Congressman Tom Kean Jr. was nowhere to be seen as some of Jeffrey Epstein’s sexual abuse survivors spoke publicly for the first time at a news conference on Capitol Hill, urging lawmakers to protect abuse victims. Neither were Congressman Jeff Van Drew or Congressman Chris Smith.
It comes as GOP leadership faces pressure for more transparency on the late convicted sex offender’s case without going against the wishes of President Donald Trump, who has attempted to tamp down the political firestorm over Epstein.
Lawmakers who want to pull back the curtain need just two more Republicans to force a vote, but the White House and GOP leaders are frantically working to quash the rebellion because President Donald Trump is prominently mentioned in the files related to Epstein, a disgraced financier and sex trafficker.
Accusers told emotional, gut-wrenching stories of sexual abuse at the hands of the convicted sex offender who died in his cell at the federal Metropolitan Correctional Center, New York, on August 10, 2019.
The group of women who were victims of Jeffrey Epstein shared their emotional stories on Capitol Hill, urging lawmakers to push for the release of records that the Department of Justice has withheld from Congress.
Anouska De Georgiou, the first survivor of Epstein and his longtime associate Ghislaine Maxwell to step to the podium, said the victims are coming together to have their voices be heard.
De Georgiou was a teenage model from an affluent family in London, before she got sucked into Epstein’s orbit through well-connected friends.
“The days of sweeping this under the rug are over. We, the survivors, say ‘no more,'” De Georgiou said. “I’m no longer weak, I am no longer powerless, and I’m no longer alone. And with your vote, neither will the next generation. President Trump, you have so much influence and power in this situation. Please use that influence and power to help us, because we need it now, and this country needs it now.”
“This is not a hoax. It’s not going to go away,” said Marina Lacerda, a central witness identified as “Minor Victim 1” in Epstein’s 2019 federal indictment in New York. “I was one of dozens of girls that I personally know who were forced into Jeffrey’s mansion on 9 East 71st St. in New York City when we were just kids.”
“Today is the first time that I ever speak publicly about what happened to me,” she said.
“I was only 14 years old when I met Jeffrey,” said Lacerda, one of nine female Epstein accusers who appeared at a news conference on Capitol Hill.
“It was the summer of high school. I was working three jobs to try to support my mom and my sister when a friend of mine in the neighborhood told me that I could make $300 to give another guy a massage,” she said, choking up at times. “It went from a dream job to the worst nightmare.”
The Trump administration is applying pressure on his co-conspirator to say something that would exonerate the president, who can issue a pardon to release Ghislaine Maxwell, who was sentenced in federal court to 20 years of imprisonment after she was found guilty of child sex trafficking and other offences in 2021.
Maxwell was convicted of procuring and sexually trafficking underage girls for Epstein and others, and of enticement of minors for sex trafficking as Epstein’s recruiter.
Among her supporters when Maxwell was arrested by the FBI in July 2020, was President Donald Trump, who said: “I just wish her well.”
Epstein victims appeared at the news conference and advocated for legislation to compel the Justice Department to release more documents related to its investigation.
On Tuesday night, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee released 33,295 pages of documents, comprised mostly of information that was already in the public domain.
When asked about the push for transparency on the Epstein files on Wednesday, Trump continued to insist it was an “Epstein hoax” distracting from his administration’s success.
“This is a Democrat hoax that never ends,” Trump falsely claimed.
Survivor after survivor, however, implored lawmakers to back a bipartisan push from Republican Rep. Thomas Massie and Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna to compel the Justice Department to finally release the Epstein files.
Massie wrapped up the news conference by urging the American public to push Congress to back the release of additional files connected to the Epstein investigation.
“Light up their phones, burn down the phone lines here in Washington, D.C.,” said Massie. “Ask them the questions that these survivors wanted you to ask them. ‘Why won’t you be for transparency?’”
“Mr. President, Donald J. Trump, I am a registered Republican — not that that matters, because this is not political — however, I cordially invite you to the Capitol to meet me in person so you can understand this is not a hoax. We are real human beings. This is real trauma,” said survivor Haley Robson in response to Trump’s comments calling the matter a “hoax.”
Trump acknowledged that he and Epstein had a falling out over the pedophile hiring girls employed at his resort, one of whom was the late Virginia Giuffre, who was a teenager working at Mar-a-Lago when she first met Maxwell and Epstein.
Giuffre died by suicide in April 2025, after a long struggle with the trauma of sexual abuse and unwanted fame as a prominent accuser in the scandals surrounding Epstein and Prince Andrew.
House Speaker Mike Johnson—who sent lawmakers on summer vacation early to prevent a vote on releasing the files—now said that he wants House Oversight Chairman James Comer to request additional related information from other government agencies to drag out the process for as long as possible, rather than release all of the files in the Justice Department’s years-long Epstein investigation.