Unverified FBI tip about Trump recovered from flawed redactions

Social media users on Reddit and TikTok discovered that blacked-out text in certain PDFs could be revealed by copying and pasting into a word processor—a basic redaction failure.

The copy-paste redaction flaw originated from a February 2021 court filing by the U.S. Virgin Islands attorney general's office in its civil racketeering suit against Epstein's estate, not from the Trump-era DOJ.

Among the recovered text was an FBI tip submitted August 3, 2020, to the FBI National Threat Operations Center by an unnamed woman alleging Trump witnessed the killing and disposal of her newborn in Lake Michigan in 1984 when she was 13.

The tip alleged the incident occurred in 1984, but Trump reportedly did not meet Epstein until the late 1980s. Trump told New York magazine in 2002 he had known Epstein for 15 years, placing their first meeting around 1987.

The FBI never substantiated the tip and declined to comment. The DOJ posted a statement calling the allegations 'untrue and sensationalist claims made against President Trump that were submitted to the FBI right before the 2020 election.'

The redaction failures also exposed victim identities: attorneys for survivors said the DOJ failed to redact the identities of at least 31 people victimized as children.

By January 30, 2026, the DOJ had released approximately 3.5 million pages of Epstein-related documents. Federal prosecutors also uncovered over a million additional documents that may be related to the case.

Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), a chief author of the Transparency Act, accused the DOJ of breaking the law through both illegal redactions and the missed deadline.

A dozen U.S. senators wrote to Acting Inspector General Don Berthiaume requesting an independent audit of the DOJ's handling of the release.