Survivors Speak Out: Taking On the ‘Epstein Class’

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We won from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. This is on with Kara Swisher and I'm Kara Swisher.

“Today, I have a really important episode important to me and it should be important to you.”

I'm talking with three survivors of Jeffrey Epstein's abuse who are fighting for transparency and accountability, Danielle Benzky, Jess Michaels and Liz Stein. This is a critically important story. It's about a lot of things. The heart is about a crime.

It's about a sex crime. It's about sex trafficking. It's about the abuse of power. It's about the abuse of young women. It's about misogyny.

It's about power in America and how it is used and abused.

“It's a critically important issue and it's the heart of so much that's going on today.”

I know people have read and listened to a lot about the Epstein files. A lot of it has gotten sucked into conspiracy, but it's the heart of it is about the women who are abused at young ages by Jeffrey Epstein and the repercussions of it and people who are involved that have gotten off. No one has been exonerated here. Let me be clear.

I don't care what President Trump says. They haven't been properly investigated and these women and so many others deserve that. A note to our listeners, we don't normally explain the booking process for on, but this episode is all about transparency. We were connected by someone I've covered a lot in the tech industry to a communication strategist who has worked with world without exploitation. A coalition that fights human trafficking and sexual exploitation

that has also been working directly with Epstein survivors. The strategist introduced us to Danny, Jess, and Liz. The reason I need to tell you this is because the initial connection was made by Reed Hoffman, a well-known Silicon Valley investor and entrepreneur who might have known for decades. This is relevant because Hoffman knew Jeffrey Epstein, which was evidenced by numerous emails between them in the recent release of the Epstein files.

Hoffman hasn't been accused of any crimes. He's also expressed regret over any engagement with Epstein. To be clear, none of the Epstein survivors interviewed by me here had any knowledge of Hoffman's connection with the booking.

And Hoffman had absolutely no influence on the interview as it should be, but we always air on the side of full disclosure to our audience.

All right, let's get to my conversation with Danny, Jess, and Liz. The focus absolutely needs to be on the Epstein survivors. It's a powerful show. It's a long one and it's worth listening to. So please stick around. Bearwalls, clear surfaces, the minimalist aesthetic is having a moment. And for some, it's a form of resistance. Being a lot of people, I have a sense that we live in this very consumer society and feel kind of a desire and need to push back against that.

How to live with less? That's this week unexpleted to me. New episodes, Sundays, wherever you get your podcasts. Until now, mobile phone companies have worked very hard to ensure their phones do not start fires. But we found one company that dared to go in a different direction.

To make a phone with fire starting as a feature. On the first last we talked about all the greatest and weirdest phone concepts for mobile world congress in Barcelona.

Plus, after years of legal battles, Google and Epstein are now best buddies, contractually obligated to not say mean things about their app stores anymore. That's this week on the first last wherever you get your podcasts.

“When is the AI bubble going to burst? How do you AI proof your job? How should colleges handle AI and prepare students for a shifting job market?”

I'm Henry Blodgett, and on my show Solutions, I've been exploring all of those questions and more with experts who have actual answers. We hear enough about our problems. Let's solve them. Follow solutions with Henry Blodgett. Danny, Jess and Liz, thank you so much for coming on on. Thank you for having us. Thanks for having us. To start, can you choose tell us a little bit about yourself who you are, how you ended up in Epstein's orbit and how old you were at the time?

Just tell your story essentially. First, Jess, then Liz, then Danny. My name is Jess Michaels, and I'm a 1991 Jeffrey Epstein survivor. I was 22 years old when he raped me.

Okay, and what do you do now? What do you do in your life today?

Thank you for asking. I've actually created sexual assault first aid, and I have put it into an app called The With You to App,

and it teaches young people to know what to do and someone says me to. Okay, all right. Next, Liz. My name is Liz Dine. I was 21 years old in 1994, and it's senior in college when I met Jeffrey Epstein and Glee Maxwell. I am now a human trafficking specialist in a survivor advocate in the national anti-trafficking movement. Oh, great. Okay, Danny.

Yeah, so I was 17 years old in 2004, and I was within Jeffrey's orbit in 2004, 2005, and I was a ballerina, then no, I am a dense educator and a queer effort and a work for a physiological group, and I work a lot with kids, ages between 15 and 19, but like, this week's five is really 17 to 19, so, or on the time that I was abused by Jeffrey as well.

Let's talk a little bit first about what compelled you not just to come forward with your stories of abuse,

but also to do so publicly. I've covered this issue many times in different ways in Silicon Valley,

“in elsewhere with powerful men, but what compelled each of you to come forward?”

And again, publicly is a big move by women. I know this. Let's start with Jess, then Liz, then Danny. Yeah, back in 2018, when I read Julie K. Brown's article, the perversion of justice. It was the first time I saw his face in 27 years. It was the first time I realized that I wasn't the only one, because all that time I thought he had only ever raped me. When I heard those first four women come out, Virginia, Courtney, Shante, and Michelle, it was life-changing for me.

And at the time, I was actually working for one of the Sandy Hook foundations, and I was teaching young people to stand up for other people in circumstances where they couldn't stand up for themselves, and there came a point where I couldn't continue to teach young people this, if I wasn't willing to do it myself in my own circumstance.

“So that's what led me to start speaking out.”

And obviously we had a wonderful example with Virginia Roberts to Frey, and when I saw her being able to do that, I believed it was possible. So it was just seeing that story and understanding you weren't alone.

Right, obviously, understanding because we always think we're alone. That's a big, that's a whole point. The whole point is the silence and the isolation.

Liz, so when I met Epstein in Maxwell, I looked like I had a really bright future ahead of me. And after meeting the trajectory of my life completely changed, it looked nothing like what I had expected. And so for decades, I lived with this enormous amount of shame and guilt, and kind of this failure to thrive, and feeling like I didn't exactly fit in with my peers. And that was a big burden to carry, and so when Epstein was basically...

That's because of shame, or that obviously the abuse itself, but what led to you feeling that way.

“I think that the way that we view survivors, it's detrimental to survivors.”

