She Was a Minor. The FBI Interviewed Her Four Times. Then Someone Deleted the Record.

BREAKING: The FBI interviewed an Epstein victim who said Trump sexually assaulted her when she was underage. Not once. At least four times. And now the document reflecting those additional interviews? Gone. Deleted from the DOJ website.

You don’t lose something like that by accident.

Roger Sollenberger, an award-winning investigative journalist, reported on February 15, 2026 that FBI documents in the publicly released Epstein files show the Bureau interviewed an Epstein victim who accused Donald Trump of sexually assaulting her when she was 13 to 15 years old, and that the DOJ subsequently removed from its website a document indicating at least four such interviews took place. The underlying FBI documents (a 21-page internal slideshow, a July 2019 FD-302, internal DOJ emails, and a case index) have been independently verified by The Daily Beast. You can read Sollenberger’s full report here.

As of Wednesday evening, no major fact-checking organization has specifically evaluated Sollenberger’s full analytical chain connecting these documents, and the DOJ has called the allegations “unfounded and false.” At this point I don’t believe anything the DOJ tells us and so, I put on my trial lawyer hat and did my best to distinguish verified facts from inference at every step of Sollenberger’s reporting.¹

Roger Sollenberger is an award-winning investigative reporter with no known retractions

Sollenberger is a mid-career political journalist who rose to prominence at The Daily Beast through document-driven investigations. His most notable work, a series exposing Georgia Senate candidate Herschel Walker’s undisclosed children, a paid abortion, and fabricated business claims, won the 2023 Deadline Club Award for Best Reporting by Independent Digital Media and the 2023 New York Press Club Gold Keyboard Award, the organization’s highest honor. Judges wrote that it was “excellent investigative work that drove the national conversation.”

He previously worked at Salon and placed stories with BuzzFeed News, WIRED, The New Republic, and VICE. He also broke the Matt Schlapp sexual assault story (independently confirmed by NBC, CNN, and NYT), reported on Project 2025 leadership changes, and conducted multi-part investigations of Rep. Cory Mills. He departed The Daily Beast around mid-to-late 2024 and now publishes on Substack while freelancing. His reporting methodology relies heavily on public records, FEC filings, court documents, tax returns, and government databases.

No retractions or formal corrections have been identified in his body of work. Conservative outlets have attacked him over prior employment at Chinese drone company DJI, but those attacks originated from sources with significant credibility issues of their own (The Gateway Pundit, which has faced defamation lawsuits). His reporting has overwhelmingly targeted Republican political figures, which critics cite as evidence of political orientation.

What Sollenberger’s two Substack posts specifically claim

Post 1 (February 15, 2026): “FBI Interviewed Trump Accuser, Epstein Files Show”

Sollenberger identified and connected multiple documents within the DOJ’s publicly searchable Epstein database:

The FBI slideshow. A 21-page internal FBI presentation created in summer 2025 (around the time Deputy AG Todd Blanche interviewed Ghislaine Maxwell for a jailhouse proffer) contains a slide titled “Prominent Names.” Slide 18 includes two allegations against Trump. The first, sourced directly from a victim: “[Redacted] stated Epstein introduced her to Trump who subsequently forced her head down to his exposed penis which she subsequently bit. In response, Trump punched her in the head and kicked her out. (date range 1983-1985, [redacted] would have been 13-15).” The second, from a Maxwell trial witness, described Epstein introducing a 14-year-old girl to Trump at Mar-a-Lago around 1994, with Epstein saying “This is a good one, huh” and Trump responding “Yes.”

The FBI 302. An FBI interview summary (FD-302) dated July 24, 2019 documents agents from the FBI’s Seattle field office interviewing an Epstein victim and her attorney. It was entered into FBI case files on August 9, 2019, one day before Epstein was found dead. During the interview, the woman showed agents a photo of Epstein and Trump on her phone and asked if she could crop Trump out, citing fear of retaliation. Her attorney stated she was “concerned about implicating additional individuals, and specifically any that were well known.” The FBI noted agents recognized the image as “a widely distributed photograph of JEFFREY EPSTEIN and current United States President DONALD TRUMP.”

The forensic connection. Sollenberger’s key analytical contribution was linking the slideshow allegations to the 302 interview by matching biographical details: both reference a woman victimized in the 1980s at ages 13–15, with connections to the “Island area of South Carolina,” and a criminal history in South Carolina. These details match public reporting about a South Carolina victim who relocated to Vancouver, Washington (near Seattle, explaining the Seattle FBI field office), who sued Epstein’s estate and received a settlement in 2021.

