For those who don’t want a Substack account, you can keep Off Message going with a donation. All support is appreciated, and donations of $75 or larger come with a comped annual subscription—all content unlocked and emailed to the address provided.
(Photo by U.S. Department of Justice / Screengrab)
I have submitted a Freedom of Information Act request to the Federal Bureau of Investigation in an effort to unravel an ongoing Trump administration coverup—specifically, of evidence that Donald Trump battered and sexually assaulted a teenager in the 1980s.
In both the interest of transparency—and because multiple sources tell me Trump administration political appointees have compromised what should be an independent, routine FOIA process—I have reproduced the request here, as submitted, with only my office address and the accuser’s name redacted.
This reduces the likelihood that the improperly withheld documents will be provided exclusively to Off Message. But it better advances the public interest: first, by drawing further attention to the existence of these documents; second, by alerting the public of the administration’s actionable legal obligation to release them under the combined authorities of FOIA and the Epstein Files Transparency Act—so that the government can’t violate the law quietly. I am unaware of any duplicative effort to force disclosure of these documents to the media, though it’s certainly possible that other outlets have submitted similar requests without announcing it.
The investigative journalist Roger Sollenberger was first to report the existence of the allegation, along with the fact that the FBI had deemed the accuser credible, and that nearly all documentation stemming from her allegation had been withheld or removed from the Epstein files.
In response to Sollenberger’s reporting, public pressure from members of Congress, and the efforts of other journalists, the administration ultimately released many of these materials. Specifically, notes from the interviews FBI agents conducted with this accuser, over the course of three months, beginning in July 2019.
In those interviews, she alleged that she became a victim of Jeffrey Epstein in the 1980s and, through Epstein, a victim of Donald Trump’s as well. She claims Epstein introduced her to Trump when she was between 13 and 15 years of age, and that Trump “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.”
Administration officials have attempted to undermine this accuser’s credibility, citing her unrelated criminal history later in life, without categorically denying her allegation. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt recently dismissed the accuser’s claims as “completely baseless accusations, backed by zero credible evidence, from a sadly disturb