We don't necessarily know what we're looking at when we see survivors of sexual assault. The way that this manifests in women's lives is through interpersonal relationship difficulties. A lot of times you see substance abuse issues. You see really just people who are not able to thrive like others. And a lot of times we look at these women and we stigmatize them and we say, "Well, what's wrong with her? Why can't she do this or why isn't she performing way that we expect her to?" And so the guilt is put on the survivor of the crime, and it's not, we're not looking at, "Well, why is her behavior like this? Why did someone in my case at least?

Why did someone who had to write promising future? Someone who was so good with people? How did that person turn into someone who was in and out of behavioral health hospitals, in and out of therapy, able to hold a job, unable to have interpersonal relationships, and it was trauma. And I will tell you that I really lived with that for a long time until someone looked at me and said, "You're not crazy, you have trauma." When not happened, it was treatable.

Right, and you were able to speak out.

It's the identification of what the problem is.

“Doctors were saying, "You have this, you have that, nothing ever seemed to fit."”

No one said, "You have trauma until 20 years ago." And when that happened, when someone tried to understand what was going on with me, instead of labeling me with different diagnoses, that was when healing began. Right, Danny, the PTSD is absolutely real. It's so well said, Liz. For me, coming forward, it was, you know, I teach cancer, I teach dancers.

And I was working at a private school, a prep school in Brooklyn. And I was listening to a group of dancers talk about parties that they had been to. And there was a mansion that one of them had gone to, and nothing happened, nothing goodness. But just hearing them talk, I just realized that the world needs to be a much safer place for these kids, because, you know, things like this are still happening.

And if we don't get to the core of it, and we don't, you know, the powerful people that are in positions of power are going to stay there, unless we do something about it.

“You know, so I think that that was just something that felt like we need to make sure that the right people are in those positions of power, right?”

Did you think about the repercussion, the price on yourself that it would cost? Well, when I came forward, it was 2021, and I had no intention of coming forward, actually. I had gone to the courthouse for a Gilin Maxwell's hearing.

I really just to thank my lawyer, Sigrid McColley, I had never met her in person, and we had always, you know, was during the pandemic.

And so we had always talked over Zoom, but I really wanted to just like have that face-to-face connection and interaction with her. And so I had gone to the courthouse that day, you know, and, and as I was standing in a hallway talking to her, she talked to me about community. And I had said that, you know, I watched the Jeffrey Epstein filthy rich, and I had seen Maria Farmer's story. And I remember feeling like, wow, if she could have been victimized, I could be victimized too. And I was able to sit with it differently, because she was an artist, and she was, you know, so talented.

And I felt like, wow, that level, like, she talked a little bit about this association and about how, like, it changed the way she created art. And I saw myself in that, so I talked to Sigrid for a moment about that, and then we talked about Virginia Free. And, you know, just really seeing myself in Virginia, and thinking about how she turned this shame into power. And I felt to myself, like, wow, I hope that I could be brave enough to do that one day, you know. And so we left the courthouse media everywhere, and I was, you know, I was masked, because we were just off of the pandemic.

And everybody's screaming for Virginia Virginia Virginia because I'm blonde, right? And so I was walking out.

“And she had said, no, you know, this isn't Virginia, but they said, do you want to give a statement?”

And they were like, you know, are you an upstream survivor? I said, yes.

So I gave my first statement, but they didn't know my name, and so then they followed us for blocks.

I mean, just like, people falling into the street was like nothing I've ever experienced while. And until finally, I just, I felt this immense responsibility to other survivors to say my name. And I did, and then nothing for quite some time, and then all of this came up again, really this July. And so, yeah, I think there's a price to being public about all of this, but there are Jane Does that I know that can't come forward. And I feel like it's, it is our duty in a way, like it just feels like there's this big responsibility to keep, to keep making change.

Absolutely, but Jessal is what is the price to you to view of, hey, I'm curious. So, for me, living with post-traumatic stress disorder now going on 35 years, I had severe physical debilitation. When your body lives in survival mode for a very long time, the nervous system affects every single system, your digestion, your immune system, your cardiovascular, your cardiovascular system, your endocrine system to a point where I was bedridden for two years, physically incapacitated. And it was actually that article in 2018 that's one of the things that kind of, I joke around like raised me from the dead.

Like I, I actually found some hope in there, and found a great doctor. But what happens for me is that my capacity is really limited. When I'm doing these so much media, and I wouldn't change it, I want to be really clear. There's nothing I would change about what I'm doing, what we are doing together, and the voice that is now happening collectively around this issue.

Yeah, but definitely takes ahead of you. What about you, Liz?

I would agree with all the things that Jess just described. You know, it's two sides of the coin for me. There is a great physical and emotional cost to me, absolutely. You know, there are days when we're just in bed, and that's it. But the reason that I'm doing this is because I couldn't talk about this. I couldn't talk about this for so long.

I am also like many other survivors, a survivor of childhood sexual abuse, and it was just for me decades and decades and decades of not being able to talk about it. Think about it. And we are in this position of visibility, and we would be remiss if we did not use it to change the narrative and to do better. And so for me, you know, the cost of this is worth it.

If I am able to change the narrative for even just one person who is experiencing this, if I can open someone's eyes as to what they're looking at. Really, I'm going to go back to what I was talking about earlier. If people understood that what was going on with me was trauma, my life would have looked very differently.

“And so that's why education is so important.”

All right, Danny. Yeah, I mean, I think the shame was really great for me for a long time. I, you know, I at one point Jeffrey had said to me, I turned 18 miles there, right? So I was between 17 and 18. And so when I turned 18, he had said to me, "Well, now you can be proud of a prostitution charges, right?" So you better not tell anybody.

And I believed him, you know, when he spoke, I believed. And so, you know, that sat with me for years of, like, don't say anything, you know, and then in 2008, I was subpoenaed to talk to the FBI and a friend of mine said, you know, you can't, you can't talk to them because, you know, Jeffrey threatened me and he's going to threaten you too. So there, there were, like, it's too fold. It's the threats that are real. And then there's the threat, like, that you feel in your body and that is shame, right? And it sits in the darkest places.

And I just think that, like, having conversations already takes it out of the dark.

“And that's really important when I think about the teenagers that I work with.”

I think about, like, if, you know, my friend and I were both there at the same time.

And yet, and we knew that the other one was going, but we never ever talked about what happened there.

