The president and his administration are struggling to bury the scandal around their handling of the convicted sex offender’s case
Donald Trump, Republicans in Congress, and the president’s allies across right-wing media have been trying everything to make public backlash to their botched handling of the Jeffrey Epstein investigation go away, amid reports that Trump himself appears in the government’s files pertaining to the convicted sex offender.
The administration’s attempts to bury the story have been complicated by some of Epstein’s victims, and their families, speaking out as the scandal has intensified. Trump hasn’t engaged with them, but just because the president is publicly keeping his mouth shut about Epstein’s victims and their family members doesn’t mean he isn’t annoyed by them.
In recent weeks, according to two sources familiar with his private remarks, Trump has repeatedly critiqued the string of media appearances by Epstein accusers and their families, arguing that some of them are just trying to make him look bad, or implying that he did something wrong during his time as one of Epstein’s friends and party companions. At times, Trump has said that some of these people speaking out are, in his words, clearly of a “Democrat” political affiliation, while wondering aloud if some of them are coordinating with prominent liberal attorneys or groups.
“None of this is true,” a White House official said in response to a request for comment. “Just another desperate attempt by the failing Rolling Stone.”
Survivors of Epstein’s abuse have for weeks now been criticizing the Trump administration’s handling of the case after the Justice Department announced in early July that it would not be releasing the so-called Epstein files. The outcry intensified following reports that Epstein accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell had been transferred to a significantly cushier prison facility in Texas after the Justice Department spoke with her in Florida. Maxwell is serving a 20-year sentence after being convicted in 2021 of child sex trafficking and other offenses related to her relationship with Epstein. The Wall Street Journal reported last month that the Justice Department informed the president that his name appeared in evidence related to Epstein’s case, although it remains unclear in what capacity.
Annie and Maria Farmer, two sisters who accused Epstein of assaulting them and testified against Maxwell during her trial, have gone public with their criticism of the administration’s sidelining of victims. Earlier this month, Annie Farmer told CNN that “this chaotic process that’s been unfolding has a real cost for survivors.”
Farmer indicated that survivors had not been informed of the Justice Department’s efforts to meet with Maxwell, or the decision to transfer her to a minimum-security prison.
“A central part of trauma is a feeling of a lack of control, and that has certainly been triggered here these meetings. You know, even this prison transfer was something I expected we would learn about prior to learning about it in the news, and unfortunately, that’s not how it has unfolded,” she said. Farmer added that efforts by right-wing pundits and others to paint Maxwell as another Epstein victim was a ploy to make a potential commutation of Maxwell’s 20-year sentence “more palatable” to the public. Trump hasn’t ruled out pardoning Maxwell, telling reporters that he is “allowed” to do it.
“It feels like that campaign is not working. People recognize that she’s a predator, not a victim,” Farmer added.
Last month, Danielle Bensky, who accused Epstein of abusing her in 2004, told NBC News that the approach the president and his allies have taken ”feels like we’re being erased.”
“All the brave women who came forward … all the work that we did to tell the world what happened to us, it’s all being erased,” she said.
The family of Virginia Giuffre, a victim of Epstein who died by suicide earlier this year, released a statement in response to comments from Trump indicating that he believed Epstein had “stolen” Giuffre from the spa at Mar-a-Lago, where she had worked.
“If our sister could speak today, she would be most angered by the fact that the government is listening to a known perjurer, a woman who repeatedly lied under oath and will continue to do so as long as it benefits her position,” the family said. “We and the public are asking for answers; survivors deserve this.”
In a memo submitted to the U.S. District Court earlier this month, one victim (whose identity remains protected) wrote to a judge that while they are “for complete and utter transparency in this case, we deserve transparency from our own government, the agencies that were supposed to be there to protect us victims and guess what, they utterly and completely failed us.”
