A federal judge ruled Wednesday that Attorney General Todd Blanche must turn over handwritten FBI notes from several interviews with a woman who accused both President Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein of sexually abusing her when she was a teenager decades prior.
In a 20-page order, U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan, a Reagan appointee in Washington, ruled that the Justice Department must provide the handwritten notes from the interviews, which occurred between July and October 2019, to the court for review by 11 a.m. E.T. on Sept. 24. Sullivan’s order does not yet require the DOJ to release the notes publicly.
The ruling was issued in an ongoing lawsuit brought by independent journalist and former MS NOW host Katie Phang that seeks to compel the government to release more unredacted Epstein files.
The DOJ has fought Sullivan’s prior orders to release the notes related to the Trump accuser, arguing that they contain personally identifying information and are “substantially similar” to the previously released memoranda.
While the judge agreed in his Wednesday order that several redactions to documents already produced properly conceal the names of victims and law enforcement officials, he rejected the DOJ’s argument that the interview notes could be withheld because they are duplicative of FBI interview memoranda that were previously released. In particular, Sullivan noted that the department has already released publicly handwritten notes from more than 100 witness and survivor interviews.