And I think that this generation already is bold enough to say, like, hey, this is a bad thing that's happening to me. Is it happening to you too? And already they're going to tell an adult, right? Because we're having these conversations and we're opening the door. It's not as bad as it is in matters of great deal. Yeah, but I mean, it doesn't, it's not to say that I still have, you know, I am very regularly and since I've been doing this work,

I, like, walk the halls of the house in my sleep, like, my partner turned around and was like, are you okay? You're twitching, and your eyes are going crazy, it's lettering, because it just lives in this place psychologically that when you start talking back into it, it's very real. Yeah, you're definitely paying a price. This is not even close. I don't know if you know this, I testified against the sexual harass or any, uh, John McLaughlin and a trial. And I was 20. It was 20.

It was not sexual access. I was testifying a behalf of someone who was who I witnessed. And they threatened me and my career, actually, I was just a young reporter and they said if you do this, we're going to get you.

“And I then went on to use my name, my actual name, not a source said or source who saw it, because I felt like it was critically important for people don't believe if they don't have a name attached to it.”

You know what I mean?

And unfortunately, and I remember being warned by, like, your career is going to be hurt by this powerful man.

And I said, you know, and I did run into him later. And he said to me, it was everyone stabbed me in the back and you stabbed me in the front. You know, because I went, I was so public and so everything. And I was in my 20s and I said, any time you son of a bitch. And it was great. I have to say, and it didn't have a price. It didn't, I mean, the price was a good one. It was worth it. It was nothing like what you've been through obviously. Yeah, and I love what you just said. It was worth it. Like when I express you that at 22, you know, you're launching out into the world, you're still looking to adults to mentor you and to really find your way and to succeed.

And when you're your identity and your sense of self and your voice gets shut down at those younger ages, it's really hard to find it again. And so being able to speak now, I find I have a really difficult time shutting up. I have to keep talking. And I need to make sure my point is heard. And I've even allowed myself, I was like, I'm going to be messy. Because there's a learning curve, tapping a voice at 57, you know, 35 years later. And let's okay with me.

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Let's talk about people who trying to stop you still about the Trump administration's haphazard release of the files. It only did so after Congress forced its hand. There are possibly millions of more files still being withheld. And this week the Department of Justice also acknowledged it tens of thousands of documents have been taken down for review. It says it plans to republish them.

Danny and Liz, your names have appeared in the files unredacted. You already shared your stories publicly.

“But what went through your mind when you saw them there, Danny first?”

I mean for me, it's a gutting feeling that you start shaking and feeling this. It is PTSD, classic PTSD. And what I was feeling was not necessarily even for myself. There was a Jane Doe that was in my my 302. And her name was out.

And I was somebody that's close to me that I had said, like, you never have to worry about this.

Because you've been redacted from the beginning. You've never come back publicly. Can you explain what it's true to? I happen to know because it's with a bunch of lawyers last night, but what's a 302?

So in 2008 when I was so scared, I talked to the FBI. And it's actually, it's not, you know, I was so scared. And so it's not exactly the most like illuminating piece. But I did mention names, right? And so in that FBI report, you know, there were a couple of names in there that were not redacted.

And so we were looking at us scared, you know, 20 year olds reporting on something that happened before they were ready to talk about it to be honest. And then you're adding names in there. And so now that piece is out there for everybody to see.

It just feels really unfair because it was, it was never meant to be, you know, public.

Or those people were never meant to be in part of investigation. So I just think, yeah, I also, my, my dog was redacted, but my name and my information was not.

“And so I think that that is like the most classic look of just the sloppiness of it all.”

And just the carelessness of it because I had my Myspace page and they literally blocked out my dog. But then like my dog didn't need that trauma. No, I didn't need to send to see what about you was. So, you know, for me, I was just kind of blown away at the incompetence. My information was unredacted in a sentence that said Stein was a victim of Fsteen and Maxwell.

So that, you know, that was just kind of mind-blowing. But zooming out and looking at the bigger picture, there are a lot of ways that you can threaten and intimidate a survivor, right? Yeah. And it felt like in exposing people's personal information. You see us and you see us at press conferences and you see us speaking out.

And I know that we look really stormed. We are really stormed, right?

“But it takes a toll on us and think about these women who for three decades have not been able to really grapple with what happened to them.”

And have kept it inside. And now their friends and family are reading their name, their information. Things that you might have said in a depth of position.

Things that you might have said in your 302 that you never ever expected.

Anyone to hear the most intimate details of your life are out there for everyone to see. And that's a way to intimidate. That's a way to make it so people don't feel like they are safe coming forward because, you know, everything that you're promised that you'll be protected. Just went out the window. Yeah, absolutely.

Just an interview with the Times of London, you said the release of the document feels, quote, "purposedly chaotic." Like it's meant to mess with your head.

“Expoundness, as we said, there's millions of files in some way chaos was unavoidable.”

Obviously, talking about what the justice, to our own might have done to release these files in the way that better helps the public understand what's in them and the scope of the crimes. Yes, and just to clarify, I am not a lawyer. No, but as I understand it, this reduction for a case is a really common and simple skill. It is. And millions of files being sent from, say, a prosecution or to a defense or defense of prosecution, when files are shared,

a tactic that is used as I understand it is to make them as chaotic and send as many files as you can through, so it makes it very difficult for people to go through. So they seem to be following what is typically done when you're trying to thwart an investigation or a trial. And that's really hard to look past as, oh, it was just innocently done. There were so many, there were so many, and we had such a short period of time, but a couple of things happened. One of the things we've heard from Congress members is when they've gone to look at the redacted files, they found that the supposed unredacted files were redacted by the FBI.

And the DOJ never let anyone know and never had those files cleared of redactions so that they truly were unredacted when Congress wanted to look at them.

And that feels purposeful. And so, you know, one of the things we've talked about is that they've miscategorized things and that feels we're trying to get you to lose them. Oh, yeah, that happened during the Japanese internment thing. They put them different places. Yes, they wouldn't find the files. Exactly. So they didn't make sense. It was very purposeful in being chaotic.

And yeah, that feels like intimidation, that feels like a lack of transparency. That feels corrupt. Like we're really trying to keep this cover up going and delaying transparency as long as absolutely possible.

