Epstein survivors fighting for document release find themselves caught in party war

As the Jeffrey Epstein scandal has once again become a millstone around the neck of the Trump administration and forced a rare split between the US president and his Maga base, one group has gained little attention for its steadfast commitment to keeping the story alive beyond politics: Epstein’s victims.

Despite the frequent efforts of lawmakers to harness the scandal for political purposes, the victims of Epstein’s sex-trafficking operation have been a strong voice in keeping the focus on the impact of sexual abuse and on Epstein’s wide circle of allies across all sides of the US political and cultural landscape.

Their effort was clearly on display last week when more than a dozen women visited the US Capitol to advocate for a vote to release the federal government’s files on the disgraced financier and convicted sex offender. Trump had opposed the vote but reversed position in the face of a rebellion in his own party.

In a video from World Without Exploitation, they held up photos of themselves as young women. Some recited their ages when they first met Epstein. “It’s time to bring the secrets out of the shadows. It’s time to shine a light into the darkness,” they said, adding in a text message: “Five administrations and we’re still in the dark.”

In the event, the measure passed both houses of Congress and was quickly signed into law by Trump, giving the justice department 30 days to make all of its unclassified records, documents, and communications related to Epstein and co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell publicly available.

But, despite the efforts of the victims, politics is still being played with the issue.

Some Epstein survivors who spoke at the Capitol were unconvinced that Trump’s turnaround to support the Epstein Files Transparency Act was genuine. “I can’t help but to be skeptical of what the agenda is,” Haley Robson said. “So with that being said, I want to relay this message to you: I am traumatized. I am not stupid.”

Faced with a rebellion on the release issue by congressional Republican representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert and Nancy Mace, the president soon returned to the theme that Epstein is an issue that should scare Democrats. “The Democrats were Epstein’s friends, all of them,” Trump said prior to the vote. “And it’s a hoax, the whole thing is a hoax.”

In a video announcing her surprise decision to leave Congress, Greene explicitly referred to the Epstein drama as an example of entrenched political forces that shaped her decision. “ Standing up for American women who were raped at 14 years old, trafficked and used by rich, powerful men should not result in me being called a traitor and threatened by the president of the United States,” she said, referring to Trump.

There have emerged dissenting voices on whether either political party can be trusted on the Epstein issue and if either truly serves the purpose of exposing and preventing the exploitation of women, including the politically active Epstein victims. When one Democrat in Congress was revealed to have been texting with Epstein during a hearing, she escaped censure as her party strongly opposed any measure to punish her.

“All you have to do is close your eyes, wake up, the wind blows in the other direction, and suddenly it’s the other party that claims to the party of women that cares about abuse,” said Wendy Murphy, a former sex crimes prosecutor who serves as a professor of sexual violence law at New England Law Boston.

“There is zero consistency because we know it’s across party lines where the abuse comes from. This is really a male problem and not party or political problem. Neither party actually cares about women and neither party actually cares about victims.”

Epstein victim Rina Oh, who attended the Capitol gathering last week, said: “I feel stuck in the middle. Everyone is pulling me from each side and I refuse to side with anyone.

“I just want criminals who prey on children brought to justice, and that’s apolitical, because I don’t think predators pick out victims based on what political party they belong to,” she added.

In a post on X last week, Murphy stated it plainly: “Anyone who thinks this is a left-right issue is a fool.”

After all, one of the main consequences of a recent release of an Epstein document trove was that former Bill Clinton treasury secretary Larry Summers was forced to step back from board positions and teaching at Harvard after damaging correspondence with the sex abuser was released.

And, of course, misogyny crosses party lines very easily.

Murphy points to incidences including the Anita Hill hearings when Democrats, under committee chair Joe Biden, worked to smear her during confirmation hearings for then supreme court nominee Clarence Thomas in 1991.

In the ongoing partisan political morass of the Epstein case, there is a political benefit to keeping the pot boiling because both sides are in trouble, Murphy says.

When the government-held documents are released sometime over the next month, she predicted, “the odds of the public getting what it thinks it’s getting are effectively zero. Continuing to boil the pot should make all of us wonder what’s actually going on behind the scenes.”

She added: “We’ll probably never know. Anyone who thinks they know is just naive.”