FBI agents who interviewed a South Carolina woman in 2019 kept detailed handwritten notes throughout their sessions with her. She had told investigators that Jeffrey Epstein lured her as a teenager on Hilton Head Island and later trafficked her to New York or New Jersey, where she alleged she encountered Donald Trump and was sexually assaulted. Those notes, spanning roughly 30 pages, have never been included in the millions of Epstein documents the Justice Department has released to the public. Now, for the first time, a news organization has reviewed them and compared them against what was officially published.
The Post and Courier, based in Charleston, South Carolina, reviewed the 30 pages of handwritten FBI interview notes and found that several details documented during the interviews did not appear in the formal summaries, known as 302s, that the Justice Department publicly released. The differences range from additional specificity about the alleged victim's travel arrangements to the names of four teenage girls the woman said were present at a pool gathering where Epstein appeared on Hilton Head Island.
What the Handwritten Notes Contain That the 302s Do Not
The official 302 summaries that the Department of Justice released describe the woman's account of traveling with Epstein in cautious, qualified terms. According to the published 302: "He drove her and/or flew her to either New York or New Jersey." The language reflects uncertainty about the mode and destination of travel.
The handwritten notes, according to the Post and Courier's review, come across as more definitive on both points. Agents jotted that Epstein "drove her and flew her" to New York and New Jersey, removing the ambiguity of "and/or" and confirming both modes of transport rather than presenting them as alternatives. The distinction matters because, if true, the travel of a minor across state lines for sexual purposes constitutes federal sex trafficking.
On the alleged encounter with Trump, the 302 states she "was introduced to someone with money, money, money" and identified that person as Trump. The 302 also notes she described "two additional interactions" with Trump, but that when agents tried to ask her about them she "asked that the interview move on to a different subject for the time being." The handwritten notes, the Post and Courier found, mirror that passage but also note that the woman said she overheard Trump and Epstein discussing "business matters, including a casino." She described Trump as someone who "did not like her from the get-go" before going on to describe what she said was a sexual assault.
Regarding the Hilton Head pool party, the published 302 refers to a nighttime gathering at what may have been a Marriott hotel, with the names of other attendees redacted. The handwritten notes are more specific: they identify the location as the Marriott at Shipyard Plantation and include the names of four friends the woman said were present at the pool. The Post and Courier contacted one of those women, who confirmed that the hotel pool was a gathering spot for high school friends who would sneak in after school hours. That woman said she had no memory of any "creepiness" involving Epstein. Two others declined to comment. One woman named in the notes had also separately called the FBI tip line to offer her own account of the alleged victim's involvement with Epstein.
The Broader Pattern of Missing Documents
The unreleased handwritten notes are part of a significantly larger gap in what the Justice Department has made publicly available from the Epstein files. An NPR investigation published in February 2026 found that the DOJ had withheld or removed some Epstein files related specifically to allegations involving Trump. NPR's review of multiple sets of unique serial numbers stamped on documents, FBI case records, and discovery document logs found what appeared to be approximately 53 pages of interview documents and notes missing from the public database.
According to NPR's reporting, the FBI interviewed the South Carolina woman four times. Only the first interview, conducted July 24, 2019, appeared in the public database, and that interview did not mention Trump. Of 15 documents listed in a log of the Maxwell criminal case discovery material related to this accuser, only seven appeared in the Epstein files database.
In March 2026, the DOJ released FBI interview memos it had previously classified as "duplicative," according to CNN. A Justice Department statement said: "What we found through extensive review is that a published 302 had subsequent 302s that were coded as 'duplicative.' After this was brought to our attention, we reviewed the entire batch with the similar coding and discovered 15 documents were incorrectly coded as duplicative." That statement did not explain why, beyond possible human error, the records were marked that way in the first place. As of the time of reporting, the handwritten interview notes themselves remained absent from the public database.
In a February 2026 letter to members of Congress, then-Attorney General Pam Bondi and then-Deputy AG Todd Blanche stated that 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." Bondi was fired on April 2, 2026. Blanche now serves as acting Attorney General.
The DOJ Response: No Missing Pages
The Justice Department has consistently denied that pages are missing. In response to Post and Courier questions about its review of the FBI handwritten notes, a DOJ spokesperson issued a statement: "There are no missing pages and the Department categorically rejects this media-created myth. This production may include fake or falsely submitted images, documents or videos, as everything that was sent to the FBI by the public was included in the production that is responsive to the Act."
