When did Katie Johnson first go public or file a complaint about Donald J. Trump (year and month)?

1. A Clash of Dates: Which filing counts as “going public”?

The question of when Katie Johnson “first went public” hinges on what one counts as the operative public step: the initial federal complaint or later public reports and refilings. Court dockets and a scanned civil complaint show a document filed on April 26, 2016, assigned case number 5:16-cv-00797, which supports the view that a formal legal action existed in April 2016 ^{[1] [2]}. Independent summaries and fact-check posts note that other versions of the case were filed or refiled in June, September, and October 2016, and that media attention and aggregated recaps sometimes pick up those later dates instead of the April docket entry ^{[3] [5]}. The discrepancy arises from whether reporters and later summaries emphasize the first docket entry or later iterations that received wider attention, leaving readers with different month claims in different sources.

2. What the court documents show and what reporters emphasized

Primary court documents cited in compiled analyses show a concrete April 26, 2016 filing, which is a straightforward record point for when Johnson’s allegations reached a federal docket ^{[1] [2]}. Several news summaries and investigative recaps, however, describe a cluster of filings in mid-to-late 2016—June, September, and October—sometimes noting a refiled complaint or alternate versions under the pseudonym “Jane Doe” ^{[4] [5]}. These later documents and reporting often drove public awareness; media pick-up of refilings or amplifications can create the perception that the allegation first surfaced later, even though a docketed complaint already existed in April. The November 2016 voluntary dismissal is consistently noted across sources as the procedural end to the matter that year ^{[4] [6]}.

3. Why sources diverge: procedural filings, refilings, and media attention

Sources diverge because the procedural history includes multiple steps—initial filings, voluntary dismissals, refilings with differing allegations or plaintiffs’ identifiers, and separate news cycles that elevated some filings more than others. Analyses compiled here show some outlets and fact checks listing April 2016 as the first filing, while others cite June, September, or October filings as their reference point ^{[3] [5] [7]}. The ambiguity is increased by the use of pseudonyms and by voluntary dismissal of the case in November 2016, which meant no substantive adjudication of the claims occurred—so public narratives relied on scattered filings and later media treatment to construct timelines ^{[4] [6]}.

4. What is uncontested and what remains contextual

What is uncontested across the available analyses is that the legal action and public allegations occurred in 2016, involved claims against both Donald J. Trump and Jeffrey Epstein, and that the case did not proceed to a judicial resolution before being dropped later that year ^{[4] [6] [7]}. What remains contextual is the exact “first public” moment: if one relies on the federal docket entry, April 2016 is the definitive month; if one frames “going public” as the point when broader media attention or a refiling circulated, some sources point to mid-to-late 2016 dates ^{[1] [3] [5]}. This distinction explains why secondary accounts report differing months.

5. Bottom line and how to cite this timeline

For a precise, document-based answer, cite the federal case filing dated April 26, 2016 as the first formal complaint brought by Katie Johnson/Jane Doe against Donald J. Trump ^{[1] [2]}. For contextual or narrative accounts that emphasize media coverage and subsequent filings, note that refilings and publicized versions appeared in June–October 2016, and the matter was voluntarily dismissed in November 2016 ^{[4] [3] [6]}. Use the April 2016 docket date when exactness is required; acknowledge the media-driven ambiguity when describing public awareness or reporting timelines ^{[1] [3] [5]}.