President Trump signed The Epstein Transparency Act late last night in private. In doing so, he missed an opportunity to focus attention where it should be, on the survivors; many of whom spoke publicly about wanting to be present to witness the historic signing of a bill they worked for years to become law.
Trump then took to Truth Social to once again politicize the bill and focus attention, not on the survivors, but rather a bevy of famous, elite Democrats whom he claims were “Epstein associates” – no mention, again, of the survivors.
As Jennifer Weiner argues, there has been “one glaring omission” in the Epstein saga and that is the stories of the trauma endured by the survivors – many of whom were children and young women when they met Epstein. Some of whom took the very difficult step of reporting the crimes to law enforcement and the FBI as early as the 1990s, only to have their reports largely swept under the rug and the perpetrators protected for years.
The exact number of victims is still unknown, but by many accounts it is a thousand or more.
Each one of their stories is heart wrenching. Weiner’s piece is worth reading in full, among the stories she reiterates is that of Virginia Guiffre who, before her death wrote about being
‘lent out’ to “scores of wealthy, powerful people” being “habitually used and humiliated — and in some instances, choked, beaten and bloodied,” including by “a well-known prime minister,” who she writes tortured her so badly “for days, it hurt to breathe and to swallow.”
Likewise, Chauntae Davies who, speaking at a hearing about said:
“Every day, every week I’ve spent in the hospital since, I’ve suffered and he has won. Every job offer that’s been offered to me and then retracted because of my connection to this case, I have suffered and he has won. Every public humiliation I have endured, I have suffered and he has won. Every relationship that I’ve had to end because of the abuse that I have endured by the hands of this man, I have suffered and he has won.”
These are just fragments of the stories of two of the more than one thousand children who survived these crimes. One mark of real leadership is the ability to put your own interests aside, and instead, to both seek justice for and honor the lived experiences of survivors like these.