I mean, I searched myself and there were two mentions. He had been reading my articles and in one case, one of a conference I had, we bought a list and he must have been on it.

“So we got sent something. Luckily, I went back and checked and he tried to get into my conference because he was very up with the tech people all the time as you know.”

And on the on the thing, it says, carousels absolutely not like he's not letting a man. But how did you find yourself? Let's start with you Danielle and then Liz and then Jess. Yeah, for me, I mean, initially I searched my name. And then that was just a game of which was greedy because I was like, oh, nothing is going to be here. But of course, there was. So there was that. And then once they started redacting, you know, they put everything up and then they took everything down like as far as my things related to me went.

So I called my lawyers that everything's gone. I don't know where you know why it went. I had the EFTA numbers. And she said, well, they're pulling everything down to her doctor. Everything now and it's like, little late for that. But here we are. We're doing it. Right, because people could have gotten them. Yeah, which also feels people instantly downloaded the whole thing. Yes, but also like, what also are they pulling down was this all part of the plan right to like not or act survivors that have to be able to pull everything down so that we didn't know what was missing and then put everything back up right.

And so anyway, when when I was told the things were coming back online, I knew that there's there's an ID number. Actually, I don't exactly have it written down somewhere, but it has like your your number and then it's like a point to five or whatever unless you were a part of a trial and you gave testimony.

“And then you have like a full number. So somebody that's an illegal analyst who actually works for MS now, you know, told me that this was was there and I think I found you and is this your file. So she gave me that information.”

So at least I would be able to find the majority of my title there and all of them are there from what point you can understand. You know, okay, so I was looking for my 2019 in 2019 the idea came from my house and we spoke for hours it was like almost two hours. And I remember talking quite a bit about just what had happened, but nobody said like can you give an official statement and they just kept asking me sort of about who I knew and about different names and I felt like I gave them a lot more information.

It's basically one paragraph that is written up in 2019. So that does not feel whole to me.

So I am still curious if there's more author but again with the misleading to there's a monola envelope with my name on the side of it and that is not redacted my name and it has a believe my birthday underneath it. And on the front of that monola envelope, it has nothing to do with my story. It's about Florida, Tony Figuera is mentioned in there, which is not my story at all. So I'm like so whose notes are on my file, you know, so there's just miss labeling it's a disaster. It's a chaotic disaster. All right, Liz. So I also just put in search terms that I thought would bring something up and I found the information from the Maxwell trial that involved me and I also found my FBI intake form.

That's really all of the information that I've found. I called the FBI and the FBI didn't take for me, but they never contacted me to do a victim statement. So that's, you know, that's something that to me is just really glaring. They have this intake from me saying that I'm a victim of this crime yet they never followed up with followed up. That happens a lot. That happens a lot in general, but in this case it seems like they dropped the ball a lot. We'll get to that in a minute. What about you, Jess?

Well, they very first file, which was the email between me and, especially on Monday, young was found by a journalist in the journals reached out. So I think this is you and they were correct. But then the second round of files that were found someone publicly and it is public. So, you know, it should be fine.

“I said, hey, I heard you on a podcast and I think this file is yours and put the EFTA number publicly and so I went and yes, it was and then they found other files for me and DMed me and they've been the only ones to actually find them.”

And there's files missing. So it took a year and a half after I gave my information on the hotline tip in September of 2019, the first response that I got was

from Detective Harkins, who had called me back after the hotline tip. I told him what happened and he said, well, what do you want us to do? It was 30 years ago. And yes, I said, well, you asked me to call you.

So it's both incompetence and possible. I'll all manner of things. So all of three of you were at the House Judiciary Committee hearing last month with Attorney General Pam Bondi.

I want to play a little bit from that hearing, and this is an exchange between Bondi and Washington Democratic representative Pamilla Jaya Paul. Will you turn to them now and apologize for what your department of justice has put them through with the unabsolutely unacceptable release of the Epstein files and their information. Congresswoman, you set before, and there at Garland, setting this chair twice, Attorney General Bondi. No, I can come and finish my answer. No, I'm going to reclaim my time because I asked you to take a question.

Attorney General, I would like to answer. This is the same woman who bragged about having the Epstein client list on her desk about a year ago, even though there's no evidence it exists.

“What's it been like to watch the Trump administration go from championing the release of these files to this?”

They campaigned on this issue. Where Bondi can't even acknowledge you. Talk to each of you about that moment, Danny. Why don't you start? Yeah, I mean, it's whiplash, but I also think the re-traumization is so great.

It's exactly what Jeffrey did to us, and it's the same pattern, right? Where it always felt like, you know, he would hold the carrot or at least for my story.

You'd hold the carrot and for my nose always about your ballet dance, or I know all the top people. I can introduce you to the most powerful people, and where I can give you studio space. I can give you anything if you do these things for me, and then would turn around and treat you like trash after that. You know, after my story includes my mom had a brain tumor and brought the skins to him. And after that moment that I brought brain skins to him, even my abuse really rubbed up, because he had said,

He basically threatened me and said that he can help with her care, meaning like not paying for any of the basic information he could use. Exactly. He used the information against me. So without going too deep into my backstory, because you can find it out there, but it is that using the information and the manipulation that is involved. You know, it is definitely, it feels like, you know, they had all this information on us. And then it's that the feeling of like feeling like a ghost again, right, where I would walk through the halls of the house.

And so many people would see me and I would be there, but I never felt like I was a person.

I felt like I was not turning around, was like that, not even acknowledging. Exactly. Exactly like that. I just felt like, you know, that image of just drifting through the house, was so similar in the sense of like, she will not even turn around and acknowledge a survivor's existence. And so just having that inhumane, just completely, there's just such a lack of a sound lack of empathy and compassion that it just feels like she's not even a human being. And yeah, well, that might be true.

Yes. Yeah, when you were playing it, it really just hit me in the gut again.

“I think that sometimes when I'm in those rooms, or we're in, you know, the house, I might disconnect a little bit because it's a whole really overwhelming.”

But what I still can't get past is that no one was asking her to apologize for what Mary Gardland did. No one was asking her to apologize for the damage that her department of justice did. And that should be a really simple thing to do to even acknowledge that we were standing there. It was as if we didn't exist. And that is a, as Danny said, that is just the crux of the injury.

