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Common Dreams Sep 9, 2025

Centering Their Voices: This Is What Power Looks Like

After decades of silence born of fear, shame, trauma, over 20 Epstein survivors came together in D.C. for the first time to publicly tell their grievous stories of rape and abuse - what did it cost them? - when they were 14, 15, 16 years old. Facing not just their own dark pasts but dogged denial, stonewalling, and a literal silencing by a senseless military flyover, they still wielded "the fire and the power of our voices" to insist, "We are the proof that fear did not break us."It was months after Trump vowed to release the Epstein files "on Day One" and Pam Bondi said an upright DOJ was "lifting the veil" on Epstein's crimes - and decades after they were committed - when the resolute victims came to stand together, speak of "the weight we live with daily," and demand to be heard. Their signs said "He Is On the List," "S-H-A-M-E," "Trust the Victims, Not the Felon." Many had never met each other, and thought they were the only ones bruised and haunted by long-ago rape, abuse, enduring trauma. "Our government could have saved so many women. Those women didn’t matter,” said Marina Lacerda, who was 14 when she was raped by Epstein. "Well, we matter now. We are here today, and we are speaking, and we are not going to stop speaking."Last week's historic press conference was facilitated by Dem Rep. Ro Khanna and GOP Rep. Thomas Massie - yes, of the AK-47-packing family Christmas cards, go figure - who've come forward to support a full release of the DOJ's Epstein files. The event, headlined by nine Epstein victims - some of whom had never spoken out before about their assaults - drew up to 100 other survivors in solidarity. "Courage is contagious," said one organizer, who was approached by several women they didn't know who said they "needed to be here...This gave me strength." Most had also "been let down by system after system," and far from the games of political chicken playing out elsewhere, felt they had to speak. "The abuse was real," one said. We know the truth."The truth, in story after story, is harrowing. Lacerda, 37, was "minor victim 1" in Epstein's 2019 federal indictment. She was a 14-year-old migrant from Brazil working three jobs to help her family get by when she heard about "a dream job" giving "an older guy a massage" for $300. It quickly became "my worst nightmare" as one of a dozen girls she knew - "We were just kids" - lured into Epstein's mansion on East 71st Street. She went so often she dropped out of high school: "Every day, I hoped he would offer me a real job, like the American dream, but that day never came. I had no way out." At 17, he told her she was too old. Today, she finally feels she "has a voice." Airing the truth, she says, would "help me heal... help me put the pieces of my own life back together."Haley Robson was a 16-year-old "high-school athlete with good grades and aspirations for college" when a friend recruited her "to give an old rich guy a massage." Her emotional testimony: "When I got into (the) room, Jeffrey undressed" - draws big breath - "and asked me to do things to him. My eyes welled up. I have never been more scared in my life." After, he paid her $200 and told her to bring a friend next time; when she refused, he "gave me an ultimatum...You come massage me when I call you, or you bring me friends to massage me, and I'll pay you $200 per girl. I hoped never to hear from him again, but he called every day." He was so rich and powerful, "I felt I had no choice - if I disobeyed him, I knew something bad would happen." After two years, an adult intervened; police "treated me like a criminal" and wild press accounts "hurt real people who have already been hurt.""The truth is, Epstein had a free pass," said Chauntae Davies. From lack of critical victim outreach to victim-blaming, "Everyone seemed to look away" - especially when it came to our Predator-In-Chief. "Jeffrey bragged about his powerful friends, and (Trump) was his biggest brag," she said. "He had an 8x10 framed picture of him on his desk, with the two of them." Meanwhile, "What I endured will haunt me forever. I live as a mother trying to raise my child while distrusting a world that has betrayed me. Trauma never leave you. It breaks families apart. It shapes the way we see everyone around us...Unless we learn from this history, monsters like Jeffrey Epstein will rise again. It is not just my story. It is a story about every survivor who carries invisible scars."Again and again, survivors spoke of raw, hard years of feeling alone and powerless at the hands of "an evil man" safeguarded by his money, power and connections. "You have a choice," Anouska de Georgiou told complicit Republicans. "Stand with the truth, or with the lies that have protected predators for decades." Lisa Philips stressed that Epstein's abuses reached far beyond "just underage girls in Florida" to "the top of the art, fashion and entertainment world. Many around him knew. Many participated, and many profited." "Hundreds of women have lived in the shadow of this man’s crimes," says Stacey Williams, who briefly dated Epstein until he famously, smilingly acquiesced to Trump groping her in front of him. "They deserve truth, not secrecy."Towards that truth, the women grimly, defiantly announced that if the House fails to compel release