The Current - Epstein's accusers may finally win their transparency fight

Episode Date: November 19, 2025

The women who survived sexual abuse by Jeffrey Epstein have been demanding accountability. Now Congress is acting, voting to release the government's files on the powerful and connected sex offender. Anti-trafficking advocate Lauren Hersh says that's in part thanks to the women's bravery.

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Hello, I'm Matt Galloway, and this is the current podcast. They call themselves the Survivor Sisters, and they are just a few of the women who say Jeffrey Epstein sexually abused and trafficked them. Yesterday, the group stood together on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. to demand transparency and the release of the government's records about the convicted sex offender who died in prison.

Many of them held photos of the younger versions of themselves, Here's Jenna Lisa Jones. This was me at 14 years old. I was a child. I was in ninth grade. I was hopeful for life and what the future had held for me. He stole a lot for me. They were there to talk about their painful past for a reason

to push the United States Congress to pass a bill to release the Epstein files. Here's Liz Stein. We stand here today as survivors. part of a sorority that none of us asked to join. We have told our stories over and over and over. Now it's time to see who was listening. The House of Representatives passed the bill a few hours later, then the Senate quickly gave unanimous consent to pass it

and send it to President Donald Trump for his signature. Donald Trump, who fought the bill for months, calling it a democratic hoax, reversed his position once it was clear that the bill would pass overwhelmingly and he has said he would sign it. In a moment, we will hear more about the politics swirling around this story and how we got here. But first, I'm joined by Lauren Hirsch. In Washington, D.C., she is National Director of the Anti-Trafficking Organization World Without Exploitation.

She's also a former sex trafficking prosecutor. Lauren, good morning. Good morning, Matt. How are you? I'm well. There is a photo of you on the front page of many newspapers around the world hugging survivors after this vote. What was that moment like? It was truly just an absolutely... extraordinary moment after an unbelievably crazy day. When we started the morning, we thought things

were going to go a certain way. We were in a lot of offices doing a lot of meetings. We could not have anticipated that at, I don't know what time it was, I guess, around 630 or 7 o'clock at night, oh, maybe a little earlier, that I would be passed a note saying the Senate voted and it's on its Wade to Donald Trump's desk. It was truly remarkable. And those women you were hugging. I mean, it's hard to imagine. What did it mean to them? Well, you know, they have been in it for decades. They're, you know, the beginning of their story is so deeply traumatic. The exploitation was so horrific. And they have fought system after system after system. They've been let down for three decades. And so this was a moment where they could look together, stand together,

and say we are, we're going to declare victory. I mean, we recognize this is, there's a lot of, there's a lot of road ahead. We still will not declare full victory until all the files are released. But this was a remarkable first step. Your organization released a video this week with the women whose voices we heard earlier, Jenna Lisa Jones and Liz Stein and others who spoke out yesterday. And in that video, they hold up photos of their younger selves. They say they're about a thousand of them. And they've been looking for justice from five administrations. What did you want to achieve with that video? We felt that it was critically important for the American public to see their faces, to hear their voices, and to understand that, yes, today they are adult women, many of them are mothers, extraordinarily successful in their own right.

but at the time when they were exploited, they were children and young women, and it was the most predatory act possible. This has become, in many ways, a political story. Do you worry that the women, the young girls who are at the center of that have been forgotten in some ways? Well, for them, this is not about politics. It's actually never been about politics, and that's why it was so critically important. that we say that there has been let down with five administrations. It's not just this administration. And, yeah, I felt, if you would have asked me a month ago,

I felt that perhaps those women and their stories were being left behind. But today, I feel that they have been really heard by the American people. And I believe that we got to teach today because the American people said absolutely no more. We want transparency. We want truth and we want justice. Why do you think it took so long? How do you understand how abuse of that scope goes on without justice for so long? Well, I think that in our society, the powerful have operated with complete impunity for I guess since the beginning of history, and I truly believe the tides are beginning to turn.

