On Tuesday (September 2), a group of women who were survivors of attacks from the late Jeffrey Epstein and advocates and lawmakers gathered on the steps of Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. to call on the Trump administration to release the entirety of the files related to the federal investigation of the disgraced financier.
Haley Robson, one of the abuse survivors, chastised the government for their lack of full transparency. “We can’t read the news or do anything without hearing crazy stories that are only able to live on because the government continues to hide the evidence and the truth. So, people just make up stories. Those stories hurt,” she said, adding: “The government did not protect us. The banks did not protect us. So lift the curtain on these files and be transparent,” Robson said. Controversial Republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene was also in attendance showing support for the survivors, remarking that she was seeing the largest turnout at a congressional press conference.
Chauntae Davies, another survivor, spoke about how she met Epstein accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell in 2002. She went on to detail how that led to her meeting Epstein, who soon took advantage of her. Davies also spoke of how he evaded accountability for so long. “The truth is, Epstein had a free pass. He bragged about his powerful friends, including our current president, Donald Trump. It was his biggest brag, actually.”
The press conference was to place the call for the files’ release back at the forefront of media attention. Joining them were Representative Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Representative Ro Khanna of California, both of whom have been collecting signatures from their fellow congresspeople in the House of Representatives. The signatures are to force a vote on a bill the two co-sponsored to release all of the files.
Trump dismissed the gathering and the call for the files’ release after it ended while at the Oval Office, calling it “a Democrat hoax that never ends.” The House Oversight Committee did release a large trove of files on Tuesday, but right-wing supporters learned that the bulk of the files were already made public. Many suspect that the administration is hiding the extent of Trump’s involvement with Epstein, leading Massie to label those efforts as “shameful”.