of all the Epstein files, they will "confidentially compile" their own list of regular clients in the Epstein world in the name of "every woman who has been silenced, exploited and dismissed...together as survivors." "We know the names," one said. "Many of us were abused by them." They were cogent, steadfast: "We are not asking for pity. Justice and accountability are not favors from the powerful - they are obligations, decades overdue." "We have lives to live." "We are not the footnotes in some infamous predator's tabloid article. We are the experts, and the subject of this story." "The question: Will you protect predators, or will you finally protect survivors?"To date, 134 lawmakers - all 212 Democrats, 12 Repubs - have signed onto a Massie-Khanna discharge petition to force a vote to compel the DOJ to release all files; they need two more to pass. Massie has faced "immense" pushback from a White House that calls the petition an "attention-seeking...hostile act"; rich MAGA donors have run $2.5 million in ads against him for opposing child rape, and GOPers who've signed on have been blasted. Among them - go figure redux - is MTG, who's vowed to reveal "every damn name” on the House floor if survivors ask her to. In response, former MAGA besties have called her a "FRAUD," "traitor," "phony two-faced bitch" and "backstabbing loser" who's "teamed up" with the enemy - again, lest we forget, for denouncing child rape.Bootlicking Mike Johnson, who sent the House home early to avoid the issue, is right there with them. After claiming 20 women chronicling their rape as teenagers are "a hoax Democrats are using to attack him, like the Russian dossier," he feverishly insisted Dear Predator is "horrified" by the "unspeakable evil" that is "detestable to him" and "has no culpability" and actually, "He was an FBI informant to try to take this stuff down." Wait. What happened to the hoax? Caught in a clusterfuck, Mike later said he possibly "misspoke" or "didn't use the right terminology" - "The word is lied, Mike. You fucking lied" - but "everyone knows" Trump "assisted with the investigation." And of course he'll meet with the victims: "He has great compassion for them. The president has a very compassionate heart."The guy with the very compassionate heart still calls the case of a demon who for years raped 14-year-olds "a Democrat hoax" by "the worst scum on earth" and "all the people that actually ran the government, including the autopen." It's also "something that’s totally irrelevant. We should talk about the greatness we’re having." As proof of the greatness, during a visit by the Polish president, to honor a Polish pilot who died in a training crash - having ignored the training deaths of four U.S. soldiers in Lithuania - he ordered a rare, loud flyover completely coincidentally just as Epstein's victims were telling their stories. The women paused, looked at the sky, and kept talking. Responses: "Classless move by a classless man," "He who has nothing to hide, hides nothing."Flyovers aside, facts owe. Says Brad Edwards, an attorney for several survivors, "You're either on the side of the victims or you're on the side of evil." In an extended interview, multiple survivors agreed, "The government has failed us." The seven women were joined by two brothers of Virginia Giuffre, who killed herself in April after a lifelong struggle with the trauma of her abuse. "We've come together, beautifully and tragically," said one. "We don't just speak for ourselves but for every survivor whose story is still unspoken, for Virginia, whose courage lit the path and opened the door for us to walk through." Asked near the end of the interview how many had been contacted by the DOJ, felt treated with dignity, been heard, none of the nine raised their hands.More damning scraps keep surfacing. Massie dropped one bombshell name in Epstein's "black book": John Paulson, a hedge fund billionaire and huge donor to Trump and MAGA Mike. In a stealth video by shady right-wing James O'Keefe, a DOJ deputy chief of staff brags to a date "they'll redact every Republican" in the files and leave Dems in; the DOJ said the comments "have absolutely zero bearing with (sic) reality." The Wall Street Journal published, and House Dems released, the creepy birthday card to Epstein Trump denied he sent: "We got (the) note Trump says doesn't exist. Time to end this White House cover-up." Press Barbie called it "FAKE NEWS to perpetuate the Democrat Epstein Hoax" and - up is down - argued "it's very clear" Trump didn't draw or sign it. Despite Dear Leader's "great compassion," days after the survivors met, nine attorneys for about 50 of them hadn't "heard anything" in response. Monday, survivor and Trump voter Haley Robson told CNN she'd invited White House officials to meet with her and other survivors: "I've heard crickets." Still, said Jess Michaels, a self-described "1991 Jeffrey Epstein survivor," their stories matter. "For 27 years, I thought I was the only one (Epstein) raped," she told the D.C gathering. "I thought I was alone. But I wasn't. None of us were. And what once kept us silent now fuels the fire and the power of our voices...This is what power looks like. Survivors united, voices joined, refusing to be dismissed. We are no longer victims. We are one powerful voice too loud to ignore. And we will never be silenced again." Women hold up half the sky. The heavier half.