Epstein victims say they will compile their own 'client list,' demand accountability

Against the backdrop of the U.S. Capitol a number of Jeffrey Epstein’s victims demanded accountability for adults who enabled the deceased financier’s sexual abuse and said they would release their own “client list.”

“We know the names,” said Lisa Phillips, an Epstein victim who hosts a podcast that tells stories of sex abuse survivors. “Now, together as survivors, we will confidentially compile the names we all know were regularly in the Epstein world.”

The rally preceded a press conference held by Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., and Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., with Epstein lawyers and victims as the two congressmen push for the U.S. Justice Department to release all of the information from its investigations into Epstein.

The events in Washington come as Epstein’s accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell, appears to be pressing for a pardon from her 20-year prison sentence from President Donald Trump. In July, she was interviewed by Deputy U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche, and was subsequently moved from a maximum federal prison in Tallahassee, Florida, to a minimum-security prison in Texas. The U.S, Justice Department released transcripts fom the interviews in late August.

“We’ve heard her voice, now hear ours,” said Teresa Helm, who described Maxwell’s role in grooming her to be abused.

Notably absent from the rally was Epstein victim Virginia Giuffre, whose public accounting of the abuse she experience at the hands of Epstein and his powerful friends drew worldwide attention.

Giuffre’s brother, Sky Roberts, spoke through tears and demanded that the Trump administration not issue Maxwell a pardon.

“No leniency, no deals, no special treatment,” Roberts said.

Phillips and an attorney for several of the victims clarified at the press conference that there is no current plan to make the survivors’ list public as they fear retaliation.

“Most of these individuals, the victims, are very scared to say these names, because they could get sued. They’re going to get attacked, and nobody protected them the first time,” attorney Brad Edwards, who represents several survivors, said.

Phillips pointed out the government already knows the names.

It wasn’t a list but a “complicated scheme,” Edwards said of Epstein’s sex trafficking ring.

“He farmed out certain of the women that he was exploiting to. But that wasn’t the primary purpose of that scheme, and I don’t think he wrote the names of those people down. 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,” Edwards said.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-GA, who spoke at the press conference, said she would be happy to work with Epstein’s survivors to make the list public.

“It’s a scary thing to name names, but I will tell you, I’m not afraid to name names. So 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,” said Greene. “I can do that for them.”

Speeches on the House floor are protected speech and Taylor could not be sued for anything she said.

The lawmakers who organized the press conference on the steps of the U.S. Capitol could be using Wednesday’s event as a form of public pressure. Massie and Khanna’s resolution - if it passes the House - would then have to be passed by the Senate before going to President Trump for his signature. It’s unclear how quickly Senate Republicans will want to bring the matter to the floor and whether Trump would sign it.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-LA, and members of the House Oversight Committee met Tuesday with a group of Epstein survivors. The committee then released more than 33,000 pages worth of files that the U.S. Justice Department has so far turned over, the vast majority of which were already public.

In recent weeks, the committee have issued subpoenas to prosecutors and other former government officials who they want to question about the various investigations into Epstein, who sexually abused more than one hundred girls and women over two decades starting in the mid 1990s.

Committee Chairman Rep. James Comer, R-KY, has sought to demonstrate his extensive efforts to retrieve any new information on the case. On Sunday, he asked Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to produce any Suspicious Activity Reports tied to Epstein and his sex trafficking network. The department is in charge of investigating the financial aspect of sex trafficking.

The deadline for the documents to be turned over is September 15th and Comer said they were tied to the panel’s investigation of the possible mismanagement of the federal government’s investigation of Epstein and Maxwell.

Thus far, no new information from the case has emerged. The Justice Department has only turned over its first tranche of files to the Oversight committee but Democrats said they contained mostly old information. No date for the next delivery has been announced.

A New York financier whose source of wealth has always been shrouded in mystery, Epstein was first arrested in 2006 on allegations that he had sex with underage students from a Palm Beach, Florida high school. He ultimately pleaded guilty to minor solicitation charges and served a 13-month jail term in Palm Beach. In 2019, he was re-arrested on new charges in New York, following the publication of a Miami Herald investigation, “Perversion of Justice,” which detailed how Epstein and his lawyers successfully lobbied federal prosecutors to give him a secret plea deal, minimizing his crimes and providing unusual immunity to others involved in his sex trafficking operation.

After Epstein’s death, Maxwell – a British socialite who worked for Epstein – was indicted and convicted on sex trafficking charges. She is appealing her conviction to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The Epstein case has garnered worldwide attention in part because of widespread conspiracy theories promulgated by Trump supporters and other social media influencers who claim there is “an Epstein list” of wealthy and powerful people who were involved in Epstein’s crimes.

Trump, who initially favored releasing the files, has faced a backlash from his supporters after Bondi abruptly announced in July that there was no list and the files would remain sealed.

This came after she had promised supporters In February that the files were on her desk, then gave a group of social media influencers about 200 pages of documents that were of old material, long in the public domain.

Last month, U.S. District Judge Richard Berman rejected a Justice Department request to unseal grand jury records involving the Epstein federal cases. Berman noted that the grand jury files represented a distraction from the real issue – which is that the Justice Department has the power to release all the relevant material involving Epstein to the public.