No matter how much President Trump is working to remove any mention of Jeffrey Epstein from the front pages, time is working against him.
When Congress returns in a few short weeks, after some members spent the August recess having to answer angry questions from constituents about why the administration refuses to release the oft-promised Epstein files, the spotlight will relentlessly focus on this topic again.
But in all the back-and-forth about Epstein, Trump’s Washington has consistently ignored the voices of the people who matter most: the survivors. These were young girls who were victimized over and over again by adults whom they should have been able to trust.
Ghislaine Maxwell was the one who who presented herself as a glamorous, supportive woman in order to ensnare these girls for Epstein.
Then there was former U.S. Attorney Alex Acosta. Almost 20 years ago, he gave Epstein a non-prosecution agreement that ended the federal case against him, in exchange for Epstein pleading guilty in Florida state court to two prostitution charges, under which he served about a year with work release.
The deal also immunized four named co-conspirators and “any potential co-conspirators” and was kept secret from survivors, which a federal judge later found violated the Crime Victims’ Rights Act.
Then, just as it seemed that these survivors could finally receive a modicum of justice, Epstein died in prison before he could be held accountable for his crimes.
It must have been some consolation to them when Maxwell was finally convicted of child sex trafficking and sent to prison for decades. What a slap in the face, though, that she has now been relocated to a lower-security prison camp, even as Trump has not ruled out pardoning her.
Over and over again, the Epstein survivors have been ignored, dismissed and maligned by the Trump and his allies. Trump has taken to calling anything Epstein related a “hoax,” in a direct affront to the hundreds of girls and women who were sexually assaulted and trafficked by him, Maxwell and their friends.
Attorney General Pam Bondi failed to consult them before running to court to ask for the release of the Maxwell grand jury transcripts. And Trump has doubled down on refusing to release the Epstein files for which some of the survivors have been fighting for decades, because he claims that he does not want “people to get hurt.” The people he is likely thinking of, of course, are the men who palled around Palm Beach, New York and Little Saint James with Epstein — not the girls who were raped there.
Now, the House Committee of Oversight has scheduled hearings and depositions on the Epstein scandal. Chairman Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.) has subpoenaed a panoply of MAGA bogeymen, from Bill and Hillary Clinton to former attorneys general in the Bush, Obama and Biden administrations to former FBI Directors James Comey and Robert Mueller.
Notably missing from the list? The Epstein survivors.
But the survivors are exactly who Comer should invite to testify. We should know, as two of the women who came forward about sexual harassment at Fox News. In 2022, Congress passed the law we spearheaded to ban forced arbitration for sexual misconduct.
A major reason the Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment Act passed with overwhelming bipartisan support was the brave survivors’ testimony about their experiences. They gave it at great personal risk and only after being subpoenaed by a congressional committee.
Their stories, told under oath, illustrated with great moral clarity the myriad ways in which companies silence women who are sexually assaulted or harassed at work.
Hearing public testimony from survivors who want to speak and who are at the heart of the Epstein criminality is critical in turning the spotlight back to what this scandal should really be about: the girls and women who were trafficked and raped by rich and powerful men (and the women who enabled them).
The administration’s apparent efforts to marginalize, silence and ignore them is the elephant in the room, illustrating more than anything else how little the most powerful people in Washington truly care about holding pedophiles accountable for their behavior.
Before Comer issues one more subpoena to another former government official, he should change course and listen to the women who want to tell their stories so they can finally receive a modicum of justice.
It won’t change the tragedy of the last two decades, where they have been consistently dismissed by people who cared more about protecting the rich and powerful than vulnerable girls. But it will show that, at long last, our government and society at large puts survivors ahead of powerful predators.
Gretchen Carlson and Julie Roginsky helped launch the global #MeToo movement in 2016 and 2017, respectively, through their landmark lawsuits against Fox News and Roger Ailes. They are co-founders of Lift Our Voices, a nonprofit dedicated to ending silencing mechanisms for workplace harassment survivors.
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