Journalist, former MSNBC reporter Katie S. Phang has filed the first lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) over its handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files. This includes those generated in the case of a former Hilton Head woman who the FBI interviewed four times about her allegations against the late financier.
Phang sued Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, alleging violations of a federal law that mandates the DOJ publish all records in its possession related to the investigation and prosecution of Epstein, a convicted sex offender who died in 2019. Blanche, who was the deputy attorney general at the time and formerly Trump’s personal lawyer is alleged to have failed to comply with the law.
The Justice Department's compliance with the Epstein Files Transparency Act drew attention because officials bypassed a legally mandated deadline and redacted large blocks of text in the documents. In some cases, they left victim identities exposed and withheld FBI interviews.
One of the cases highlighted in the lawsuit details allegations made in 2019 by a woman who used to live on Hilton Head and claims she was assaulted as a teenager by both Epstein and Donald Trump in the 1980s.
Justice Department officials eventually uploaded the interviews after facing public pressure, calling the omissions a clerical error. But Phang's lawyer Brendan Ballou said the lawsuit seeks answers about why certain records concerning Trump were not initially made public.
"We certainly want to understand if documents were supposed to be produced that weren't produced, why that happened," said Ballou, a former DOJ antitrust prosecutor and the CEO of Public Integrity Project, a newly formed law firm seeking to fight corruption.
A Justice Department spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
It has been reported that records related to the woman's case were missing by analyzing a catalogue of records prepared for the trial of longtime Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell. Among the omitted records are handwritten notes from three FBI interviews, which included details about potential corroborating witnesses that appeared to be redacted from the publicly released files.
Reporters also reviewed FBI notes t hat had not been made public and found unredacted names of potential witnesses. The FBI investigation appears to have ended abruptly in late 2019, but there is no record in the public files about that decision.
Phang, who reports frequently on Epstein through her Substack and YouTube channel, alleges that the DOJ's failure to comply with the federal legislation has made her job more challenging. Extensive redactions and omissions have made it difficult for journalists to interpret certain documents.
Her lawsuit asks the court to appoint an independent special master to oversee the matter.
Phang is not the only one seeking answers. Democrats on the House Oversight Committee and Republican Rep. Nancy Mace of Charleston are still demanding testimony from fired Attorney General Pam Bondi, who was subpoenaed but did not show up on April 14 for scheduled testimony about DOJ's handling of the files.
Ranking Democrat Robert Garcia said "we won't stop fighting until we get justice for the Epstein survivors."
In an interview April 26 on CBS's 60 Minutes, Trump again said he has been "totally exonerated" in the Epstein investigation.
"I got associated with stuff that has nothing to do with me," Trump said.
Last week, the DOJ's independent Office of Inspector General said it would evaluate handling of the documents. The announcement came two days after Trump nominated Don Berthiaume, a longtime investigator in the office, to be the permanent inspector general.