Post 2 (~February 18–19, 2026): “DOJ Removed Record of Multiple FBI Interviews with Underage Trump Accuser, Epstein Data Shows”

The follow-up reported that an FBI case index document lists five PROTECT SOURCE entries for this woman, corresponding to at least four numbered interviews. Only “Interview One” (the July 24, 2019 session) appears in the released files. Interviews 2, 3, and 4 are missing. Sollenberger reported that the document showing these additional interviews “appears to have been deleted from the DOJ website.”

The accuser is distinct from the 2016 “Katie Johnson” plaintiff

This is a critical distinction. The woman in the FBI files is not the same person as “Katie Johnson” (or “Jane Doe”) who filed federal lawsuits against Trump and Epstein in 2016 alleging rape at age 13 in 1994. Those suits were voluntarily dismissed days before the 2016 election and never reached the merits. That case also carried credibility concerns due to the involvement of Norm Lubow, a former Jerry Springer producer.

The South Carolina accuser in the FBI files is a different individual whose biographical details match “Jane Doe 4” in a lawsuit filed by attorney Arick Fudali of the Lisa Bloom firm (which represents 11 Epstein accusers). That lawsuit describes Jane Doe 4 meeting Epstein through a babysitting ad in Hilton Head, South Carolina, around age 13, being flown to New York “on approximately three or four occasions” for “intimate gatherings with other prominent, wealthy men,” and being “brutally and forcibly battered, assaulted, and raped by these other men.” The lawsuit states: “One of these prominent men forcibly slapped Jane Doe 4 in the face after she was forced to perform oral sex on him.” Jane Doe 4 settled with the Epstein estate. Lisa Bloom’s firm declined to comment.

The FBI designated this woman “PROTECT SOURCE”, a classification an FBI source told journalists Nina Burleigh and Katie Chenoweth is “typically used for high-risk informants such as mafia rats” and appears nowhere else in the Epstein files. The woman told the FBI she “never would have written down what happened to her,” only told two people about the abuse (one of whom, her mother, had died), and kept no diary or recordings. She ultimately stopped cooperating with the FBI, never filed a civil case naming Trump, and never publicly mentioned him.

The Epstein files release was mandated by Congress and plagued by irregularities

The Epstein Files Transparency Act (H.R. 4405) was introduced by Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) and Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), passed the House 427–1 and the Senate unanimously on November 18, 2025, and was signed by President Trump on November 19, 2025. It required AG Pam Bondi to publicly release all unclassified records related to Epstein within 30 days. No records could be withheld on the basis of “embarrassment, reputational harm, or political sensitivity.”

The DOJ released files in multiple batches: an initial tranche of ~3,500 files on the December 19, 2025 deadline (widely criticized as incomplete, with nearly 700 pages fully redacted), followed by a massive January 30, 2026 release of over 3 million additional pages, 2,000+ videos, and 180,000 images. The files are hosted at justice.gov/epstein (the “Epstein Library”).

Document removals are extensively documented. Within 24 hours of the December 19 release, at least 16 files disappeared without explanation, including a photograph of Trump, confirmed by AP, PBS, NPR, and Snopes. The DOJ claimed the Trump photo was pulled “out of an abundance of caution” to protect victims and later reposted it. After the January 30 release, U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton filed a letter acknowledging the DOJ removed “several thousand documents and media” due to inadvertent inclusion of victim-identifying information. Attorneys for 300+ Epstein survivors filed an emergency letter describing an “unfolding emergency” with “thousands of redaction failures on behalf of nearly 100 individual survivors.” On February 12, Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) formally demanded the DOJ explain each removal. The DOJ also removed bulk download capability in early February, making independent verification significantly harder.

Additional irregularities include the DOJ withholding approximately 200,000 pages under deliberative process privilege (disputed by lawmakers as exceeding statutory authority), adding names like Janis Joplin and Kurt Cobain to a “prominent names” list sent to Congress (widely derided as deliberate obfuscation), and AG Bondi being photographed at a congressional hearing with a document showing she was tracking a lawmaker’s search history of unredacted files.

The DOJ called the allegations “unfounded and false” but did not address the specific document removal

The DOJ’s primary response came in its January 30, 2026 press release: “This production may include fake or falsely submitted images, documents or videos... 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 weaponized against President Trump already.”

Deputy AG Todd Blanche stated the DOJ “did not protect President Trump” and “didn’t protect or not protect anybody.” However, the DOJ has not issued any specific statement addressing Sollenberger’s claim that a document showing additional FBI interviews was removed from the website. Rep. Ro Khanna stated publicly that “Donald Trump’s FBI scraped these documents in March” and that “the thing that they took out were survivors’ statements to FBI agents about rich and powerful men.”

Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One: “I have nothing to hide. I’ve been exonerated. I have nothing to do with Jeffrey Epstein.” The White House, when contacted by The Daily Beast about the FBI interview report, referred reporters to the DOJ’s blanket statement.

Corroboration exists for the underlying documents but not for every analytical inference

What is independently verified:

The Daily Beast published its own detailed article on February 17, 2026 (”Bombshell Epstein File Reveals FBI Interviewed Underage Trump Accuser”), independently verifying the underlying documents, the 21-page slideshow, the FBI 302, and the internal email chain, and crediting Sollenberger as first to report the connection. CNN, AP/PBS, and multiple outlets have confirmed the broader pattern of DOJ document removal. Snopes verified that the DOJ published and then removed documents containing Trump-related allegations, and that Trump’s name was redacted in re-released versions where it had previously appeared. The Internet Archive has preserved 1.37 million+ PDFs from the Epstein collection, and Courier Newsroom explicitly retained files “deleted by the DOJ.”

What remains analytical inference, not independently replicated:

Sollenberger’s characterization of the woman as a “credible accuser” is his inference from the totality of evidence, multiple FBI interviews, the Epstein estate settlement, the PROTECT SOURCE designation, and inclusion in internal DOJ presentations. No document explicitly labeled by the FBI as deeming her “credible” regarding the Trump allegation specifically has been publicly surfaced. CNN noted: “There’s no public evidence that any of the allegations against Trump contained in the new documents were deemed credible by the FBI.” The New York Times reported it was unable to corroborate the specific assault allegations from the FBI tip database. The Daily Beast stated: “No evidence was provided in the email chains or FBI presentation to support the allegation” and “it remains unclear what became of the investigation.” Experienced Epstein researcher Thomas Volscho has stated reasons why the allegation “should be treated with caution.”

No major fact-checking organization (Snopes, PolitiFact, FactCheck.org) has specifically evaluated Sollenberger’s full analytical chain. No direct debunking exists either.

Four FBI interviews carry significant legal weight — and the gaps raise serious questions

In FBI investigative practice, four separate interviews of a single accuser represent substantial resource allocation, each requiring at minimum two agents, travel, and separate FD-302 preparation. Multiple interviews serve to test consistency, probe new areas, and develop leads. This level of attention is typically reserved for witnesses the Bureau considers material to an active investigation. The unique PROTECT SOURCE designation further indicates the FBI assessed a genuine safety risk, consistent with a credible accuser naming powerful individuals.

The legal implications of removing FBI interview summaries from a congressionally mandated disclosure are significant. Under 18 U.S.C. § 1519, knowingly concealing a federal record with intent to impede investigation carries penalties of up to 20 years imprisonment. The Ninth Circuit has confirmed that law enforcement reports qualify as “records” under this statute. The Epstein Files Transparency Act itself prohibits withholding records on the basis of embarrassment or reputational harm. The Democracy Defenders Fund has filed a complaint with the DOJ Office of Inspector General seeking a compliance audit, and American Oversight has filed FOIA lawsuits seeking to compel disclosure of whether Trump was ever interviewed during the original Epstein investigation.

However, the DOJ could argue that omissions are justified by victim privacy protections, and the broader context includes acknowledged redaction failures and server issues affecting many files, not just those related to Trump. The DOJ’s stated position is that removals were for victim protection or technical reasons.

Conclusion

The core documents underlying Sollenberger’s report, the FBI slideshow, the 302 interview, the internal emails, are verified as existing within the DOJ’s Epstein database and have been independently confirmed by The Daily Beast. The broader pattern of DOJ document removal is extensively documented by AP, PBS, Snopes, and Congress.

What remains in the territory of informed inference rather than established fact is: (1) whether the FBI specifically deemed this accuser “credible” regarding Trump (Sollenberger’s characterization, not a direct FBI finding surfaced in public documents); (2) whether the removal of the document showing additional interviews was deliberate suppression versus part of the DOJ’s acknowledged, and chaotic, redaction correction process; and (3) what became of the FBI’s investigation into these allegations.

The most defensible framing is that verified FBI documents show agents interviewed an Epstein victim who accused Trump of assault as a minor, the FBI conducted at least four interviews (per case index records), only one interview appears in the released files, and the DOJ has not explained this specific gap, while noting the DOJ’s blanket denial and the distinction between verified documents and analytical conclusions drawn from them.

Mitch Jackson, Esq.

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1. We ran facts presented in the original article and the underlying information through our law firm’s due diligence and fact check AI system. What you’re reading reflects both the AI’s analysis and the perspective that comes from four decades of legal experience reviewing evidence and separating fact from fiction. Always do your own due diligence.