Last week, independent journalist Jacqueline Sweet penned an “exclusive” report in the New York Post on the 37 missing pages tied to a woman making serious allegations against Donald Trump. Sweet is a solid reporter, with works published in Rolling Stone and The Guardian, and has consistently expressed skepticism – both online and personally to us – about the validity of the woman’s claims.

She has been getting access to material that is not public. In an earlier piece for the Guardian, based on information leaked to her, she revealed that the accuser had a criminal record – which the Department of Justice (DOJ) eventually confirmed by releasing the pages.

Now, someone with access to the full Epstein files has leaked again… but only Sweet and the Murdoch tabloid have gotten a look at the pages. As she wrote: “The 37 pages, which aren’t public but have been reviewed by The Post, include sickening claims that Epstein began abusing the woman during a visit to Hilton Head Island when the accuser was just 13 and forced her to perform oral sex on Trump.”

In her Guardian article, Sweet called the claims “outlandish.” Clearly she finds the witness not at all credible. And that’s fine.

But the decision to share “documents that are not public” with a Murdoch tabloid is curious. Maybe other editors weren’t interested? Or maybe the source doesn’t want them widely read quite yet?

We reported on some of these missing pages early – first, in fact – in a post titled “Protect Source,” the tag attached to the unnamed woman’s claims in the available files. We noticed gaps in the DOJ’s numbering system that indicated they were covering up some missing interviews. We reported the lurid allegations with caveats because the Epstein files contain many unproven claims and we resist the Pizzagate, Satanic-panic theorizing that has been re-emerging amidst the online DIY investigation frenzy.

This particular accusation, however, seemed to warrant closer scrutiny from members of Congress, primarily, we thought, because of the unusual “Protect Source” designation. The story of the missing pages drew mainstream attention from NPR to the New York Times. More than a month later, professional Never Trumpers and Epstein-ologists are still devoting tens of thousands of written and spoken words to the topic.

The impetus for this obsession is the belief that the files hold a silver bullet against Donald Trump: Somewhere, a grown woman who, as a teenager, was preyed upon by a younger Trump, will emerge and finally take him down.

I have some doubts about the woman’s Trump story myself, but the behavior of the DOJ is even more suspicious. First they withheld pages. Then they claimed they were duplicative – which they are not. Then someone leaked a few to Sweet and right-wing news site Breitbart.

The DOJ continues to withhold additional pages. Now they appear to be selectively dropping them to a single journalist and two Trump-friendly outlets.

The accuser’s description of Epstein’s MO certainly sounds familiar: lured to a vacation home, plied with booze, talked into bringing other 13-year-olds around. Plus she described Jeff’s snaggletooth, which he hides in most photographs. Sweet has insisted that there is no evidence Epstein was ever in South Carolina in the ‘80s, but of course the absence of a travel record means nothing. We have already uncovered evidence that he was in unexpected places in the ‘80s, like Kuala Lumpur.

He was still just a Coney Island thug then, on his way to becoming James Bondstein.

But let’s be real about our expectations.

First: Trump’s predatory inclinations are baked into his appeal. He survived E. Jean Carroll’s lawsuit as well as dozens of women alleging that he was, at best, a sex pest and at worst, a sexual assaulter. Will a woman now in her late 50s or 60s with decades-old memories be the person who finally takes down the nearly 80-year-old Leader of the Free World? To paraphrase his infamous 2015 boast: he could probably live down an alleged rape on Fifth Avenue.

Second: Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director "K$H" Patel had their hands deep in the Epstein files early on. In March 2025, FBI agents were pulled away from crime-fighting to scour the files, ostensibly for the mythical “client list” that so obsessed the MAGAs (which in fact already existed publicly in Epstein’s black book), but additionally to “flag” mentions of Donald Trump. An FBI whistleblower told Sen. Dick Durbin, Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, that agents were working 48-hour shifts and given spreadsheets to fill out.

But the coverup started long before that – in Palm Beach, where prosecutors allowed Epstein’s white shoe powerhouse attorneys to send their own investigators into his mansion to remove evidence, including computers, never to be seen again.

It continued in 2019, when FBI agents inside Epstein’s New York mansion – apparently without the proper warrants – let longtime accountant Richard Kahn remove items from a safe, only to return later with a curated selection of whatever had been in it. FBI records of this are murky and deserve congressional attention. This episode is so suspicious and strange that we will devote an entire newsletter to it next week so stay tuned.

The coverup continues to this minute, with the Bondi DOJ still redacting the names of Epstein’s rich and powerful johns.

So: Eyes on the prize. The Epstein coverup IS the crime. And the closest thing we have to a silver bullet.

Nina Burleigh is a journalist, author, documentary producer, and adjunct professor at New York University's Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute. She has written eight books including her recently published novel, Zero Visibility Possible.

Katie Chenoweth is associate professor of French at Princeton University and an investigative researcher.

Reprinted with permission from American Freakshow