So the woman who says Trump sexually assaulted her when she was 13 - the one from the Epstein files - it turns out a lot of what she told the FBI checks out. Not about Trump specifically. That part is still unproven. But the parts a newspaper could actually go check? They held up.
Here’s the story.
In 2019, a woman contacted the FBI after Epstein’s arrest and described being trafficked as a minor in the mid-1980s out of Hilton Head, South Carolina. Her mother was a real estate agent who put a babysitting ad in a client packet. Epstein responded to the ad. She was 13.
The FBI interviewed her four times between July and October of 2019, and she gave investigators a pile of specific, checkable details about her life - names, places, crimes, people.
A South Carolina newspaper, the Post and Courier, went and checked them.
The Ohio businessman she named as one of her abusers, described as a grey-haired man with “big ears” affiliated with a Cincinnati-area college? Board member.
Her mom’s embezzlement arrest in the mid-1980s - to pay off Epstein’s blackmail, she says? Real. Her mother’s real estate license getting suspended by the state commission in 1985? Real. Prison near Columbia? Real.
She mentioned seeing Epstein exactly once in a non-sexual context - at a Rick James concert in Savannah. Newspaper archives confirm Rick James was performing in Savannah regularly around that time.
You don’t just happen to know all that if you made it up.
She also told the FBI that Epstein flew or drove her to a “very tall building with huge rooms” in New York or New Jersey, where he introduced her to Trump. She said Trump sent everyone else out of the room and told her, “let me teach you how little girls are supposed to be.”
What happened next is what she told investigators, and it’s in the files, and it is deeply ugly, and Trump has denied all of it.
The Post and Courier says that encounter with Trump remains unproven. None of the records the paper dug up touch it. Which is how sexual assault against children typically works, by the way - Epstein was very good at making sure of that.
But here’s the thing Karoline Leavitt would prefer you didn’t notice.
The DOJ - Trump’s DOJ, the one that was supposed to release all this under the Epstein Files Transparency Act that Trump himself signed - initially withheld the records of three out of four of those FBI interviews.
NPR and CNN both caught it. The DOJ said the files were “incorrectly coded as duplicative.” The exact same files that had been handed to Ghislaine Maxwell’s defense attorneys during her trial. Maxwell’s legal team had the documents. The American public did not.
After NPR reported it, Democrats on the House Oversight Committee said the DOJ appeared to have illegally withheld the interviews - and less than two weeks later, the files got released. The DOJ framed this as a clerical error. Sure.
A Miami Herald source who works at the DOJ told the paper that investigators don’t sit down with someone four times if they think she’s making things up. That’s just not how it works.
Leavitt called her “a sadly disturbed woman who has an extensive criminal history.” The criminal history is real. It’s also completely beside the point when a newspaper just confirmed details she gave the FBI - her mother’s mid-1980s theft case and later time in a state prison near Columbia, the Ohio businessman she says abused her and his seat on a Cincinnati college’s board, and Rick James playing Savannah back then.
Trump has denied any involvement with Epstein’s crimes, has not been charged with anything, and the DOJ reviewed the files and says it found nothing warranting further investigation. The DOJ that is run by people Trump appointed. That DOJ.
The Epstein Files Transparency Act prohibits withholding documents for reasons of “embarrassment, reputational harm, or political sensitivity.” The files about this woman were withheld. Then released after a fight. Then Leavitt put out a statement calling her disturbed.
All of that, and by one news analysis, we’ve only seen about 2 percent of the total Epstein archive.
Sources- New Republic: 13-Year-Old Trump Accuser’s Epstein Files Details Verified
- Post and Courier: Fuzzy Memories and Hard Facts - An SC Accuser’s Claims Against Epstein, Trump Examined
- NBC News: DOJ Releases Missing Epstein Files
- CNN: Justice Department Releases FBI Interview Related to Trump Abuse Allegation
- NPR: Epstein Files, Trump Accusation, and Maxwell
- The Daily Beast: Key Details of Trump Accuser’s Account Verified
- New Republic: Report: The DOJ Has Only Released a Tiny Fraction of the Epstein Files
Correction, September 27th, 2026: This essay first said her mother got a 1985 federal prison sentence - she was sentenced to probation, and went to a state prison near Columbia after a 1990 parole violation. It also said Karoline Leavitt went on camera - she put out a statement - and it slightly misquoted Leavitt, the DOJ and the FBI’s summary of the interviews.
Update, September 27th, 2026: A few lines now say who says so, the title and opening now say key details she gave the FBI check out, the dates on her mother’s case are tighter, and the Post and Courier link carries the paper’s own headline.