Mm-hmm. But for me, it was really upsetting, you know, as Danny and Jess just expressed to sit there and for her to not react to us. But I let go of that moment of upset for a moment. And I really just looked at it and I thought, wow, by her actions, she's telling everyone exactly who she is.

“So in ways, I think that her reaction couldn't have been better because it was so telling that she could not even be human.”

And I think that we're seeing over and over and over again, where our department of justice is. It feels like to me care.

But what we're seeing is that people see through that narrative.

“And so I think that the more they behave like this publicly, more people are going to demand that this all come out.”

That's correct. That's exactly what that photo did. I have to say it had a enormous impact and, you know, her trying not to was so awkward and strange. It happens a lot at these congressional hearings and a lot of Democrats are promising to investigate the Trump administration over the Epstein files. Obviously, politically expedient for them to say they will. And what the representative Jaya Paul was doing was a very typical tactic, right?

Turn around and say, you're sorry, it happened with Mark Zuckerberg and others around parents whose children had died. Because of issues around their bullying and things like that. But it's also incredibly effective, as you said. Now, one of the things, Liz, I know you said that issues in political, but lawmakers are political creatures, right? Talk about, do you think the people that are pushing for this generally care about survivors?

Or is it a political thing? Maybe both could be with some not others, but love each of you just sort of weigh in. Danielle, what do you start?

“I think it varies by person. I think we're having great conversations.”

And I think a lot of the time people see us in media, but they don't understand that there is a core group of us that are always in these Zoom calls and congressional meetings.

And we are telling our stories. And I think it is because these are human stories. We're not, you know, these political puns. We're not here to be pundits, right? Like, we are here to really tell our story.

And I hope that it doesn't happen and perpetuate again. Yeah, I think it's definitely both, and it really depends on who you're talking to. We have some lawmakers that have been just instrumental in really communicating with us, asking us what our thoughts are, what our feelings are. And we have had a lot of really important meetings with lawmakers on both sides of the aisle. We've seen a bit of a shift, and it's not with everyone, but we're now going into Republican lawmakers offices and they're listening to us.

They're sitting down and they're really hearing us.

I feel like for the first time, really understanding what this story is.

Because when you peel back what the headlines are, and you frame it in such a way that you make people understand that this is a crime. And it's a crime of sex trafficking, and we are girls and young women.

“And when you put it into language, that people can understand and relate to what if this was your daughter?”

What if this was a friend of yours, your aunt? And when you take all of the emotion, the political emotion out of it, and you ask people to look at it for what it is, then they understand the issue in a very different way. And so what we're starting to see with some Republican lawmakers is we really hear you. We're understanding this issue in a way that we just did not understand it before.

We want to support you, but, or we're behind you 100% hearing this call, but we're not sure how we feel about that. Publicly, what's the but? I think that people are reluctant to go up against this administration. I think that that's what the but is. Yeah. And starts with Donald, then's with Trump.

You know, we're living in a country right now that is not the America that I grew up in. And the America that I grew up in, we cross the aisle, we listen to each other. And we stood for what was right, despite what our political parties are. And so when you say to someone, are you okay with girls and young women being sexually victimized? Is that right with you?

It changes the tone. Because you're not saying, um, do you believe Donald Trump or do you believe Bill Clinton or do you believe any of these men? Because they're men on both sides of the aisle. So it's you're not polarizing yourself politically, you're focusing on what you're looking at what the actual thing was. Absolutely.

And how, you know, we wouldn't let this happen in our communities. We wouldn't let perpetrators of these crimes go free in in our communities. So why are we doing that as a nation? And so dialing back the political emotion here is really important. Absolutely.

Go ahead, Jess. And I do think that it is being used politically. I do think people care about it as well. I do think it's both.

I mean, we got an act of Congress.

It wasn't just Congress that pushed that act through. It was us. It was us advocating in rooms with Republicans with Democrats to get everyone on the same page. We worked really hard to help get that law passed.

“And, and I think that this administration, if you were to ask me where I think the big error that's going to be made is that.”

Sexual harm happens in every single school, in every single community, in every single state, and at volumes in this country that that this administration doesn't even believe. And so I believe that this issue will sneak up on the administration that there are many more people that haven't necessarily waste their opinion about it. Even though we have a ton of support on both sides. I think that this administration is going to be shocked. Yeah, of course.

We'll be back in a minute.

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But what I want to do today is not to give you the whole studio. The masterwriter named Tabücher SoftBahin, the internet. It's a masterwriter. You can say that you can pick it up. You can pick it up.

You can pick it up. But you don't believe it. You can say that you can choose a studio. You can choose a studio. And if you are working, you can buy it.

Save the studio. You can choose a studio. Now it is time for us to go. Let's talk a little bit more about how you have been navigating the release of the Epstein files. Two congressmen were part of getting these files released.

California Democrat, Rokana and Kentucky Republican Thomas Massey. To extraordinarily different people, I have to tell you, I know Rok quite well for many years. I don't know Massey, but certainly couldn't be more different. Talk about very briefly, who else is helping? Would you say getting accountability?

Because accountability is the critical element here, as you both all noted.

And of course, internationally, the fallout has been even bigger.

We've seen high-profile resignations. Investigations, I assume, will be, will go on. Dan, you said that in the U.S., as you noted, didn't feel like it was taken seriously.

“So, who is helping and who is hindering from your point of view?”

Let's start with Danny. Yeah, I think, I mean, the Democratic women's caucus has been extraordinary for us. I think there are almost too many to name.

But Melanie Stansbury has been amazing on his topic from the very beginning.

From the get go, I was at the House of Versailles Committee in September. And there were six of us in that room. And for the first time, I shared my story along with so many others. And she had come to Annie Farmer and I after and just looked as done in the face and said, "This is a cover up and we're going to fix this.

We're going to figure this one out." And I believed her. She's just the most genuine. So, she's been amazing, but Robert Kersy. I mean, it's like so many to name.

And there are Republicans that are, we're in Republican offices all the time. And I think we're having amazing conversations in those Republican offices. You know, we were a recently in cat cameyx office. And we've been, we've spoken to Joni Ernst Wright. There are Republicans that we, we leave feeling like,

"Wow, we were so seen."

