‘Devastating and heartbreaking’: Epstein survivor slams DOJ for failure to protect victims

It's just incredibly disheartening that they didn't, they really failed all of the survivors on this, um, after so many months of saying, we're being so meticulous about this, and we care so deeply about this. Um, so I think that that's where the slap in the face really hurts.

Hi again, everybody. It's now 5:00 in New York, according to Donald Trump's Justice Department. Case closed, case is over in terms of their handling of the release of the Epstein files. But more importantly,

according to Epstein and Maxwell survivors, the process has been a slap in the face. A month after the legally required deadline for DOJ to release the files in their entirety, the Department of Justice released a massive trove of 3 million documents.

To call the release sloppy and haphazard is about the nicest thing we can say about it. According to my colleague, Lisa Rubin, at least 40 known or suspected survivors' names were revealed in the files produced Friday.

Not just their names, for lots of them, their addresses, their phone numbers.

New York Times is reporting that the Justice Department published dozens of unredacted nude photos showing young women, and possibly teenagers, underage girls.

In a joint statement, 18 survivors slam the government's handling of their abuse,

writing this, quote, This latest release of Jeffrey Epstein files is being sold as transparency, but what it actually does is expose survivors. Once again, survivors are having their names and identifying information exposed, while the men who abused us remain hidden and protected.

The Justice Department cannot claim it is finished releasing files until every legally required document is released and every abuser and enabler is fully exposed. This is not over. We will not stop until the truth is fully revealed and every perpetrator is finally held accountable.

This afternoon, the federal judge who presided over Epstein's criminal case scheduled a hearing on Wednesday to address the Justice Department's redaction failures.

In terms of what is new in this release,

our reporters are continuing to comb through the millions of files, along with journalists from NBC, CNBC, the Associated Press and CBS. The New York Times reports this about Donald Trump's frequent appearance in the files,

quote, Using a proprietary search tool, The New York Times identified more than 5,300 files containing more than 38,000 references to Mr. Trump, his wife, his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida, and other related words and phrases in the latest batch of emails, government files, videos and other records released by the Justice Department.

Previous installments of the Epstein files, which the department released late last year,

included another 130 files with Trump-related references.

None of those files include any direct communication between Mr. Trump and Mr. Epstein.

Besides Trump, there are a number of other powerful men mentioned in these newly released documents.

Elon Musk is one of them.

He said in 2019 that he never took Epstein up on invitations to his island.

It was revealed that he had exchanged multiple emails with the sex trafficker,

trying to coordinate a visit.

Elon Musk writing in one of those emails,

quote, What day/night will be the wildest party on your island?

End quote.

Former Prince Andrew is also seen in a brand new photo,

on all fours along with an unidentified woman.

Sorry to anyone seeing this.

Co-owner of the New York Giants, Steve Tisch, shows up hundreds of times,

mostly in emails where Epstein proposes women for Tisch to meet.

Tisch said in a statement that he did not take Jeffrey Epstein up on any of those invitations.

Brett Ratner, the director of the newly released Melania,

do we call it a documentary? Documentary.

This picture alongside Jeffrey Epstein in one of the documents.

There he is.

Donald Trump's Secretary of Commerce, Howard Lutnick,

who said in a televised interview just a few months ago,

that he resolved long ago never to be in the same room as Epstein.

Said his dining room was weird.

Said they cut ties.

It's revealed in new documents that he had arranged a private lunch with Epstein and his family,

on Jeffrey Epstein's island.

And the fact that all those guys are in the files,

doesn't mean that they committed crimes or at least crimes that could be adjudicated or proven.

Doesn't mean that they engaged in wrongdoing.

It does speak to all the powerful and rich people,

and all the people that happened to be very, very close to Donald Trump.

All of their presence in these files.

When it comes to the idea that anyone would have had an incentive for them to stay quiet,

some of what's been released answers some of those questions.

Now, when it comes to any potential consequences for the new revelations in this big drop of files,

here's what the country's Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, who visited Ghislaine Maxwell in prison,

had to say.

There's a lot of correspondence, there's a lot of emails, there's a lot of photographs.