The statement implies the handwritten notes may fall outside the scope of what the Epstein Files Transparency Act required to be released, or that they were classified in a category the department considers responsive to other legal standards. The department has separately indicated that some withheld records are privileged, are genuine duplicates, or relate to ongoing federal investigations. The handwritten notes are not addressed specifically by any of those categories in the available public statements.
The White House has also disputed the accuser's story directly. Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told The Daily Beast: "The total baselessness of these accusations is also supported by the obvious fact that Joe Biden's Department of Justice knew about them for four years and did nothing with them because they knew President Trump did absolutely nothing wrong." Leavitt added: "As we have said countless times, President Trump has been totally exonerated by the release of the Epstein Files."
Who Is the Accuser and What Did She Allege?
The woman is a South Carolina resident whose identity has not been made public. She is not named in any of the available documents or in the reporting by the news organizations that have reviewed materials related to her account.
According to the materials reviewed by NPR and the Post and Courier, the woman alleged that Epstein began sexually abusing her on Hilton Head Island in the early 1980s when she was around 13 years old, plying her with drugs and alcohol. She said Epstein introduced her to his circle as she got older and that he eventually transported her to the New York area, where she was introduced to Trump. In her account to FBI agents as described in the 302, Trump ordered everyone else out of the room, unzipped his pants, and pushed her head down to his penis. She said she bit him, and he punched her in the head in response.
The woman filed a federal lawsuit in December 2019, identified in court filings as "Jane Doe 4," with allegations of sexual abuse by Epstein on Hilton Head Island in the mid-1980s that do not mention Trump. That lawsuit was voluntarily dismissed and then settled through Epstein's estate in December 2021, according to her attorney.
The FBI agents noted in their interview that when the woman identified Epstein from a photograph, it was a cropped image. Her attorney told the FBI this was because she "was concerned about implicating additional individuals, and specifically any that were well known, due to fear of retaliation." Agents noted the original photograph was a "widely distributed photograph" of Epstein with Trump.
Congressional Response
In February 2026, following NPR's initial reporting on the missing documents, Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA), the ranking member of the House Oversight Committee, released a statement saying he had personally reviewed unredacted evidence logs at the Department of Justice. Garcia stated: "Oversight Democrats can confirm that the DOJ appears to have illegally withheld FBI interviews with this survivor who accused President Trump of heinous crimes." Democrats on the Oversight Committee announced a parallel investigation into the DOJ's decision not to release those specific documents.
Rep. Garcia was among lawmakers who reviewed materials in a classified or restricted setting that the general public cannot access. His statement implies that what he saw at DOJ diverged materially from what DOJ had published.
The House Oversight Committee, under Republican leadership, had separately been investigating the Epstein files. Prior to being fired, Bondi faced a formal subpoena from the committee and provided what Democrats characterized as a non-responsive briefing.
Context: The Epstein Files Transparency Act and Its Limits
The Epstein Files Transparency Act, which Trump signed in November 2025, mandated release of DOJ Epstein records. As of early 2026, approximately 3 million pages had been released, according to NPR's reporting. But the act gave the DOJ authority to withhold records that are privileged, constitute genuine duplicates, or relate to ongoing federal investigations. The scope of those exceptions, and how broadly the department has applied them, has been a central point of dispute between DOJ officials and journalists or congressional investigators who believe the exceptions are being used too broadly.
The handwritten notes from the FBI interviews fall into an ambiguous category. They are not formal FBI 302 summaries. Agents' raw notes are typically considered internal working documents and may or may not fall squarely within the Act's mandate. Whether they should have been included in any release, and why they were not, remains an open question that the DOJ has declined to answer in specific terms.
What is documented, based on the work of multiple news organizations with access to the notes or the relevant file logs, is this: the gap between what agents wrote in the room and what was eventually published is real, and some of what was written down was never released to the public that a law specifically created to inform.
The formal summaries released to the public describe an accuser's uncertainty. The raw notes describe something more definitive. Whether that difference reflects redaction decisions, document classification, human error, or deliberate omission is what investigators, lawmakers, and reporters are still trying to determine.