A woman mentioned in files released by the US Department of Justice relating to Jeffrey Epstein, who alleged that US President Donald Trump sexually assaulted her, fears retaliation from the Trump administration amid escalating controversy around the handling of her case, The Guardian reported Tuesday.
The woman, known as Jane Doe Four in government files, is "staying off the grid," a family member told The Guardian.
The four interviews with FBI agents in 2019, where she alleged that she was abused by the New York financier in the 1980s and then sexually assaulted by Donald Trump when she was between 13 and 15 years old, were released by the US Justice Department as part of a larger batch of Epstein-related documents.
Upon their publicization, the White House called her allegations "completely baseless," and "backed by zero credible evidence."
Jane Doe Four is one of the only alleged Epstein victims to have directly accused Trump, and the handling of her case files has become a rallying point for other alleged Epstein victims, their supporters, and critics of the acting Attorney General, Todd Blanche.
“It should not be Jane Doe 4’s responsibility to keep coming forward,” Sky Roberts, the brother of deceased Epstein victim Virginia Giuffre, who has become a leading victims advocate, told The Guardian.
“She’s already given her testimony to the FBI. It should be Justice’s responsibility to take that evidence and press forward,” he said.
Blanche is under pressure to provide courts with an unredacted version of the files
Last week, a federal judge in Washington gave Blanche until July 2 to produce either an unredacted version of the files that the Justice Department has already released, or provide an explanation as to why he can't provide the unredacted records.
“They really, really don’t want these documents released,” tweeted Brendan Ballou, a lawyer for the Public Integrity Project, who is representing Phang.
Other alleged Epstein victims and supporters want Blanche, who was the president's former personal attorney, to explain why approximately 2.5 million other records of unknown importance were deemed duplicative or legally protected by Blanche.
Controversy around the handling of Jane Doe four's case
The handling of Jane Doe Four's case has been controversial since the Justice Department rushed to comply with a law passed by Congress in November 2025, requiring the release of all documents related to both Epstein and his associate, Ghislaine Maxwell.
The fired Attorney General, Pam Bondi, told the House Oversight Committee that Blanche was in charge of compliance with this law, directing a team of 500 reviewers, and leading decisions about the way documents were handled.
The Justice Department uploaded more than 3 million documents in the wake of this law passing, leaving victims' names exposed and publishing uncensored compromising photographs.
A huge document release in January included the formal FBI report of one Jane Doe Four interview, along with a numerical identifier for her case. She had called into the FBI’s Epstein hotline after his arrest in July 2019, and the agency deemed her account worthy of further investigation.
The FBI didn't bring any formal charges against any individuals following Jane Doe Four's allegations, and the Guardian reports that there was no indication of the FBI conducting any further investigation into her claims after interviewing her in August 2019, during Trump's first term in office.
Jane Doe Four later cut off her FBI contact after telling them that she felt she was being followed.