Survivors of late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein‘s abuse spoke about their experiences on Capitol Hill Wednesday morning in a push to release additional files on the serial child predator.
Close to a dozen victims of the sinister New York financier spoke at a press conference hosted by Reps. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., and Ro Khanna, D-Calif., who are pushing a bill to release the Justice Department’s Epstein documents, despite some files being published on Tuesday.
The Justice Department sent over 33,295 pages of Epstein files to the House Oversight Committee in August. The congressional panel, led by Republican Chairman James Comer, released those pages on Tuesday after reviewing them.
Massie criticized the release on Wednesday morning, claiming the production does not include enough new material. Many of the files reviewed in the data drop by the Daily Mail appear to be previously reported, though some new videos were included, like a video of Epstein’s jail unit the night of his death.
‘[The] White House says helping me secure a vote to release all the Epstein files is a ‘Hostile Act.’ They’re threatening anyone who helps bring true transparency and justice for the survivors,’ Massie posted on social media. ‘This is a tacit admission the Oversight Committee data release is woefully incomplete.’
Massie and Khanna’s presser with the survivors has put pressure on GOP leadership, who seem not to want the bipartisan Epstein bill to hit the House floor.
The bill would instruct the DOJ to publish a wider array of files; the ones published by Congress on Tuesday were selected by the department to be turned over, meaning the bill likely could force out additional files.
At the press conference, Marina Lacerda, 37, named as ‘Minor-Victim 1’ in Epstein’s 2019 indictment, spoke out about the abuse she faced and called on Congress to take further action.
Hundreds of supporters gathered for the press conference on Wednesday morning
Alleged victims of Epstein and other victims of sexual abuse are holding the rally amid a bipartisan Congressional effort to force the federal government to release all unclassified records from the cases of Epstein and his associate, Ghislaine Maxwell
Kentucky Republican Rep. Thomas Massie, R, speaks at the press conference as Epstein survivors and Georgia Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene watch
Lacerda, according to the 2019 indictment, met the financier in 2002 when she was just 14. She was recruited to go to his Manhattan home to give him a massage, which later led to years of abuse.
She was called so often by Epstein’s associates to visit that she dropped out of high school, she said on Capitol Hill. The survivor noted how it was her ‘first time’ sharing such intimate details of her abuse.
Lacerda called for the release of additional files to help her heal from her interactions with Epstein and his girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell.
‘The worst part is that the government is still in possession right now of the documents and information about that that could help me remember and get over all of this, maybe and help me heal,’ she said tearfully.
‘They have documents with my name on them that were confiscated from Jeffrey Epstein’s house, and could help me put the pieces of my own life back together,’ Lacerda continued. ‘But I don’t have any of it. And I know the same is true for many of these women.’
The top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, Robert Garcia, told the Daily Mail at the event that the Trump administration still has many more files on Epstein that have not been released.
‘All information that’s been released so far we already had,’ he told the Daily Mail in an exclusive interview. ‘It’s our understanding there’s information at the CIA and possibly the FBI.’
‘So I want to see where in the files is the president’s name, and how is it more broadly attached to what’s going on here?’ he told the Daily Mail.
U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., speaks with Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., and Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., during a news conference with alleged victims of disgraced financier and sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein outside the U.S. Capitol
Family members of Virginia Roberts Duffey, Scott Roberts (C), his wife Amanda Roberts (R) and brother Daniel Wilson, speak at the Stand with Survivors Rally in support of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell’s victims
New York financier Jeffrey Epstein committed suicide in 2019 while in jail awaiting his trial for federal sex trafficking charges
Another victim, Courtney Wild, claimed she met Epstein when she was 14 through a mutual friend who was 13 at the time. At the age of 19, she hired a lawyer and took legal action.
‘Sometimes it’s hard to believe that I had to sue the United States just to learn that my user was given immunity,’ she said at the press conference.
‘The only reason anyone ever found out that the government had already given Jeffrey Epstein immunity through the non-prosecution agreement was because our lawsuit forced the government to tell us; otherwise, nobody would even know that today.’
Sky Roberts, the brother of Virginia Giuffre, a high-profile Epstein survivor who died earlier this year, also spoke.
Crying and surrounded by family, he pleaded for Congress to better protect child trafficking victims.
