Epstein Victims Demand Transparency at Capitol

0:00Most ice cream is good, but not Jenny's. Jenny's ice cream is more like an obsession. What you get from over two decades of tasting and tweaking and throwing it out and starting over, chasing flavors until they feel alive. That might sound crazy, and that's because it is. Jenny's. Often imitated, never duplicated, always splendid. Watch Disclosure Day at home now with exclusive bonus features. If you found out we weren't alone, if someone showed you, proved it to you, would that frighten you? Well, now the truth belongs to 7 billion people in an original event film directed by Steven Spielberg from a screenplay by David Koepp starring Emily Blunt, Josh O 'Connor, Colin Firth, Eve Hewson, and Coleman Domingo.

0:48Find Disclosure Day on major digital platforms now with no subscription required. also in theaters. Welcome to Beat Everyone. I'm Ari Melber. We're covering this presentation today on Capitol Hill by survivors of Jeffrey Epstein's abuse, his indicted crimes. This was a rare and bipartisan event. It was actually this briefing hosted by members of both parties designed to empower the actual victims so that we might hear about Epstein's crimes and what should be done from people who tragically experienced them rather than the so many other people we've heard from. And this comes after the Trump DOJ did systematically cut all of these people out of the recent changes and developments related to the case and hid key information from them.

1:39And so right off top, I want to tell you that makes today an unusual shift in this long-running story where so often the spotlight has been on the pundits and the podcasters and the politicos and some conspiracy theorists talking on and on and on about the Epstein case, about the victims, about their supposed concern, even as, and you see our very deliberate contrast here on the screen, even as the Trump administration cuts these same people out instead of including them and hearing them and their view, the victim's view of what should be done in the quest for supposed transparency and justice.

2:23And I can tell you today, several are clear they oppose the Trump DOJ's secrecy and lenience, especially for Epstein co-conspirator Maxwell. Some also recounting their own experiences in public here for the first time. I was only 14 years old when I met Jeffrey. A friend of mine in the neighborhood told me that I could make$300 to give another guy a massage. It went from a dream job to the worst nightmare. Epstein flew me to his private island. He listened to my dreams, promised to help. But his promises came with a catch. The abuse began. He told me to keep it secret. It was you who sent me off to the home of a monster, knowing what was waiting for me.

3:11Galen Maxwell, you are the system. Who I saw and what I experienced there was a glimpse into a very dark and disturbing world. I have never been more scared in my life than I was that first time that he hurt me. I remember crying the entire way home, thinking about how I couldn't ever tell anyone about what actually happened in that house. After meeting Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, it felt like someone shut off the lights to my soul. He gave me an ultimatum. Either you come here and massage me when I call you or you bring me friends of yours to massage. I felt I had no choice. If I disobeyed him, I knew something bad would happen.

3:55It is clear that many were aware of his interest in girls and very young women and chose to look the other way because it benefited them to do so. The days of sweeping this under the rug are over. We the survivors say no more. Sweeping it under the rug, looking the other way, as one put it, that goes back a long way. Remember that even the first probe finally launched into Epstein, as you see there on the left where we say probe starts, that was short-circuited by a Republican prosecutor's secret deal in Florida, hidden from the same victims who are still speaking out, trying to be included and get justice today.

4:34And what you see here is the MAGA hypocrisy in the case goes for years from Trump later promoting that same prosecutor who cut the Epstein deal to his cabinet, to his DOJ, shutting down a real inquiry into Epstein's suspicious death under the custody of the Trump-appointed Bill Barr Bureau of Prisons and Justice Department. We've reported that in the timeline for you. The special treatment for Maxwell is the most obviously outrageous detail in all of this. Some of the victims today speaking about that. And many Republicans have mostly responded to this by pretending to take action in the case.

5:14That includes last night's congressional document dump, which was seeking headlines about transparency, but reflected mostly old recycled material. About 97 percent had already been released, according to House Democrats. Today's briefing was organized by lawmakers in both parties who have been working to override the House Republican lock on these issues. Most Republicans, while they've talked about this because they don't want to sound like they're doing nothing against Trump DOJ giving lenience to a sex trafficker, most Republicans have been doing that dance. Today, you had two members of both parties discussing the actual way this might go differently instead of pretending.

5:55And they are trying to circumvent the House Republican speaker to force a vote to release what are still the hidden Epstein files, not the already released ones. They say there are just about 12 vote signatures technically short. We're here not as partisans We're here as patriots The perpetrators are being protected Because they're rich and powerful And political donors To the establishment here in Washington, D.C. There you have it Now, you can filter through the politics And the strange road of all this And make your own mind up About what you hear there From those two lawmakers who organized this But clearly it's effective Clearly, there's a lot of work and coordination that went in to bring these people together, to give them the platform.