We are starting to say that it doesn't matter how powerful you are. Nobody is above the law. And these survivors have really driven that message home, and the American people have really responded to it. Actually, around the world, there have been so many people that have responded to it. It's been really remarkable. And for these survivors, I think it's been sort of this moment where after so long and so much trauma, they feel seen, they feel heard, they feel understood, and they feel like they are on their way to justice. One of those survivors, Jenna Lisa Jones, spoke at yesterday's media conference about why she wants these files to be made public. Have a listen to this. The world should see the files to know who Jeffrey Epstein was and how the system catered to him.

and failed us. Who covered for him? What financial institutions allowed his trafficking to continue? Who knew what he was doing, but was too much of a coward to do anything about it? Lauren, Hirsch, do you think that she'll get those answers if the files are released? I think that the files have to be released in their entirety, of course, with the redactions to anything that's identifying for the victims. But those names, in the files of people who exploited, people who aided and abetted, these horrific crimes, they've got to be released and there has to be accountability. Virginia Juffray, the woman who accused Jeffrey Epstein and Prince Andrew, of sexual abuse

and trafficking, as you know died by suicide in April, just months before her book describing years of abuse was published. When she came forward, what did that act, that courage mean for the other survivors of Jeffrey Epstein? Well, first, let's just call him Andrew, because he's no longer a prince. Fair enough, yeah. And what did it mean? I mean, I think that when you listen to these survivors, we were in so many meetings yesterday,

and then we were at a vigil, actually, when the news came out about the Senate. And in every one of those meetings, Virginia's, we felt Virginia's presence, truthfully. She was truly such an inspiration for all. all of these survivors, she really paved the way. And in large part, she is the very reason that we are where we are today. Can I ask you about that word, courage? I mean, you have used that word in a phrase, courage is contagious. You've used it in interviews.

Your organization put up billboards across the United States with that phrase on it. What does that mean to you? Well, Matt, these women are the face of courage. They are, there has been just so much bravery in coming out, in speaking their truth when there has been so much hate and so much backlash against them. In the media, in social media, they have all gotten messages of hate and threats. And then they have spoken their truth in the face of these systems who have repeatedly failed them. And so they are speaking out against people who have wronged them and systems that have failed them. And I can think of nothing more courageous.

And we truly hope that their courage inspires the nation to make sure that there is accountability, truth. and ultimately justice. Can I ask you about that about justice? Epstein died by suicide in jail in 2019 after he was arrested by federal agents for sex trafficking. Before that, in 2008, he signed this secret plea deal to lesser charges in Florida, served just over a year in jail. These women have never had a chance for their day in court,

but this is kind of a new day in many ways. To your point, something has changed. What does justice look like for them? Well, you raised such a good point. You know, he died in jail. How that happened is obviously a huge question mark. They, their only sort of sliver of justice has been this Gilleen Maxwell conviction. And now she has been moved to summer camp. And that, you know, those two things. have sort of been the foundation in many ways for why this moment is so critical. They feel that there are names in the files, many names in the files. Those names are both on the right and on the left for them. This is not about politics.

And they want those files released so that they can get to a place of accountability for those who have exploited. And also for the people who had absolutely no courage, who watched what was going on, who, you know, who saw these young girls and women in the most horrific situation and did absolutely nothing. Their names need to come off buildings. They shouldn't have scholarships with their names. They have had, talking about courage, no courage at all. And so that's what justice is to these women. Lauren, I'm really glad to have the chance to talk to you. Thank you very much.

Thank you so much, Matt. Lauren Hirsch is the national director of the anti-trafficking organization, World Without Exploitation. She was in Washington, D.C. I've covered a lot of K-pop stories in my time as a Korean journalist, but this one is different. All I need is one person to believe in me. All I need is one person to think I have something. Because Katie Zito isn't a famous K-pop idol. That's what she wants to be. Can she do it in just three months at one of Seoul's grueling K-pop academies? From USG audio and novel, listen to Mission K-pop.

Available now. Barry Levine is a veteran investigative journalist, author of The Spider, inside the criminal web of Jeffrey Epstein and Galane Maxwell. He's been covering Epstein since the mid-2000s. Barry, good morning to you. Good morning, Matt. Thanks for having me on today. Good to have you here.

