ALSO SEE: Donald Trump Allegations in New Epstein Files Release: Read in Full
Sexual assault allegations against Donald Trump disappeared from the Epstein files within hours of them being published.
Over three million pages of Epstein files were published by the department of justice (DoJ) on Friday.
One document contains a series of uncorroborated tips about Mr Trump collated by the FBI in August last year, including claims that a 13- or 14-year-old girl was forced to perform oral sex on the president decades ago.
It is unclear how much weight the bureau attached to the tips, which are unverified and have been fiercely denied by the White House.
In a statement published in tandem with the Epstein files on Friday, the DoJ warned: “Some of the documents contain untrue and sensationalist claims against President Trump that were submitted to the FBI right before the 2020 election.
“To be clear, the claims are unfounded and false, and if they have a shred of credibility, they certainly would have been weaponised against President Trump already.”
The White House released the same statement.
Document down ’due to overload’
The file was later restored and the DoJ told The Telegraph: “This document was down due to overload and is back online.”
The lurid claims about Mr Trump received a substantial amount of attention on social media before they disappeared from the DoJ website.
Todd Blanche, the deputy US attorney general, admitted that the team tasked with reviewing the documents would inevitably have made mistakes and would “immediately correct any redaction errors”.
According to the document, the FBI received an uncorroborated tip that a 13- or 14-year-old girl was forced to perform oral sex on Mr Trump more than three decades previously in New Jersey.
The claim was made by an “unidentified female friend” of the alleged victim.
According to the complaint, the girl claimed she bit Mr Trump while performing the sex act, and was “allegedly hit in the face after she laughed” about it.
The FBI recorded that its Washington office was directed to conduct an interview with the witness, but does not clarify whether this took place.
There is no indication the bureau, which receives a huge volume of uncorroborated tips from the public, attached any weight to the claim.
Other allegations include graphic details of so called “orgy parties” that the president is accused by an unknown person of taking part in.
It is unclear when the allegation was made or why, months after Mr Trump returned to office, the FBI decided to compile a list of claims made against the president in connection with Epstein.
The tips were included in emails sent from the FBI’s New York field office to its child exploitation and human trafficking taskforce.
Many of the accusations resulted in officials trying, and failing, to make contact with the accusers. One individual who was spoken to was “deemed not credible”.
The White House warned the Epstein files “may include fake or falsely submitted images, documents or videos” because the administration had turned over “everything that was sent to the FBI by the public”.
In a tranche of the files released on Dec 19, an image of Epstein’s desk displaying a photo of Mr Trump surrounded by women was published, deleted by the justice department, and then reuploaded following an outcry.
Mr Blanche denied at the time that Mr Trump had intervened to censor the picture of himself, and pledged that every photo of the president in the Epstein files would be released.
The deputy attorney general, who previously acted as the president’s lawyer, sought to shield Mr Trump from any suggestion of wrongdoing when he announced the release of the files on Friday.
Epstein had never suggested Mr Trump did “anything criminal or had any inappropriate contact with any of his victims”, he told Fox News in an interview.
In a press conference, he also pushed back on claims the justice department had broken the law by delaying the release of the files to protect the president, claiming the documents reviewed by the team were the size of “two Eiffel Towers”.
Democrats have claimed the administration is still suppressing the full Epstein files, noting Mr Blanche said the justice department had reviewed six million documents but released half that number.
Other high-profile figures also feature in the latest release, including Bill Gates, whom Epstein claimed caught a sexually transmitted disease after sleeping with Russian women, Elon Musk, who allegedly planned to visit Epstein’s island, and Lord Mandelson, whose husband was allegedly paid £10,000 by Epstein.
They all deny wrongdoing.