6:43And remember, in an era where we have all of this content and propaganda conspiracy theories, we have a president who often seems like he's most interested in being the chief content officer of the country. They have also already done something today by platforming the voices of those people and contrasting that to what I've shown you tonight and other nights of how the government and the Trump administration has done this. They are already changing some of who is speaking and the pressures on the government to clean up its act and be more transparent. Maxwell's the only person who has ever been held accountable for Epstein-related crimes, convicted and sentenced to 20 years.

7:21And the DOJ, responding to all of this, did the one thing you could do to take a step backwards. They gave her a more lenient, better prison after a suspicious interview. It is remarkable, even in this climate we're in, even if you're a cynic, that the people who kept talking about Epstein justice, which includes the Attorney General Pam Bondi, have been the ones who've given lenience to this person mixed up in the sex trafficking. She's also clearly looking for more help from the administration. And there was a survivor today who spoke out about that suspicious Trump DOJ interview. Her voice was elevated way before our voices were elevated here today.

8:10And that same calm, manipulative voice that she had so polite there that day with Todd Blanche was the same polite, coercive, manipulative voice that I heard as she was grooming me to then send me off to the home of Jeffrey Epstein where he would assault me. So her voice that day was the same voice that sent me off to a monster. I sat there and listened to this woman's voice lie. And there was no pushback from Todd Blanche because does he even have the facts to be able to push back does that Trump appointee even have the facts? It's an important question. He doesn't have the background. And remember, the Justice Department, it has change in leadership at the top, but our government, every agency is supposed to have career nonpartisan individuals in the middle and the bottom.

9:14So the top changes with administrations, but then you have all the other experts. They're explicitly supposed to be nonpartisan. That's why they're called career employees. They're not administration employees. And of course, the survivor there asks a very important question. Did that Trump appointee have the knowledge? No. The person with the most knowledge is the person who successfully prosecuted Maxwell. Ms. Comey, who was recently fired during all of this, which again raises questions. Why did this administration fire the person who actually busted the Epstein sex ring, not have them around for this interview?

9:51and then give Maxwell better treatment? That's the question. And you might say, okay, Ari, what are you getting at? What's the answer? Well, we don't have reporting on why exactly they fired Ms. Comey because they didn't give a reason or a definition. We just know it was an unusual, suspicious firing at the same time that all this was going down and she, of course, handled that case. But it's suspicious. We also know there are no known open cases regarding investigating this further. So going to a jailhouse interview for someone whose case, Maxwell's is literally on appeal, has no investigative purpose.

10:26Again, it raises questions whether this was an illicit, misleading attempt to shape her future testimony or clear Donald Trump, which raises a question, why would you need to go to such great lengths to clear someone? Another survivor today did bring up Donald Trump. And we've been very clear about this. there is not legal evidence in the public record that ties Donald Trump directly to these crimes. There's all sorts of consorting and social links which raise questions about a conflict of interest or whether voters and citizens think it was unseemly how long they carried on a public relationship.

11:00But to be very fair and clear, before I even play the bite, the sound bite, there's not an allegation with evidence of Trump being criminally tied to this. And yet he was around. And so the victims have a right to speak out and recount that while they watch the person with the conflict of interest who promised transparency oversee a secretive approach to this case at DOJ. Take a listen. 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. His biggest brag forever was that he was very good friends with Donald Trump.

11:38He had an eight by Tim framed picture of him on his desk with the two of them. Like they were very close. That's what these individuals remember during a period of time that was before Donald Trump went full time into being a candidate and later being elected president. And so we've shown you that long multi-year relationship between Epstein and Trump. If you look, you can see it. here you have over those years all that consorting and so now the epstein survivors are speaking out and as trump oversees a doj that both promised the country the epstein client list said it was on the attorney general's desk and then contradicted themselves and said it doesn't exist as that is on the one side in the government one of them today one of these survivors says maybe they'll just get the information together and release their own client list.

12:39I would like to announce here today, us Epstein survivors have been discussing creating our own list. We know the names. Many of us were abused by them. Now, together as survivors, we will confidentially compile the names we all know, who were regularly in the Epstein world. and it will be done by survivors and for survivors. No one else is involved. Stay tuned for more details. That's one of the pieces of news that came out of this because if they are going to name names, if they're going to submit that material to the government or ultimately use it as leverage, as pressure, to try to get any other documents released, that's a new development with the coordination, the network here of these survivors backed by members of both parties.