How significant is this moment? do you think? Well, as your guest was just saying, this really has come down to the victims. This comes down to the survivors of Jeffrey Epstein and Gilleen Maxwell. These women have fought so courageously for such a long time in terms of covering the story. And as I've seen from my reporting, they have been cheated all along the way. You go back all the way to that slap on the risk conviction that you mentioned that Jeffrey Epstein received for solicitation of a minor going back to 2008 when he agreed to that non-prosecution agreement with the government. At the time, that violated the Victims' Rights Act. The victims were supposed to be informed

of that non-prosecution agreement, but they were not. The government held that information from them. And they only found out about that later from the media. So this is a story that goes back for so many years and for all of these years, the victims have been put in the background. And finally, I hope that based on this incredible bill that has passed, that we're finally going to see the files, more than 100,000 pages of documents, photos, videotapes. And, you know, my main interest is seeing men who either were clients of Jeffrey Epstein, who took part in the sex trafficking, or the men who were the enablers who helped put little girls on planes to fly these children to the Virgin Islands for abuse. Let's hope that, let's hope that,

it's still possible to convict some of these men and to investigate them and charge them. That's what I'm hoping. What do we know about what the files will add to what we already know about, about, I mean, the title of your book is The Spider, how vast and how widespread that Spider-Web was when it comes to Epstein's criminal enterprise? Well, there's so much, as I wrote an up-ed piece in New York Times back in July, asking nine questions about the Epstein case that needs to be answered. There's basic things that the American public should have answered. And you can start simply with his death behind bars,

which still remains to many people today to be very suspicious. The government said he took his life, but we don't really even know if that's true. The files would allow us to see his autopsy report for the first time that has not been seen. And also the initial investigation into his death. So let's learn, you know, information from that. And then, of course, there's all that material that has been confiscated from his homes over the years. There were 40 computers. There were 26 storage drives. There were 70 CDs from six recording devices, 60 pieces of physical evidence, including photos, travel logs, and employee logs. There's so much, information about Jeffrey Epstein and the crimes that he committed, but this is information

for the most part that it's been kept from the public. We really only had a glimpse of it when the government prosecuted his co-conspirator, Galane Maxwell. And at that time, in an effort to prosecute her, and they did that, they did do that successfully. They focused on the stories of four victims. And those four women, testified against her at trial, specifically to how they were groomed by Elaine Maxwell and how she also took part in some of the abuse with Jeffrey Epstein. So it was a very tight, airtight case, and she was put behind bars for 20 years, and let's hope that that sentence holds up.

But there's so much more information about the men who were in his circle that we just don't know about. These files will allow us to see the witness statements, suspect interviews, and we know from Representative Thomas Massey, who leaked information and told the American public that there's at least 20 men who took part in the sex trafficking, and they include people from finance, from government, billionaires, people from the entertainment community. He mentioned that there were six billionaires, one of them being from Canada. So we need to find out what the government had on these men and why they're not behind bars today. Can I ask you, we just have a couple of minutes left.

Can I ask you about something that was picked up yesterday and what we just talked about in some ways with Lauren as well? One of the women that spoke yesterday at the news conference at the Capitol, Annie Farmer, said they suffered what she calls institutional betrayal for years. New York Times has done investigations about how banks like J.P. Morgan, for example, supported and may have profited from Epstein despite many, many red flags. lags. What do we know about the institutions of power and how those institutions failed the victims of Epstein? Well, that's a very good question. I just want to say on Annie Farmer. I mean, she's such a courageous survivor. Both she and her sister suffered abuse from Jeffrey Epstein. In fact, her sister, Maria Farmer, went to the FBI all the way back in 1996 to report him. She was actually the first to report him. But the fact is, is that Jeffrey Epstein could not have

continued two decades of sex trafficking without the help of institutions like the American banking community. We know that J.P. Morgan Chase, Deutsche Bank, several other banks that he used to move money through. For instance, we know from Senator Ron Wyden that Jeffrey Epstein moved $1 billion in wire transfers through banks to pay suspicious individuals around the world for his sex trafficking. And you know what? For all of these years, the red flags went off at these banks, but there were individuals in the banks who continued to allow Jeffrey Epstein to do business with them because they wanted his money. And Jeffrey Epstein, in the case of J.P. Morgan Chase, Jeffrey Epstein brought in other billionaires to put money in those banks. So for a very

long time, these banks look the other way. And there's going to be a new investigation into the banks. And I do think that's important. But the fact of the matter is we need to get to the men who took part in this, who are out there, who are still out there. And we need to expose them in the light. And we need to prosecute them if, in fact, there can be evidence that can be corroborated, not only by the victims, but by other evidence that the Department of Justice may have on them. Barry, good to speak with you about this. Thank you very much. Thank you so much, Matt. Barry Levine is a veteran investigative journalist. He's been covering the Epstein story for decades now. He is the author of The Spider inside the criminal web of Jeffrey Epstein and Gleine Maxwell.

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