years after their abuser’s death.”