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Timeline of the Katie Johnson v. Donald Trump lawsuit filing and dismissal in 2016
Executive summary
Court records show a civil complaint titled Katie Johnson v. Donald J. Trump (case no. 5:16‑cv‑00797) was filed in federal court in Riverside, California in late April 2016 and the court docket records list the matter as terminated in early May 2016 for failing to state a federal civil‑rights claim [1]. Reporting and later summaries say related filings or refiled versions appeared in mid‑2016 and fall 2016 and were withdrawn or dropped months later, though accounts vary on exact dates and sequencing [2] [3] [4].
1. The initial filing and what the docket shows
Public dockets record a complaint filed under case number 5:16‑cv‑00797 in late April 2016 naming Jeffrey Epstein and Donald J. Trump as defendants, along with an in‑forma‑pauperis request and standard case assignments; the CourtListener docket entries show the complaint was entered on April 27, 2016 and that the case was terminated on May 2, 2016 with the clerk’s note that the complaint “fails to state a civil rights claim” [1].
2. What the complaint alleged (as summarized in coverage)
Multiple outlets and fact‑checks describe the April 2016 papers as alleging that a then‑13‑year‑old was recruited into sex trafficking and raped at parties in 1994, accusing both Trump and Epstein in graphic terms; those characterizations are repeated in later summaries and reporting [5] [6] [4].
3. Dismissal in May 2016 and the legal basis on the docket
The Riverside federal docket entry records a dismissal in early May 2016 because the filing “fails to state a civil rights claim” under the federal statutes cited in the complaint, and the case was marked terminated by the clerk [1]. Local reporting from 2016 and retrospective pieces also note that initial filings were dismissed or withdrawn before progressing [7] [2].
4. Subsequent versions, refilings, and disputes over timing
News outlets and summaries differ on later filings: some reporting indicates another version was filed in June 2016 and then withdrawn months later, and that a third filing using the pseudonym “Jane Doe” appeared in September or was refiled in October 2016 and then dropped in November 2016 [2] [3]. These secondary accounts are not all consistent on dates or whether the later filings were formal federal docket refilings or separate state/federal actions; available sources do not provide a single unified procedural timeline covering every purported refiled document.
5. Questions about authorship, promotion and credibility
Contemporaneous investigative reporting identified a producer, Norm Lubow, as involved in coordinating or promoting the Johnson filings and communications with reporters; The Guardian reported Lubow’s role and noted disputes about who was coordinating the allegations and how they were publicized [8]. Snopes and other explanatory pieces trace how images of the 2016 documents and their text have circulated repeatedly and fed broader online narratives [5].
6. How later coverage framed the 2016 filings
Later explainers and retrospectives (El País, Newsweek, PBS, Snopes) describe the April 2016 complaint as the root of a set of related or similar allegations that resurfaced repeatedly as documents were re‑circulated, and they note inconsistencies and withdrawals in the mid‑ and late‑2016 period; some outlets cite the dismissal for failure to state a claim and others note separate refiled or reissued documents later that year [4] [3] [2] [5].
7. Limitations of the public record and what’s not in these sources
The court docket entry clearly documents an April 2016 filing and an early May 2016 termination [1]. Beyond that, available sources differ about precise dates and the number and legal status of “refiled” complaints in June, September or October 2016; a single, authoritative sequential timeline that reconciles every media report, docket entry and withdrawn filing is not provided by the sources collected here—available sources do not mention a consolidated, court‑verified chronology covering all alleged refilings [2] [3] [4].
8. How to read these discrepancies
Differences between court dockets and later reporting can reflect a mix of factors: multiple filings in different jurisdictions, pseudonymous plaintiffs, media accounts of informal re‑contacts or draft documents, and third‑party promotion of documents [8] [5]. Journalists and fact‑checkers have repeatedly warned that images of the 2016 filings circulate out of context and that some elements of the story were promoted by intermediaries whose credibility has been questioned [5] [8].
If you want, I can extract the exact docket entries (dates and text) from the CourtListener entry and compile a side‑by‑side comparison with the June–October 2016 media reports to show precisely where accounts diverge.