Listen To This Story

Hope you had a chance to watch the extraordinary Capitol Steps press conference this past week featuring Jeffrey Epstein’s victims and their advocates. I was impressed by all of the women, most of whom the public has never heard from before. They were singularly articulate, brave, and, perhaps most importantly, credible. Their brief remarks were dignified and, given the heat of the topic, restrained. 

They described being recruited, tricked, and then forced, at ages as young as 14, to perform degrading acts, coerced to continue, and pushed to recruit others. It was a vast body mill serving the wealthy.

They recounted, with tears in their eyes, the lifelong harm this experience did to their mental health and sense of themselves. It was impossible not to believe them and want them to see justice done.  

Here is an excerpt from Marina Lacerda’s story, which is typical:

I was only 14 years old when I met Jeffrey. It was the summer of high school. I was working three jobs to try to support my mom and my sister when a friend of mine in the neighborhood told me that I could make $300 to give an older guy a massage. It went from a dream job to the worst nightmare. Jeffrey’s assistant, Lesley Groff, would call me and tell me that I needed to be at the house so often that I ended up dropping out of high school before ninth grade, and I never went back. From 14 to 17 years old, I went and worked for Jeffrey. Instead of receiving an education. Every day, I hoped that he would offer me a real job as one of his assistants or something, something important. I would finally have made it big as, like we say, the American dream. That day never came. I had no way out until he finally told me that I was too old…

I will never forget when the FBI agent showed up in my door in 2008. Jeffrey Epstein hired a lawyer to represent me or more like to represent him. I like to say I couldn’t ask any questions and I had no idea what was going on. I was terrified, until today. I think most of us are still terrified. I thought somebody was going to kill me. I thought something was going to happen to my sister or my mother. It went further out to even maybe thinking something would happen in Brazil with my family.

Then one day the lawyer said that everything was just going to go away like nothing happened. I didn’t need to testify. When I asked him why, he gave no explanation. That was it. So why? Why was I never called to testify then? We could’ve saved so many women. … But Jeffrey Epstein was too important and those women didn’t matter. 

***

I was also impressed by the passion and determination of their attorneys, Bradley Edwards and Brittany Henderson. And that of Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) and Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), who reached across the aisle to join in sponsoring the discharge petition to force release of the Epstein files. They stood in the line of fire from both the White House and House leadership to co-captain the effort. 

And I was even momentarily moved that Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), despite her manifold odious qualities — and perhaps motives — showed up and endorsed the effort. 

It’s potentially a major inflection point when so many witnesses come forward to be counted, when a lot of blue and a bit of red come together to say, “Enough!” While so many things compete for our attention, this one deserved more play by legacy media. 

Although the press conference got plenty of publicity, I’m angry that the New York Times, Washington Post, and other legacy media did not make it a top story. It was a very significant development and should have been treated as such.

The participants made a persuasive case for deep corruption at the heart of the American system, explicitly calling it out as such. As one after another made manifest, there simply is no way the Epstein matter could have been handled as it has been all these years without a lot of massaging by those with an agenda. 

And the survivors underlined the basics that get lost in all the cynical fog generation by the Trump administration and its toadies: 

This is not a political issue. This is a crime. And the crime is sex-traficking. — Liz Stein

We are not asking for pity, we are demanding accountability. Congress must choose: Will you continue to protect predators, or will you finally protect survivors? Transparency is justice. — Lisa Phillips

Being a survivor is not a headline. It’s our life. And silence only protects predators, not children. — Wendy Pisante

And yet the fog just keeps rolling on and these cries get muffled and, for too many Americans, go unheard.

Trump’s controversial Health and Human Services secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — who is himself said to have had a close relationship with Epstein (he admitted taking trips in Epstein’s plane, which he claims were for innocent reasons; his late wife had links to Ghislaine Maxwell) — was asked if he thought the women on the steps of the Capitol were perpetuating a hoax. Go here (0:50 on the video) to see the look on his face as he responds to a senator’s questions: 

I don’t know of any women on the steps of the Capitol… perpetuating a hoax? I have no idea what they were saying. This is the first I’m hearing about it.

Very plausible when one is locked in a lab day and night doing science.

Despite attending the conference and hearing these women’s stories, Rep. Victoria Spartz (R-IN) — the hard-right firebrand, whose strong Ukrainian accent reminds us that she is a huge Trump fan despite his abandoning her country to the Russian onslaught, is as loud and illogical as Marjorie Taylor Greene usually is, defended the January 6 rioters, and has been accused by her staff of abuse and toxic behavior — can’t decide on whether to sign the discharge petition seeking to compel the DOJ to release more files.

We’ll see, I mean we have some other stuff, so I’m not one to commit to some specific — but I’ll spend some time to understand all of the sides.

The “sides.” 

Trump’s response to the conference was predictable:

It’s really a Democrat hoax because they’re trying to get people to talk about something that’s totally irrelevant to the success that we’ve had as a nation since I’ve been president.

Which is a bit like saying, well, this person may have committed a terrible crime, but look how successful his business is! 

One day after the conference, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson sought to explain away Trump’s crude use of the word “hoax”:  

What Trump is referring to is the hoax that the Democrats are using to try to attack him. … I’ve talked to him about this many times, many times. He is horrified. It’s been misrepresented. He’s not saying that what Epstein did is a hoax. It’s a terrible, unspeakable evil. He believes that himself. When he first heard the rumor, he kicked him out of Mar-a-Lago. He was an FBI informant to try to take this stuff down.

