Todd Blanche’s DOJ Forced to Turn Over Epstein Interview Notes (10/19/26)

Attorney General Todd Blanche’s Justice Department turned over handwritten FBI notes connected to three interviews with a woman who alleged that Jeffrey Epstein introduced her to Donald Trump when she was approximately 13 years old and that Trump subsequently sexually assaulted her. The allegation remains an allegation and has not been established in court. The notes became a major point of contention in journalist Katie Phang’s lawsuit seeking enforcement of the Epstein Files Transparency Act because DOJ had released the corresponding typed FBI FD-302 interview reports but resisted processing and publishing the agents’ underlying handwritten notes, arguing that they were essentially duplicative. Judge Emmet Sullivan rejected that explanation and ordered DOJ to provide both redacted and unredacted versions for his private review. On October 16, shortly before Sullivan’s noon deadline, DOJ hand-delivered a binder containing redacted versions of the notes underlying three of those FBI interviews.

The larger story was the amount of judicial pressure required to get DOJ to produce material that Sullivan had already specifically ordered it to provide. The department acknowledged that it had previously given Sullivan unredacted copies of the notes on September 24 but had not created redacted versions because it considered the documents duplicative and therefore unnecessary for the public Epstein Library. Sullivan pointed out that DOJ had already published nearly 100 examples of redacted handwritten interview notes elsewhere, undermining its argument that these particular records presented insurmountable processing problems, and he gave the department another deadline to comply. Even after turning them over, DOJ continued resisting their public release, asking Sullivan to stay any future order requiring publication so the government could seek appellate review. Raw Story therefore framed the episode as another example of Blanche’s DOJ surrendering Epstein-related material only after sustained litigation and the prospect of sanctions or contempt, rather than voluntarily making the records available under the transparency law.

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Contempt threat pries loose FBI notes on Trump sex abuse allegation DOJ fought to withhold - Raw Story