And then there's really no follow-through.

And that feels so frustrating, right? When we were at cat cameyx office, we were talking about, it was the day before the Bondi hearing. And we did a press conference that was hosted by the Democratic women's caucus. And we said to cat cameyx who is the head of the Republican women's caucus.

Can you please talk to your constituents and come and stand with us because it's about women. It's not, and not just about women. It's about survivors, right? But in that moment, we really, can you just talk to your constituents

and please stand in solidarity with us? And the only Republican that showed up was Nancy Mace. And so it's like, where is the disconnect? Where are we not having that sort of just follow-through from them?

So that feels a little disheartening.

But of course Thomas Massey has been incredible for us.

And Nancy Mace has been amazing. So I would note, Ernst, isn't sexual assault. This survivor in May, so also. This, you know, I wanted to touch on something just said earlier about how we were able to get the Epstein Fire's Transparency Act pass.

That was something that no one ever thought that we would ever be able to do.

“And the only way that we were able to do it is because constituents”

reached out to the representatives in the spoke. And that's how our government works. So that's how it's supposed to work. Right. So citizen.

Citizens, right? You know, I think that a lot of people out there might be sitting listening to the story and feeling powerless, not knowing what they can do to health. And really what you can do is you can call your lawmakers and let them know

how you feel about this issue because they're an office because of you. Sometimes they don't act that way. No, they don't. But I think that I think that we need to remind ourselves of that right now in our country. Absolutely.

100%. Yes, that's actually a complicated question because I'm. Though I believe that we are getting as much support as we possibly can. From the Democratic women's caucus, from people like Robert Garcia, from the rep who invited me to the State of the Union,

Representative Wachen Shaw, who have the best answer for why as a guy. He was getting involved in this. That I had heard and he said, "Look, I've worked a long time in gender based violence.

And what I see often is women doing all of the work. Women should during the complete burden of this issue. And he said, I wanted to jump in and I want to support not because I want to center myself because I want to lift some of that burden. It was one of the best answers that I had heard.

So we do have people that are in there that are really trying. And it's 60, probably over 70 days passed the deadline.

“And I'm kind of like, all right, why aren't we so in Congress?”

Why hasn't Pam Bondy been impeached? Where are the consequences for them not meeting the deadline? That wasn't when things were supposed to start. That was supposed to be the deadline. And there was zero communication about that.

So I think that's the point. Who's going to stop them? Yeah, who's going to stop them? And I think once that line was crossed and nothing happened. I believe that it set a very bad precedent.

And I do that. This is an administration who crosses lines. Then sees nobody stops them and then just stays there. And that shows the weakness of our government in a lot of ways. So I met all the reductions in the Epstein files.

There've been a lot of calls for survivors to name Epstein's co-conspirators.

I think it's important to remember that it's not our job to police names of people. That could put us in a lot of danger physically. Danger of legal repercussions. But we have to hold our lawyers, right?

“And I think that if these crimes are ever going to be investigated seriously,”

it means to be done in collaboration with our attorneys who have this information. It's just it's such an enormous weight to put on the burden. To put that burden on the shoulders of survivors. And it's just it's it's impractical. And in any other case, we wouldn't be.

We wouldn't be saying, you know, the survivors of these crimes need to name the perpetrators of these crimes. Publicly. I mean, you know, public. I mean, we have a Department of Justice for a reason. It's just being on the survivors.

Yeah, the problem is some of the there's NDAs involved.

There's all kinds of things that in order to get testimony. But there are what people don't understand. I think actually in New York Times it's at a great piece about the people. The doctors around it. The lawyers around it.

The people that enable it happen. And it's always, you know, we tend to try to isolate abstinence a single and presario of everything. But there were people helping him bankers.

“All kinds of people, which I think are critical to name or to at least understand.”

People understand. They are named. They're in the files. And that was the point of the files being unredacted. And yet those names are often being protected.

And so what we need is people to start putting pressure on the DOJ rather than pressure on survivors. Like Maria did this in 1996. There've been multiple times that this case should have been investigated. That more arrest should have been made. And it's not for lack of survivors coming forward.

Yeah, absolutely. It should be your burden whatsoever. It should be. And these, you know, these enableers in many ways have gotten off. And it's damp, not as damaging as different.

But in that same thing. I had one of the people helping this guy who had threatened me when I was in my 20s. Come up to me at a party when I was very succinct recently, relatively a couple years ago. And said, I hope you can forgive me. And I said, I just can't.

“And I said, you need to move away from me right now.”

And they're like, well, forgiveness is really important. I know, but I'm not going to be doing that for you. So good luck. You know, and I said, you're a terror. I said, you scared a 20 year old girl into trying to get scared to silence.

And you couldn't fuck all the way off as far as I'm concerned. But never paid.

Never paid to at the same time, which was really disappointing.

It was a woman too, which was just horrible. That's end by talking about where things go from here. Can look at the big picture. The crimes committed against you and countless other women have exposed this so-called Epstein class, many of the richest and most powerful.

People in the world turned to Epstein for access to women. He trafficked or they turned to blind eye. That's also the case to his crimes and accepted money and connections. Or just social, you know, social parties, dinners, and everything else. But Danny brought this out for us because there's been a lot of comparisons to the Epstein

Files in the 2008 financial crisis for millions of merchants lost their homes while the banks got bailed out. Like the same idea, talk about the way the files reveal how power works in this country. Because, you know, I think it's very much linked to a lot of different things. You know, whether the tech moguls taking over things and making decisions for the rest of us, et cetera. Or the attempts to make us feel powerless and that some people get theirs and others do not.

Danny, you want it you start and then the others can chime in. Yeah.

I mean, it's always power versus vulnerability, right?

It's at the heart of all exploitation. And so when we are in these young girls in this country, it's very easy for a powerful person. I think, especially if you've had any sort of grooming in your background where you've been room to be a people pleaser or groomed to always strive for a perfection, it's easy to walk into a trap. And I think that we really need to get to the core of the power structure, you know, because power protects power.

And so we have to find a way to, you know, just make sure it's the right people that are at the top. Just one of the things that I have noted in the minimal amount of files that I've gone through and what I've read from others online is that this has really permeated. Every single area of society from the medical industry, the entertainment industry, the arts industry, academia, tech banking and financing politics, literally everywhere. And just like Danny said, powerful people are protected.

