Epstein victims say DOJ is holding back

A bipartisan group of lawmakers stood with victims of Jeffrey Epstein at a news conference on Wednesday afternoon, calling for the immediate release of all government records related to the late financier’s sex trafficking operation.

“I was only 14 years old when my friend brought me over to Jeffrey Epstein’s home in Palm Beach in 2003,” Jena-Lisa Jones said. “I remember crying the entire way home, thinking about how I couldn’t ever tell anyone about what happened in that house. This guy was so rich, and no one would have ever believed me if I told them.”

According to many of the victims and their lawyers, the public has only seen the tip of the iceberg when it comes to what the Department of Justice has on Epstein’s dealings. A bill designed to unearth the rest of the information is making its way through the House of Representatives. Its success depends on whether lawmakers believe the DOJ will keep releasing documents or whether it must be forced to do so.

“What you really want to see are the emails Epstein was sending on a daily basis,” Brad Edwards, an attorney for several of the women, told me. “His life was planned out on a 30-minute schedule, and you can get every single person he ever met with every single day of his life. None of that’s been released.”

He estimated the public has access to less than 5% of the government’s records on Epstein.

Epstein, a former financier with an expansive social circle, died in 2019 while jailed and awaiting trial on charges of soliciting prostitution. He rubbed shoulders with some of the world’s richest and most powerful figures, including former President Bill Clinton, President Donald Trump, and the United Kingdom’s Prince Andrew. His death, which was ruled a suicide by the FBI, happened before prosecutors could bring his case to trial, leaving questions about his dealings unanswered—including whether he may have facilitated sexual services for his famous friends.

Although the Justice Department recently handed over 30,000 documents to Congress—a sign to many Republicans that the agency is cooperating with public demands for transparency—Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., said that’s not enough.

“Go look at the documents,” Massie said on Wednesday, referring to the most recent declassifications. “You tell me if there’s anything in there that would reveal any name of another co-conspirator. But if you don’t have time to go through the 34,000 files, I guess the biggest evidence that my bill would release more materials than the DOJ intends to release is its opposition to my bill.”

On Tuesday, Massie formally filed a discharge petition that would bring the Epstein Files Transparency Act to the floor. If passed, the bill would require the Justice Department to make its files on Epstein publicly available in 30 days. The documents would include internal communications about the investigation into Epstein, documentation on his death, flight logs connected to Epstein, any individuals involved in his alleged criminal dealings, and more.

The bill includes a provision that the Justice Department may exclude the identities of Epstein’s victims. In cases where the files contain classified material, the bill instructs the department to summarize any redacted text. Any material containing child pornography must also be redacted.

The discharge petition would guarantee the bill gets a vote on the House floor over any objections by House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La. To succeed, it needs the signature of 218 lawmakers. Once there, there’s nothing Johnson will be able to stop its consideration. Johnson has decried the use of discharge petitions, saying they divide House Republicans, even though he has said he supports transparency on Epstein’s dealings. Johnson has offered up a different version of the Epstein bill that isn’t binding on the Justice Department.

A number of lawmakers coming out of a closed-door meeting on Wednesday morning said they don’t need to advance Massie’s petition because the Justice Department has cooperated with their requests.

“We’ve already released all the information. I’m not sure of the purpose of any of it,” Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., said when asked if he would sign the petition. Burchett noted that some victims have asked him personally not to sign the petition, citing concerns about their privacy.

Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., is a member of the House Task Force on the Declassification of Government Secrets. She said she’s holding off on supporting the discharge petition for now.

“I think the administration has handed over everything to the House Oversight [Committee],” Luna said. “In the event that I’m finding that there’s stuff that’s not answering my questions, I might be in favor of it.”

Since its introduction on Tuesday, Massie’s discharge petition has attracted 141 signatories. Four of them are Republican. Assuming that the rest of the Democrats support the measure, Massie will still need two more members of his own party for the measure to succeed.

So far, any sort of a client list Epstein might have maintained has eluded lawmakers and the public. Edwards, the attorney representing some of Epstein’s victims, doesn’t believe that there is one.

“There’s not a list,” Edwards said. “Jeffrey Epstein created—through an organization of enablers—a complicated scheme where others should be investigated because they enabled him. The purpose [for the scheme] was for him to personally abuse people. With that being said, with certain friends, he farmed out certain women he was exploiting. But that wasn’t the primary purpose of his scheme. I don’t think he wrote the names of those people down.”

Many of the survivors at Wednesday’s news conference stated their intent to use the renewed public attention to press for justice on their own. Lisa Philips, who runs a podcast that tells the stories of sexual abuse survivors, said some of the women might put together their own record of abusers.

“Us Epstein survivors have been discussing creating our own list. We know the names. Now together as survivors we will confidentially compile the names we all know,” Philips said.