Asked to confirm that Trump was an “FBI informant,” Johnson’s spokesperson sent The Daily Beast the following statement: 

The Speaker is reiterating what the victims’ attorney said, which is that Donald Trump — who kicked Epstein out of Mar-a-Lago — was the only one more than a decade ago willing to help prosecutors expose Epstein for being a disgusting child predator.

Which is true. As lead attorney Bradley Edwards pointed out, Trump went out of his way to differentiate himself as truly upset by Epstein’s doings. Left open is the question of motive: genuine moral outrage or self-preservation? Trump, we recall, is not noted for loyalty towards friends and associates who’ve served their purpose and have come to pose some sort of danger for him. I’ve lost count of how many close associates, of both sexes, he’s claimed to have never known or had anything to do with — even after telltale photos and/or correspondence are produced.

***

The attorneys made a conscious effort to appeal to Trump and not to antagonize him. This meant they rigorously stayed away from allegations against the president. For example, when someone identified only as Speaker 32 asked, 

Can the survivors speak to, speaking of being threatened and being afraid to come forward with the story, to the case of Katie Johnson who alleged that Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein—

Speaker 21 said, “No.” 

Edwards then said, “I don’t think we can talk about… I don’t think we can talk about that case,” and he quickly changed the subject to the heroism of Virginia Giuffre. She was the earliest to come forward with her own allegations (e.g., trafficked to Prince Andrew and Alan Dershowitz) and pursued a legal case against Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell. She committed suicide in April. 

As for Katie Johnson and the perceived need to keep on the right side of Trump, she had alleged that both Trump and Epstein raped her. In 2016, she was going to reveal all the details to the press when, at the last minute, she backed down. She said her life had been threatened. 

The main “Trump angle” to the news conference was in response to media questions. Asked about the concerted effort by Trump and his allies to discourage further inquiry as “political,” Haley Robson noted that she is a registered Republican — and offered to meet with Trump and share what she knows. 

So everything is being presented as reasoning with Trump and seeking his help in obtaining full disclosure. (Much has been made about the thousands of files recently released — but they’re heavily redacted (some pages are entirely redacted), and 97 percent of the information in them has already been in the public domain for some time.)

***

One of the best ways to determine just how much of a “hoax” this is would be to review the footage from all those hidden cameras in Epstein’s various homes. 

Except that through an interesting conflation, the administration is burying that all-important issue. Note this confusing mention in The New York Times:  

In a recent unsigned memo, the Justice Department and the F.B.I. said that the Epstein files did not contain evidence that would justify investigating other people. Ms. Bondi has said that videos of child sexual abuse found by investigators were material that he downloaded, not, as some have suggested, videos that Mr. Epstein recorded of crimes by himself or his friends. 

Consider these two points in reverse order: (1) Epstein downloaded videos of child sexual abuse (this is mentioned in passing!) — but none of his own cameras showed anything of interest at all; (2) There’s nothing in all of it that would provide any insight into the Irresistible Mr. Epstein and just why all these sought-after world-class guests flocked to him of all people. 

Related: Speaking of an Alleged Rape by Donald Trump
Related: Let’s Have a Closer Look at Epstein, Shall We?

By now, even the least informed of Americans knows that the abuse was serious, widespread, and constant. We know that Epstein and Maxwell were deeply troubled, malicious, and relentlessly abusive toward vulnerable individuals. 

We know that lots of famous people who palled around with him before he became notorious apparently had no inkling of any of that. That’s possible. Still, one wonders: What was so terribly irresistible about Epstein? Lots of people have private planes, fabulous homes, can put on a good dinner party, can be charming or witty. Most of them would be turned down by former presidents, princes, leading intellectuals if invited. Why did so many embrace this publicly obscure man? 

Why, in particular, did Trump? 

One of the survivors at the Capitol said that Epstein’s biggest brag was his connection to Trump. He thought it more important than hanging out with presidents and royalty.

But why did Epstein feel that way, and why did Trump spend so much time with him? Why was this reality TV star and serial exaggerator so very important to Jeffrey Epstein way back when? It’s the same question we keep asking about Trump’s relationship with Vladimir Putin and others in the Russian elite going way back. Why Trump? 

Understanding this — focusing on this — is probably the greatest matter before us. It is not some “hoax” distracting from America’s new greatness. It will help us understand, perhaps, how this sick individual came to rule one of the world’s greatest democracies and swiftly embark on a campaign to destroy it. 

**** 

Proof of how badly rattled Trump is came through a series of seemingly unusual, and perhaps deliberate, loud distractions during the victims’ presentations. First, we kept hearing law enforcement announcements saying things like “keep off the grass.” The press conference participants sought to ignore the cacophony but even they finally turned to look. 

The other was unusually loud aircraft flyovers — near the Capitol, through normally protected and restricted airspace. The White House said the flyover was to honor a Polish army pilot recently killed, and to “celebrate the special relationship between our two countries.”

No need to comment on that.  

Besides distracting the participants and audience, and making certain parts slightly unintelligible, these interruptions seemed to send a message: Powerful forces do indeed exist, and don’t forget it.

As for the victims, they reiterated that they are, indeed, scared. Scared, and yet still courageous. They say that they know which powerful people were with Epstein, that they’re compiling a list of abusers, and that it will be released.

The House members said they will support them. 

Massie said survivors “would be sued into homelessness for naming names, but @RepMTG and I are willing to name names in the House of Representatives under Constitutional ‘speech or debate’ immunity.”  

That will be something. Let’s make sure they do that.