Because we're seeing it now, it's not a secret, people are talking about it.

And I do hope in in one of my areas of hope that is that transparency. The transparency of everything that's come before us, like everything that's happened up to now to show those files is what's going to change that level of secret protection. Instead of people saying, oh, the rich get off kind of stuff. Yeah.

“Yes, where used to seeing powerful people protect each other. And I think that the only way that we change things that live in darkness is by bringing them out into light.”

And I think that now this is on display for everyone to see. You know, I think that ten years ago, if we talked about what our experiences were people would have brushed us off and thought that we were that we were crazy.

And you know, all of those, all of those stigmatizing stereotypes that people throw on us, but now we're seeing it.

And so now that we're seeing it right in front of us, what are we going to do about it? We have the chance to change the narrative here. We have a chance to hold people accountable in various ways, whether it's losing their positions of power, whether it's legal repercussions. We have the opportunity to change what this looks like for the future. And I really hope that we take that opportunity, we seize it because we need to change this narrative.

“100% I think one of the things my partner, my other podcast says is the rich are protected by the law, but not bound by it.”

And everybody else is bound by the law, but not protected by it, which is really absolutely true. And Epstein was very deep into tech. He was around in all these events.

I never met him, but he was there and he was funding things just to insidiously involve himself in academics or technology.

And tried very hard to get sort of made whole after his first bow with the law, where he got off rather easily. So he's trying to reestablish his reputation. And in that vein, every episode, we get a question from an outside expert, and yours actually comes from Julie Kay Brown, an investigative reporter, The Miami-Herald, who helped expose the extent of Epstein's crime with her incredibly groundbreaking piece, much later about the first conviction. So let's listen to what Julie has to ask you.

There everybody. My question to you is Donald Trump has frequently said of late that he believes that he has been exonerated as far as these files are concerned. And I was wondering what your thoughts are about him being exonerated. Okay, just and Liz, then Danny. Well, we know that the president speaks in broad gas lighting strokes and throws words out that don't necessarily equate to anything that's actually happening. And so, interestingly, gave no proof of any of that at all.

And there is plenty of instances in there. I am one of the survivors, and I think we're own agreement that he is in there enough times he should be testifying and there should be investigation. She should be investigated. He's not exonerated. Clearly hasn't been investigated. He's not exonerated, as a matter of fact, we have way more questions than answers now, and he needs to be part of that investigation. Absolutely, Liz.

Yeah, in no way has Donald Trump been exonerated by this. So, we haven't exonerated anyone.

“And that's why these investigations are so important.”

Donald Trump's relationship with Jeffrey Epstein really needs to be looked at under a microscope. And he needs to be questioned just like any other one else. Anyone else is being questioned right now about what he knows about Jeffrey Epstein's crimes? Absolutely. Everyone deserves the right to be investigated properly, so they can be exonerated if they are in fact not guilty. Danny.

Yeah, everything that everybody already said, but I mean, it has to move through a process. It has to move through legal channel. So, this idea of being exonerated, we would love for him to go and be investigated and move through illegal process. You know, do I think it will be exonerated? I don't know. But, you know, I think that we really need to see, we've been saying we need to see the investigations,

but we also need to stop putting survivors in places where, you know, I think part of this conversation of exoneration came up when many of us were in a room

And it's like the safety of that is so is beyond lacking, and of course, nobody in the right mind is going to raise their hand in a situation like that.

“That's why we need the files released and investigate it.”

So, yeah, nobody's been exonerated. Nobody's been exonerated. Nobody's been exonerated. That's absolutely true. It hasn't been properly investigated. The three of you is speaking of which, of an advocating for the passage of Virginia's law. I suppose legislation named after another Epstein survivor, perhaps the most famous Virginia Jew-Fray.

If passed, it would lift the statute of limitations on civil, sex abuse cases.

This is a critical thing in the case I testified in, and it was too long for the person I was testifying for, and I couldn't believe it.

I was shocked by this. Why doesn't it have a statute of limitations?

“And I didn't know this. I was plummixed as to why it was. Let's talk about the legislation, why it's important, and what else do you'd like to see from Congress?”

This is such an important law because the way that your brain processes sexual trauma, it can take you decades to fully unfold what happened to you. And, you know, someone's disclosure can't operate on a legislative timeline, and so a lot of times we see people who were exploited in their teens and their 20s, not understanding what happened to them until their 40s or 50s. And by that time it's too late, and it's not that the crime didn't happen. It's that the law had the time had run in law.

And so we've seen this approach in states, we've seen New York, the Adult Survivors Act, which opened a one year look back period for anyone who'd experience sexual assault.

“So the importance of Virginia's law is that it would open that up on a federal level, and I think that there's no better way to honor the memory of Virginia Roberts to fray than to pass this law.”

Let me move on to another one, Jess, you told Katie Kirk that you think Congress needs to calm our people into testifiers just noting that anyone who lost their job over leased the files or who resigned or who names appeared in the files multiple times in a very significant ways. The Clinton's recently testified, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnik has said he's willing to, the House Oversight Committee just voted to subpoena bondy over the Justice Department's handling the case, Bill Gates and Leon, black, have also been asked to testify.

What happens next if this happens, and most people feel President Trump should be called to testify about his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. What do you think happens next, Jess? My personal hope is that there is enough information from these testimonies to prove that a full bone investigation needs to happen.

But hopefully counsel, yes, and that survivors will be able to come in and give testimony because many of us feel like we had information that was never ever listened to by the FBI.

And so there's been these, you know, so called investigations, but we have no idea because even the investigation notes weren't in the files. What I'm hoping is that the testimonies will make way for, yes, it's clear we need to do some thorough investigations and that needs to start now. So have any of you spoken to federal investigators about ongoing investigations? No, you know, not since, you know, 20, what was that 2019 when they came to my house, so they're not investigating. No, I mean, Pam Bondi said in the hearing supposedly there are ongoing investigations on her desk right now, but, you know, you've gotten not gotten a call.

