Berliner Tageblatt - Epstein victims compiling list of sexual abusers

President Donald Trump, a one-time close friend of the deceased financier, sought meanwhile to dampen the political furor over the Epstein case.

"This is a Democrat hoax that never ends," Trump told reporters at the White House.

"They're trying to get people to talk about something that's totally irrelevant to the success that we've had as a nation since I've been president," he said.

Trump's comments came as a handful of Epstein's victims held a news conference on the steps of the US Capitol, where some of them spoke publicly for the first time about the sexual abuse they suffered.

They demanded that the Justice Department be more transparent and release all of the Epstein investigation files and for Congress to pass a bill compelling their publication.

"There is no hoax. The abuse was real," said Haley Robson, who was recruited to give sexual massages to Epstein when she was 16 years old.

Epstein died in a New York jail cell in 2019 while awaiting trial for sex trafficking of underage girls.

Many of Trump's supporters have been up in arms since the FBI and Justice Department said in July that he had committed suicide, did not blackmail any prominent figures, and did not keep a "client list."

Lisa Phillips, another Epstein victim, said she and other women were putting together a list of their own of Epstein associates who abused them.

"We will confidentially compile the names we all know were regularly in the Epstein world," Phillips said. "We are not asking for pity. We are demanding accountability."

- 'Your time is up' -

Robson said she and other Epstein victims "know who was involved" and condemned law enforcement for failing to act.

"We know the players and we are sitting here for 20 years waiting for you to get up and do something," she said. "Well guess what? Your time is up, and now we're doing it."

Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Republican lawmaker from Georgia, attended the press conference and said if she was given a list of names she would release it.

"If they want to give me a list I will walk in the Capitol on the House floor and I'll say every damn name that abused these women," she said. "I'd be proud to do it."

Bradley Edwards, an attorney who has represented a number of Epstein victims, said he did not believe the well-connected financier kept a list of "clients" he provided with girls.

"I don't think he wrote the names of those people down," Edwards said. "There's not a list of, 'Hey, here's all of the people that I sent females to.' That's just not how that organization worked."

Trump was once a friend of Epstein and, according to The Wall Street Journal, the president's name was among hundreds found during a Justice Department review of the Epstein files, though there has been no evidence of wrongdoing.

Many of Trump's supporters have been obsessed with the Epstein case for years and have held as an article of faith that "deep state" elites were protecting Epstein associates in the Democratic Party and Hollywood.

The news conference by Epstein's victims was held a day after a House of Representatives committee released a first batch of documents from the investigation into Epstein and his accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell, who is serving a 20-year prison sentence for recruiting underage girls for Epstein.

Thousands of documents related to the Epstein probe have been released previously and Robert Garcia, the ranking Democrat on the House committee, said most of the records released on Tuesday had already been made public.

F.Müller--BTB