Legal Politics by Nick Akerman

03/31/2026

This past Sunday, The Post and Courier, a local South Carolina newspaper, published a second article detailing its continuing investigation into a sexual assault in the mid 1980’s allegedly perpetrated by Donald Trump against a 13 year-old girl. Jeffrey Epstein introduced her to Trump. In 2019, during Trump’s first term, the unidentified Epstein victim gave four separate interview statements to the FBI.

Trump’s cronies at the Justice Department unsuccessfully attempted to bury these four interviews from public view in the latest production of the Epstein files.

On March 6th, I posted the content of those four FBI interviews in all their gory details. Six days later I reported on the investigative work performed by the Post and Courier that corroborate the victim’s family background and legal entanglements she related to the FBI.

The victim also told the FBI about an Epstein associate named “Jim Atkins” who “participated with Epstein in blackmailing [the victim’s] mother” and “sexually assaulted [the victim] on more than one occasion.” She described Atkins as being “associated with an Ohio university.” The victim related how Atkins had assisted the victim’s mother in embezzling funds to pay Epstein but later had a “falling out” with her mother and assisted law enforcement, resulting in the mother being “sent to prison . . . for embezzlement.”

In its latest investigative piece published last Sunday, The Post and Courier, using public records, depicted above with Atkins’ photo, confirmed that Jim Atkins, an Ohio resident, “swept into town [Hilton Head] in the blur of the 1980s, when investors were transforming the once-sleepy sea island into a mecca of luxury homes, beachfront hotels and world-class golf courses.”

The Post and Courier reported that

[t]he former Hilton Head teen correctly told the FBI that Atkins was affiliated with a college in Ohio, perhaps as a dean or “money guy.” She also provided other details that panned out, including his age, hair color and direct association with her mother’s embezzlement charge.

The newspaper noted:

Her [the victim’s] most-explosive charge — still unproven — is that Epstein introduced her to Trump, then a developer and casino owner, during a trip to the New York area in the mid-1980s. She told investigators that Trump forced her to perform oral sex.

Here is the link to the full Post and Courier article.

The big question is why is this investigation into Trump only apparently being pursued by a local South Carolina newspaper?

Why not the FBI? The FBI asked the victim “whether she felt comfortable detailing her contacts with Trump.” Her response was to ask “what the point would be of providing the information at this point in her life when there was a strong possibility nothing could be done about it.”

Shockingly, the FBI dropped the entire investigation and did not press her on the scope of her entire knowledge about the Trump/Epstein relationship. From what is recited in the FBI reports, she undoubtedly had granular knowledge about Epstein and Trump.