Another one. No, no, is it what are those investigations, you know, when she said that they're, you know, they're active investigations, okay, great, is that why you're holding, you know, certain files, then what are they and why, you know, so we just all have we have so many questions. So to be clear, none of you have been called by federal investigators. No, no, okay. All of you have made advocacy a huge part and it's incredibly brave. You've lobbied hard for the passage of the Epstein file's transparency act, you've been meeting with lawmakers pushing for regional law, et cetera.

Just you really synapt to help people navigate the days and weeks after someone real estate been sexually assaulted like a first aid kid, as you noted, Liz, you're an expert on human trafficking and you've helped bring Epstein survivors together for the first time. And a whole bunch of things with kids and trying to get people to be safe and figure things out. Talk about how advocacy has helped you come to terms with this abuse and help you heal. It's a very heroic thing to do. I hope you all understand that.

Thank you for saying that. Yeah, I think it's so funny when people are like, oh, it's it's very courageous and any farmer set of facets like you're just walking, you're putting one foot in front of the other and you just keep putting the feet in front of the other, it just feels like the next thing to do. And a lot of this does come from for me. That is heroic. Just so you know. Thank you for saying that. But you know, it was it's, I watched forging in you free.

I mean, there are so many things. It's the rabbit hole. Once you start, it's like, or not even the rabbit hole. It's like cleaning your house, right? It's like you move one thing and then you're like, oh gosh. Now I have to like wind acts. Now I have to, you know, and it just keeps building.

Because it's like, oh, well, okay, we did the transparency act. We got a law pass. Like that's incredible.

And then we're like, we need to change that amount of patience. Like that is the next step, right? Because there shouldn't be a time limit on justice. I mean, I'm almost 40 now. And I'm just now coming to terms of being able to handle.

“To handle my own abuse and look back and actually see what happened to me. You know, so it's just crucial that we do this. And so it's just having that belief and knowing that you have to do something about it.”

Right, absolutely. Just I was talking with my therapist recently about, you know, because she was so proud of me and she's like, and your grand therapist is really proud of you. You know, it takes a lot of courage. And I told her, I can't really feel that. I can't feel it. And she goes, that's because you've just started doing the thing that's right for you.

And for me, I feel like, like Liz, I was a child sexual abuse survivor.

Then came Epstein to work the amount of healing that I had already gone through. And I just can't see myself doing anything else. It's the right thing to do. And all of the people that came before me that helped me be able to get to here before I could even speak the words.

“I remember how much it made a difference for me. And so I think what I'm doing is what other people did for me is all I'm doing is taking my hand reaching down to the person behind me and giving them a pull up.”

And that's how we all heal and that's how we stop being silent. And that's how we make cultural change. Absolutely. Absolutely. Liz, why don't you finish up? For me, I also, when people say that I'm brave, I don't see that or feel that necessarily, I can't imagine doing anything else. And really what fuels me in doing this work is I see my six year-long self and I see myself throughout the different ages that I couldn't speak and that I didn't have anyone to talk to. And it would be, you're responsible of me to have this position and to not use it. So that others did not feel alone in this.

Because if I could go back and tell myself anything, it would be to tell someone and if they don't listen, tell someone else and just keep telling until people listen to you. And even if you feel like they don't be proud of yourself because you at least were able to sit in your uncomfortable truth when other people weren't. And that's really what fuels me doing this advocacy being the person that I wish was there for me when I needed them. Which is critically important to think about yourself because people don't mourn themselves in previous versions of themselves.

Let me then ask, can I just ask one thing? We've talked about how this trauma is overwhelming and how it impacted our lives negatively, but I just want to leave people with. When you experience trauma, it's possible to recover from trauma. And so you're looking at three women here who've done a lot of work on ourselves. And really invested trauma and energy into finding who we were before all of this happened. And that's possible for all survivors of sexual assault. Absolutely, 100% it doesn't have to completely overwhelm you. It can't.

I would also, sorry. I would also love to add that community is hugely important. And it was underrated. I was I siloed myself. I was in a pretty horrible relationship for quite some time.

After my abusive Jeffrey and I was really I siloed myself on purpose because I felt like I could never connect to people.

The way I had before abuse and finding, you know, we have the survivor sisters and truly finding this incredible group of people and knowing that there's there's something that is unsaid that you just understand the depth of darkness. And you're doing something actively to change it. So to be able to work on it. It's like the best group project we possibly can have.

“Because it is like where this support that you feel from one another is everything and it changes everything for me. I think that like when I wake up in the morning and I listen to any one of these women talk.”

It's like, okay, Danny, get up. You can do this too. You gotta keep going. Right. And so just finding your community and finding those spaces to be able to just speak about the unspeakable or it's really important.

I already used strong. Okay, strong. Because you are.

“Yeah, but I didn't always feel that way. You know, how often as women do we quiet those voices inside of us that is telling us who we are and we're listening to what other people are saying.”

And so the strength is definitely always in me.

It's just, yeah, great word, great word. Tenacious. Because I would say I don't quit, you know, I get an A and therapy. That's a job. Whatever. Whatever I tend to do, I'm like, I just, I don't quit and so I would say I'm tenacious. Excellent word.

“I think for me, it's honest because I, I couldn't be honest with myself every time I looked in the mirror for so long.”

I didn't, it just always felt like that imposter syndrome of even being alive because I knew that this abuse it happened and it was tucked away in the darkest parts of myself.

So I think that every day this has been a pursuit of real honesty for me. This is great. I would call you all inevitable. Conventional. We hope you're right. I am right. We're holding you to it.

“Just because you don't know how the story is going to end.”

That you feel hopeless, but it's not the case.

It's inevitable. That word can have it all. Thank you. Anyway, I really appreciate it. Danny, Jess and Liz, thank you so much.

Thank you, Aaron. Thank you. Thank you, Cara. Today's show was produced by Christian Castro Rossell, Michelle Aloy, Catherine Milsop, Megan Bernie, and Kaylin Lynch.

Nishat Kerwa is Vox Media's executive producer of podcast, special thanks to Bradley Sylvester and Madeline Leplant Dubi. Our engineers are Fernando Aruda and Rick Juan and our theme music is by Tracodemix. Go wherever you listen to podcasts search for on with Keroswisher and hit follow. Thanks for listening to On with Keroswisher from podium media, New York Magazine.

The Vox Media podcast network and us will be back on Thursday with more.