WHAT IS JUSTICE IN THE EPSTEIN CASE? As he was promoting this week’s news conference featuring several of Jeffrey Epstein’s victims, Rep. Ro Khanna, the politically ambitious Democrat who, along with Republican Trump antagonist Rep. Thomas Massie, organized the event, promised that it would be “explosive.” It was not explosive.
Several Epstein victims, some of whom had not spoken publicly before, told of being targeted and molested by Epstein when they were underage girls. The stories were terrible, but then we knew Epstein, aided by Ghislaine Maxwell, did terrible things.
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In the context of Washington and the news conference held in the shadow of the Capitol, there are two Epstein stories. Epstein Story A is Epstein’s criminal acts involving minors. Epstein Story B is what, if anything, Donald Trump had to do with it. If not for Epstein Story B, it is highly doubtful many people would be talking about Jeffrey Epstein today.
The women all said they want to see justice served. “I’m coming here because there’s been a severe miscarriage of justice, a delay in accountability,” said victim Jess Michaels in a group interview with NBC News, done the day before the news conference. “We are willing to do whatever we need to find justice,” said Liz Stein, another victim. “What we’re looking for out of this is justice, looking for accountability,” said Sky Roberts, brother of another victim, the late Virginia Giuffre.
So everyone agreed the goal is justice. But the main perpetrator in this case, Epstein, is dead, having killed himself in jail in 2019. Epstein’s sidekick, Maxwell, is in prison serving a 20-year sentence. What do the victims mean when they say they want justice?
They appear to mean that there are rich and famous men out there who abused them and who have not been named in relation to the Epstein case. They want the names made public and for accountability to follow.
That brings up the subject of Epstein’s “client list.” Many who feel passionately about the Epstein case have long believed that such a list, made by Epstein himself, exists, and that the Justice Department is covering it up. But in July the FBI announced that its “systematic review” of Epstein documents “revealed no incriminating ‘client list.’ There was also no credible evidence found that Epstein blackmailed prominent individuals as part of his actions. We did not uncover evidence that could predicate an investigation against uncharged third parties.” Others who have studied the case from the outside believe there is no list.
Now, the Epstein victims say that if no list exists, they’ll make one. “Us Epstein survivors have been discussing creating our own list,” victim Lisa Phillips said at the news conference. “We know the names. Many of us were abused by them. Now, together, survivors, we will confidentially compile the names. We all know who were regularly in Epstein world. And it will be done by survivors, and for survivors. No one else is involved. Stay tuned for more details.”
On the other hand, on Wednesday, the victims had the attention of the world’s media. Why do they have to make a list? Why didn’t they reveal the names then and there? “Most of these individuals, the victims, are very scared to say these names because they could get sued,” said attorney Bradley Edwards, who has represented more than 200 Epstein victims. “They’re going to get attacked, and nobody protected them the first time.”
OK. If the Justice Department is covering it up and the victims are afraid to speak, how are the names going to come out? At the news conference, Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene said she would do it herself. As a member of Congress, she is protected by the Constitution’s “speech or debate” clause for things she says on the floor of the House. “If they want to give me a list, I will walk in that Capitol on the House floor and I’ll say every damn name that abused these women,” Greene said at the news conference. “I can do that for them, and I’d be proud to do it.”
That would certainly be a scene. If the victims create a list, and if it has names of people who have not been publicly associated with the case, and if Greene reads it aloud on the House floor — that is a lot of ifs, but it would certainly raise many questions. Like, are the men guilty? Did law enforcement investigate their actions and decide not to charge them? If so, is it a good thing that a member of Congress is calling them pedophiles and rapists from the floor of the House of Representatives?
You’ll notice that all of the preceding discussion is about Epstein Story A, Jeffrey Epstein’s criminal acts involving minors. You’ll also notice that Epstein Story B, what, if anything, Donald Trump has to do with it, played little role in either the news conference or in the NBC interview. Perhaps that is because NBC’s Hallie Jackson asked the group this question: “Did anybody see or hear of [Donald Trump] himself doing anything inappropriate as it related to Jeffrey Epstein?” The group’s answer was: “No.” And that was that.
We know that Trump and Epstein were friends in the 1990s. There are pictures of them at social gatherings. One of the victims said Epstein bragged about being friends with Trump. But we also know that Trump and Epstein had a falling out in 2004, before Epstein’s earliest problems with the law, and had no known contact after that.
At the news conference, lawyer Edwards said that Trump, then a private citizen, actually helped the victims’ cause in the early years. “I can tell you that I talked to President Trump back in 2009 and several times after that,” Edwards said. “He didn’t think it was a hoax then. In fact, he helped me. He got on the phone. He told me things that were helping our investigation.”
Note that Edwards mentioned Trump calling the current Epstein controversy a hoax, or, as Trump puts it, the “Democrat Epstein HOAX.” Trump posted on Truth Social Friday that, “This is merely another Democrat HOAX, just like Russia, Russia, Russia, and all of the others, in order to deflect and distract from the great success of a Republican president.”
The victims apparently took that to mean that Trump referred to the entire case as a hoax, as if the molestations did not happen. “I cordially invite you to the Capitol to meet me in person so you can understand this is not a hoax,” victim Haley Robson said at the news conference. “We are real human beings. This is real trauma.”
What is going on here is that Trump, not surprisingly, is viewing the current Epstein brouhaha in a Trump-centric manner. When he calls it a hoax, he means that the accusations about him are a hoax. It is notable that he compared it to “Russia, Russia, Russia,” which was also a two-part matter. In that case, the two parts were 1.) what Russia did to try to disrupt the 2016 election, and 2.) whether Trump colluded with Russia.
In the Russia case, there was no doubt that Russia tried, ineffectively, to disrupt the election. But a long special counsel investigation failed to establish that collusion ever occurred, much less that Trump took part in it. So Trump feels, to this day, that he was the target of a hoax in the Russia collusion investigation.
Now, Trump believes he is the target of a hoax in Epstein Story B, that is, what, if anything, Trump had to do with Epstein’s crimes. As he was with Russia, Trump appears to be right. Perhaps there is some world-shaking evidence that will emerge tying Trump to Epstein’s crimes, but after years of investigation, the chances of that seem vanishingly small.
On Capitol Hill, some of the crankier members of the House Republican caucus — Massie, Greene, and a few others — are pushing to keep the Epstein matter alive. But the fact is, most of the campaign to highlight Epstein is coming from Democrats, who hope to use it to damage Trump. Of course, Democrats controlled the Justice Department from 2021 to 2025 and could have, if the evidence existed, pursued Trump in the Epstein case. But they did nothing, which is another hint that they did not have evidence to use against Trump.
The issue at hand is a House effort to force the Justice Department to release its Epstein files. If that happens, some believe, all will be revealed. It is still unclear whether full release is possible; for example, some files are sealed by court order. Whatever happens, you can bet that even if “all” of the Epstein files are released, and Trump remains untouched, there will be some who claim that there are still deep, dark secrets out there.
That leaves the victims. They really are victims, and Jeffrey Epstein really did commit crimes against them and others. They say they can name other prominent molesters, although it is impossible to say how that will work. But as far as President Donald Trump, the political target here, is concerned, it appears that the mythical Trump-Epstein crime connection doesn’t exist.