13:29So this is a real development. I want to tell you one more thing, and we've got our experts standing by, but what we're witnessing in public is a product of the failed, broken justice system in this case. And we've documented many aspects of that, including how the very first deal also cut out survivors and was struck in secret. But the corrective that we're seeing is not just theater for a MAGA podcast. The effort at this corrective is to do that which the justice system is supposed to do. an accounting of evidence, reliable witness and victim testimony, so that we might better understand what happened and how to prevent it.

14:09And when you deal with one of the most heinous crimes known to the world, it's far back in world history and one that's certainly rightfully punished that way, is when adults abuse children in this manner, minors or children. That's the pedophilia ring. That's the sex trafficking. And so it has taken this long with this much failure spurred partly by the strange road of the Trump administration hyping this issue, claiming to care about it, and then doing more to help a sex trafficking co-conspirator than we've ever seen by any other administration at the federal level in the last two decades, at least.

14:46That conflagration has brought these people out. And as you know, many of them did not want to be doing this. They didn't rush to do some big press conference. And this is coming because of those failures. And so it's in that breach that we might see a way out of this that matters beyond just the political content, as the president might say. And so we have Michelle Goldberg, who's written very intelligently about this, and a victim's advocate, Nancy Erica Smith, when we're back.

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16:33Find Disclosure Day on major digital platforms now, with no subscription required. Also in theaters.

16:44We are tired. However, we are not going away.

16:54We will not stop or give up, and we will be on the front lines of this battle. We are no longer scared. Epstein Survivor speaking today. I'm joined by civil rights attorney Nancy Erica Smith. She's represented victims of sexual harassment and workplace harassment, and Michelle Goldberg, New York Times columnist and MSNBC analyst. Both have followed this case extensively. You were there today. What did you see and how is this different from what I mentioned, which is a lot of people talking about this issue in victims without hearing from them? Well, I think that, you know, one of the things that people have been saying about these victims quite misleadingly is you hear Republicans say that we can't release these files because we don't want to re-victimize these women, whereas these women are out there begging for disclosure.

17:46And I think that's something that really hit me listening to them was why disclosure was so important to them. I mean, I knew that some of them had called for the release of these files, but there were two things in particular that they said. One was that a lot of them still, you know, they understand that they were abused, but the circumstances around that abuse, the reason that Jeffrey Epstein was never kind of really punished for that abuse, it's as murky to them as it is to us. And so part of it is just that they very much want to know what happened. But the other thing they said is that the conspiracy theories, the energy around this case, it's like a continual torment.

18:23You know, every time it's back in the news, they go to pick up their kids and they feel like people are looking at them. And they just know that this is never going to be put to bed until all the questions about it are answered. And so their only hope of closure is getting these documents out there. And Nancy, the judicial system is supposed to provide a special role for victims. We have victims' rights statements. We have access to any deal that's supposed to be cut. They speak sometimes in the context of sentencing. What is it that you see them seeking, as I mentioned, here in public to make up for what wasn't provided in the original case?

19:06Well, they've been re-victimized by this process of the Republicans creating this QAnon fury that the Clintons had a pedophile ring out of a pizza shop in Washington, D.C. So they were victimized when that happened. But they've been re-victimized by the lying and the covering up and the original prosecutor, as you pointed out, Acosta being in the Trump cabinet. The judicial system seemed to have worked for them briefly when we saw Epstein go to prison and Maxwell get 20 years and be convicted. And then the Republicans again, Donald Trump specifically and Bondi, then they use these victims again to keep drumming up this theory that the Epstein files were going to show the Democrats were part of a pedophile.

19:56Right. They weaponized it as propaganda against their opponents rather than actually caring about the crimes. Exactly. Exactly. And so they've used these women. I was very struck by the fear that the women expressed. This is so brave. Most of my clients who have been abused in this way have post-traumatic stress disorder, PTSD. And reliving it really triggers PTSD. And they are forced to relive it. So at least they're trying to take control of it for themselves. And that's so brave. But they express their fear. One woman said she's been followed. And I know this about other victims that wanted to come forward.

20:34It's scary for them. And they're so brave. But they want to own it now since it's out there anyway. That's what I agree with, Michelle. Yeah, I mean, and again, I think that just there's something so cynical, I mean, so deeply cynical about the way that this administration, on the one hand, weaponized this story to get elected. And then not only, I mean, what they've done is worse than nothing, right? Doing nothing would be bad enough. But to actually then kind of show leniency to Maxwell, their abuser, you know, you heard on this tape that they spoke again and again about just how gutting it was to see that.

