Democrats on the House Oversight Committee have released additional photos from the estate of Jeffrey Epstein, including ones of Donald Trump. (Photo: Epstein Estate/House Oversight and Reform Committee)
On Friday morning, March 6, National Public Radio (NPR) reported that the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) had published "additional Epstein files related to allegations" that President Donald Trump "sexually abused a minor[,] after an NPR investigation found dozens of pages were withheld."
That includes "16 new pages that cover three additional FBI interview summaries with a woman who accused Trump of sexual abuse decades ago when she was a minor," according to NPR reporters Stephen Fowler and Saige Miller.
MS NOW legal analyst Lisa Rubin discussed these developments during a Friday afternoon conversation with host Chris Jansing, arguing that Trump-era DOJ's explanation is falling flat in light of the "salacious" allegations in the files.
"With respect to this Trump accuser," Rubin told Jansing, "she is now detailing, in these documents, how she came to meet Donald Trump — the assault that she says she experienced at his hands. And perhaps, maybe most importantly of all, we understand now why the FBI might have stopped talking to her in October of 2019. This woman told the FBI that she understood that the statutes of limitations with respect to her allegations against both Jeffrey Epstein and Donald Trump had long since passed. And therefore, she said to them, what's the point of my giving you any more detail?"
Jansing asked Rubin if "we know why" the DOJ files in question are "just being released" — to which she responded, "No. I mean, I can tell you what the Department of Justice has said."
"The Department of Justice's public explanation is that these are documents that were inadvertently marked as duplicates during their review and production procedure," Rubin told Jansing. "However, it's unclear to me, given some of the allegations here, whether that is a plausible or even a truthful explanation. As you and I were discussing before the segment started, there are some allegations in some of these other new documents that concern other public people."
The MS NOW legal analyst continued, "That's not to say that the produced files don't contain allegations against public individuals. But given the vivid nature of some of these allegations and how salacious they are, it also seems like this might not be the story of what actually went down."
