{"id":293120,"date":"2025-11-18T18:16:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-18T18:16:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/293120\/"},"modified":"2025-11-18T18:16:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-18T18:16:09","slug":"please-release-the-records-epstein-survivors-urge-congress-over-doj-files-jeffrey-epstein","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/293120\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Please release the records\u2019: Epstein survivors urge Congress over DoJ files | Jeffrey Epstein"},"content":{"rendered":"

A group of survivors of Jeffrey Epstein<\/a>\u2019s abuse gathered outside the US Capitol on Tuesday morning, demanding justice, accountability and the release of the justice department files related to the late convicted sex offender.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s time that we put the political agendas and party of affiliations to the side. This is a human issue, this is about children,\u201d Haley Robson, one of the survivors, said. \u201cThere is no place in society for exploitation sexual crimes or exploitation of women in society.\u201d<\/p>\n

The news conference came just hours before the House of Representatives is due to vote<\/a> on a bill that would force the release of the justice department\u2019s cache of records related to Epstein, who died in jail in 2019 while awaiting trial on federal charges of sex-trafficking minors.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are exhausted from surviving the trauma and then surviving the politics that swirl around it,\u201d Wendy Avis, who said she met Epstein when she was 14, said at the news conference. \u201cI am asking Congress, please pass the bill, please release the records, stop making survivors fight alone for the truth.\u201d<\/p>\n

The measure recently secured enough bipartisan support and is expected to pass the House later on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

The vote comes after it became clear that it was likely to succeed and Donald Trump, who has spent the last few months resisting the release of the files and urging Republicans to dismiss the bid, reversed his position<\/a> on Sunday and called on Republican lawmakers to back the bill.<\/p>\n

In an interview with CBS<\/a> on Tuesday morning, the Democratic representative Ro Khanna, one of the Congress members leading the bipartisan push to release the files, said that he was \u201cvery surprised\u201d by Trump\u2019s reversal, adding that the president \u201cwas fighting Thomas Massie and me for five months\u201d, referring to the Republican representative who has co-led the effort, with Khanna, to force a House vote on this bill.<\/p>\n

Both Khanna and Massie stood with the group of Epstein survivors and delivered remarks.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is one of the most horrific and disgusting corruption scandals in our country\u2019s history,\u201d Khanna said. \u201cBecause survivors spoke up, because of their courage, the truth is finally going to come out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Massie urged the Senate, where the bill gets sent if it passes the House, to \u201cnot muck it up\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you do anything that prevents any disclosure, you are not for the people and you are not part of this effort,\u201d Massie said.<\/p>\n

The Georgia congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene<\/a>, a Republican and longtime Trump ally who has also pressed for the release of the Epstein file, joined Khanna and Massie at the conference.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese women have fought the most horrific fight that no woman should have to fight, and they did it by banding together and never giving up,\u201d Greene said. \u201cThat\u2019s what we did by fighting so hard against the most powerful people in the world, even the president of the United States, in order to make this vote happen today.\u201d<\/p>\n

Greene also referenced her recent clash with Trump, who withdrew his support<\/a> for her on Friday, after her criticisms and deviations from Trump and his administration<\/a> on certain topics, including the handling of the Epstein records.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve never owed him anything, but I fought for him, for the policies and for America first, and he called me a \u2018traitor\u2019 for standing with these women and refusing to take my name off the discharge petition,\u201d Greene said.<\/p>\n

skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n

Sign up to This Week in Trumpland<\/p>\n

A deep dive into the policies, controversies and oddities surrounding the Trump administration<\/p>\n

Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com<\/a> to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n

Robson, the Epstein survivor, also used her remarks at the news conference to speak to Trump directly.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile I do understand that your position has changed on the Epstein files, and I\u2019m grateful that you have pledged to sign this bill, I can\u2019t help but be skeptical of what the agenda is,\u201d she said. \u201cSo with that being said, I want to relay this message to you: I am traumatized. I am not stupid.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another survivor, Jena-Lisa Jones, also addressed Trump directly.<\/p>\n

\u201cI beg you, President Trump, please stop making this political, it is not about you,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI voted for you, but your behavior on this issue has been a national embarrassment,\u201d Jones added. \u201cIt is time to take the honest moral ground and support the release of these files, not to weaponize pieces of the files against random political enemies that did nothing wrong, but to understand who Epstein\u2019s friends were, who covered for him, what financial institutions allowed his trafficking to continue.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Epstein case, which has for years been the subject of countless conspiracy<\/a> theories, has plagued the Trump administration for months. Over the summer, the administration faced backlash after the justice department announced it would not release<\/a> any additional files, despite Trump\u2019s campaign promises. The decision sparked outrage from both<\/a> sides of the political aisle, with some accusing the administration of a \u201ccover-up\u201d.<\/p>\n

Last week, the House oversight committee released more than 20,000<\/a> documents<\/a> it received from Epstein\u2019s estate, including an email in which Epstein alleged<\/a> that Trump \u201cknew about the girls\u201d, which reignited scrutiny over Trump\u2019s past ties to the disgraced financier<\/a> and intensified calls to release all the justice department and FBI records.<\/p>\n

Trump has consistently denied any knowledge of or involvement in Epstein\u2019s crimes, and the White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, last week dismissed the release of the emails and accused<\/a> Democrats of \u201cselectively\u201d leaking them \u201cto the liberal media to create a fake narrative to smear President Trump\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A group of survivors of Jeffrey Epstein\u2019s abuse gathered outside the US Capitol on Tuesday morning, demanding justice,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":293121,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[64,63,134,427],"class_list":{"0":"post-293120","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-tv"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293120","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=293120"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293120\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/293121"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=293120"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=293120"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=293120"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}