21:15The other thing that struck me is that, you know, I think when we hear Trump say this is a Democrat hoax. A lot of us assume, or at least I assume, that he was kind of talking about the idea that there are files or maybe that he's in the files, that that's the hoax. But what they hear him saying, or at least some of them, is that you're lying, that none of this happened. And so, again, they feel like, you know, this kind of immensely powerful person is denying. And, you know, all victims struggle to be believed. But to have the president of the United States say, it's a hoax and to understand it that way, it seems like it has been really agonizing.

21:53I think that's an important point you raise, especially because the normalization of Trump's failures is lowering the bar. But the president does oversee the DOJ and all federal enforcement. He claims to care about crime. These are terrible crimes, some of them now convicted, and the defendant, of course, died in prison. So what you're describing is exactly right. It's a problem when the head of the government is diminishing this. Or as I said, that they fired the prosecutor who won this case, which in a normal DOJ is a good thing. You went after a rich, powerful person, you went after their aides, and you won the case.

22:29So I want to play, since you bring it up, what we now have, which is the interplay of what Trump has said, and this was one of the victims, Ms. Robson, rebutting it today. This is a Democrat hoax that never ends. 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. Mr. President Donald J. Trump, I am a registered Republican, not that that matters because this is not political. However, I cordially invite you to the Capitol to meet me in person so you can understand this is not a hoax.

23:05We are real human beings. This is real trauma. I'm struck by the cruelty of him, the cruelty. A normal president would have had some empathy after those women spoke out about their child abuse. And a normal DOJ would have said, don't be afraid. We're going to keep you safe. You're safe speaking out in the United States of America. But they are correct. They're not. His personal lawyer interviewed Maxwell. It's a corrupt DOJ and it's a corrupt administration. And these women are not safe and they're not going to protect them. So their bravery really strikes me. And banding together, I think, with their attorneys is going to keep them safer.

23:50The press is going to keep them safer. Speaking out is actually making them safer, I think. You know, the other thing that struck me was they, I think you heard that they said they're going to make this list themselves, you know. And so and at one point, actually, Marjorie Taylor Greene, who was who was there, one of the few Republicans who decided to show up when Donald Trump clearly doesn't want Republicans doing this, said that she would read the list of names in the House of Representatives because they don't want to release these names because of possible retaliation. And again, I think that, you know, you don't want just kind of lists thrown around willy nilly.

24:38This is in some ways, this kind of goes back to the Me Too movement. I mean, a lot of people criticized women during the Me Too movement for publicizing these unvetted lists. And there were injustices to the men on those lists, without a doubt. But those lists happen when the justice system fails. Right. I mean, I think the injustice clearly weighs on the side of the many, many victims like these victims coming forward at 14, 15 and 16 and ignored by our law enforcement, ignored. And then the Palm Beach County attorney admits that Acosta gave Epstein the deal of the century. The few men who may have been harmed by the Me Too lists are clearly outweighed by the victims, the women and the children who are abused in this country.

25:30And law enforcement does nothing for them like this case. Well, and part of what you're both saying goes full circle to the whole problem, that if you say to people, well, play by the rules and let's investigate it and then there'll be a fair process and there isn't, then what is their recourse? and then you add to that the way they have been mistreated and at times attacked and attacked by the sitting president, then yes, then you get other attempts at recourse. So that's why what we saw today, even though I think some people look with some skepticism at the whole way this thing has gone, what we saw was a unified attempt, nominally bipartisan, to actually get the justice that the Trump DOJ has failed.

26:12And that made it a different kind of day. So, Nancy and Michelle, thanks to both of you. Thank you. Coming up, the string of court losses that Trump faces as he returns to Washington in the fall and a stinging new defeat we'll tell you about. The chair of the DNC joins me tonight. A lot cooking. And before we move off this story, we turn to a lawmaker, a Democrat who actually met with these survivors as we follow the substance of this case. That's next.

26:40Most ice cream is good, but not Jenny's. Jenny's ice cream is more like an obsession. What you get from over two decades of tasting and tweaking and throwing it out and starting over, chasing flavors until they feel alive. That might sound crazy, and that's because it is. Jenny's. Often imitated, never duplicated, always splendid. Every bold journey starts with a decision to go. And if you're ready, the Defender is too. This is a vehicle built for more. Whether you're heading off the grid or just getting out of town for the weekend, Defender is a true icon reimagined for a new generation. Its rugged exterior is built from durable materials and tested in the toughest conditions.