There's a lot of horrible photographs that appear to be taken by Mr. Epstein or were people around him.

But that doesn't allow us necessarily to prosecute somebody.

Okay.

So that's hardly comforting to the survivors of Epstein's abuse,

who've been steadfast in their calls for accountability and transparency for everyone involved in the heinous crimes carried out against them.

That's where we start the hour with our senior legal reporter, Lisa Rubin.

Danny Bensky's back with us.

You saw her at the top of the hour.

She is one of the Epstein survivors who's been talking about it,

bravely sharing her story, advocating for herself and the other survivors,

and for transparency from the Trump administration.

Also joining us, Tara Pal Mary.

She writes the Red Letter on Substack.

She's hosted two acclaimed podcast series on the Epstein case.

They are called Broken, Jeffrey Epstein and Power,

the Maxwells.

Um, we're going to start with you if you're ready.

You ready?

Yeah.

How are you doing?

I'm okay.

I mean,

you know,

we talked a little bit before we started that on Saturday,

I just felt so broken.

I felt like I couldn't get out of bed.

I really had a moment where it's like,

what is this fight for?

If we're just exposing people.

And, you know, we worked so hard.

So many of us worked so hard to speak to congressional leaders,

to talk to senators,

to talk to anybody we possibly knew had any power to say,

we want this done the right way.

We want to see it all.

We need to see it all.

But we want survivors to be protected.

And, you know, we've just heard from the beginning,

even, you know, when I was at the House Oversight Committee,

Make Johnson came in and shook our hand and looked us dead in the eye and said,

we're all on the same side of transparency.

We all just want justice.

And we want to protect the survivors.

That is our first goal.

Um, Comer said the same thing and those are just to name a couple of people,

right?

Um,

but to then have this come out,

and I'm looking through the files and I'm seeing my name all over the place.

Um, and the reductions don't even make any sense.

I almost felt like, you know,

if it was like a page where nothing was redacted, then it would make me feel maybe even a little bit better.

But instead,

it's literally like my name or my my full name there, my address, everything.

And then Danny, which is my nickname, of course,

is redacted.

So,

there's just no rhyme or reason to any of the redactions.

But my heart breaks for our Jane Doe sisters.

Um, I came across a blacked out picture of myself.

You know, when we as survivors look at these images,

people are like, oh, it's redacted.

It's not harmful.

When you look at the border, you know exactly what that picture is.

You know exactly where you are.

And so for me, that was a redacted photo.

However,

there are others that the New York Times just came out with that article that said that there were all these nude photos.

That is your government that is exposing victims to that degree.

So it just, it's so devastating and heartbreaking that the government,

the people, the Department of Justice, right?

Justice.

Like,

that this is what they're willing to do to citizens.

You know,

abuse survivors make up quite a big population.

And it is about survivors.

We don't want this to become a chilling effect,

where, um, survivors feel like they can't come forward.

And those in power will always be able to pull the strings.

And that's, it's hard right now to feel any other way.

What, um,

do you feel safe?

Not at the moment.

Um, yeah, I mean, it's a really hard question to answer.

Um, I think I'm so angry at this point that it doesn't matter.

And that's, you know,

my sadness and I felt, I felt so all that shame that I felt from such a young age,

really came back while I was looking through this.

And it's to be expected a little bit, right?

Because I knew that like,

there would be redacted things that I would see that would trigger emotions.

But not to this degree with my name out there.

And, you know, Jane Does that I know exposed.

It's just absolutely egregious and appalling.

Um,

but moving through that, there's like,

I couldn't get out of bed for a day and then after that,

the rage, the anger is like,

and honestly, listening to Virginia's family to Sky and Amanda,

um, we were all on a Zoom call together.

Just a call just to check in with each other.

And listening to Amanda speak, I was like, yeah.

We got to fight.

We have to.

This is right.

Like, we are in this together.

Yes.

And so I do think like that's the difference is that we do have each other now.

And that changed the world in September.

And I think as we move through these files, we get really stuck in our own stories.

But we have to remember that we are collective and we are really strong together.