What do the court dockets for Katie Johnson v. Donald J. Trump show in full (filings and rulings)?
Executive summary
The publicly available docket records for Katie Johnson v. Donald J. Trump show an initial civil complaint filed in the Central District of California on April 26, 2016 naming Donald J. Trump and Jeffrey Epstein as defendants, accompanied by routine administrative filings (in forma pauperis request, assignment notices, ADR notice) and a certification of interested parties; multiple archive copies of the complaint and related docket entries are hosted on CourtListener, Archive.org, Justia and similar repositories [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]. The sources collected here do not provide a complete record of later substantive rulings or the final disposition on the public docket, and several contemporary reports indicate other versions or related filings were later filed or withdrawn, which underscores gaps in what these mirror sites capture versus PACER [6] [7].
1. The complaint and its public copies: what was filed and where it appears
The central operative filing available in multiple mirrors is a six‑page pro se complaint filed April 26, 2016 that alleges sexual misconduct against the named defendants and is reproduced in full on Archive.org, Scribd/SlideShare mirrors and in a FactCheck.org mirror of the complaint pages [8] [4] [5]. These mirror sites and document dumps preserve the pleading’s text and the Court’s local filing header (Case 5:16‑cv‑00797‑DMG‑KS), which is reflected consistently across the CourtListener docket summary and the archived complaint images [1] [9] [4].
2. Routine docket entries: administrative steps visible on public mirrors
The docket extracts archived by CourtListener and the Archive.org dockets show standard administrative entries immediately after filing: a Request to Proceed In Forma Pauperis and declaration by the plaintiff, a Notice of Assignment to District Judge Dolly M. Gee and Magistrate Judge Karen L. Stevenson, and a Notice to Parties of the court‑directed ADR program; those items are specifically listed in CourtListener’s docket summary and in the archive text of the Notice of Electronic Filing [1] [4]. Justia’s docket capture likewise reproduces these initial filings and meta‑data as retrieved in May 2016 [3].
3. What the dockets do not clearly show in these public repositories
None of the mirror sources in the collection provides a complete sequence of later rulings, any detailed motion practice beyond the opening items, or an explicit final judgment on the public mirrors; CourtListener cautions that its coverage is sourced from PACER/RECAP and “may not be up to date,” and the archive captures focus on early docket text rather than a full litigation history [1] [2]. Where later versions or related suits are discussed in contemporaneous press, those materials are not fully replicated as signed court orders on the mirrored dockets collected here [6] [7].
4. Subsequent filings and withdrawals reported by press but not fully evidenced on the archived docket
Newsweek’s reporting and other secondary accounts say there were subsequent related filings in 2016 — including anonymous “Jane Doe” filings and a reported withdrawal of another version — and mention a notice of dismissal in a later matter; those media reports indicate additional procedural activity but the archived docket snapshots captured here do not include sealed or later‑withdrawn sealed pleadings or full explanations for dismissals [6]. That divergence highlights the difference between press reconstructions and the incomplete public mirror of PACER dockets available via third‑party archives [6] [7].
5. How to obtain the full, authoritative docket and why the mirrors fall short
PACER remains the authoritative repository for federal docket entries; CourtListener/RECAP, Justia and Archive.org provide useful public mirrors of the April‑2016 complaint and immediate administrative filings but warn that their collections may be partial and not updated with later orders or sealed entries — therefore anyone seeking the “dockets in full” must consult PACER or the clerk’s office for the Central District of California for a complete, chronological set of filings and rulings [1] [3] [4]. The available mirrors do, however, corroborate the complaint’s text and the initial administrative docket entries [5] [4].
6. Bottom line, with limitations stated
The public docket mirrors plainly show the filing of the April 26, 2016 complaint naming Trump and Epstein, an in forma pauperis request, assignment to judges, ADR notice and a certification of interested parties; beyond those entries, the mirrored repositories cited here do not present a full sequence of motions, rulings or a final disposition on the public record, and press accounts suggest additional filings and withdrawals that are not fully documented in these mirrors — to see the dockets “in full” requires accessing PACER or the court clerk’s official record [1] [4] [6].