The Current - These Epstein survivors demanded his files be released and won — but their fight isn't over yet

Episode Date: December 12, 2025

Jess Michaels and Liz Stein say their sisterhood of women harmed by Jeffrey Epstein are determined to keep up the pressure as the deadline for the Trump administration to produce the documents approaches and beyond.

Hey Canada. It's me, Gavin Crawford, host of Because News. Each week, I put comedians on the spot with a pop quiz about the headlines. This week, we're talking about the monster of Alberta Premier Danielle Smith's own making, Wayne Gretzky's incredible pronunciation skills, and the one kind of Christmas toy experts are all calling dangerous. Miguel Revis, Emma Hunter, and Gene Yune are here, so laugh along as we try to make sense of the headlines. Follow Because News on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts for free. This is a CBC podcast. Hello, I'm Matt Galloway, and this is the current podcast. And as many of us who are looking at our phones know that the Senate has passed the bill. That is the moment the U.S. Senate passed the Epstein-Files Transparency Act. Two of the women cheering that news are with me today. Jess Michaels and Liz Stein are among the survivors of abuse by Jeffrey Epstein. They push their government to release the files about the notorious sex offender.

The deadline for the U.S. Justice Department to make those files public is one week away. Several judges have already ruled that the files from investigations against Epstein in Florida and New York and against Epstein's longtime accomplice, Ghislane Maxwell, can be released, but the act allows the government to hold back some documents to protect active investigations or prosecutions. so it's still not entirely clear what the public will finally see. Jess Michaels and Liz Stein are here to talk about all of that. Good morning to you both. Morning.

Good morning. Liz, we heard that big cheer there. You and the others spent months and months fighting to get this bill through. Describe what that moment was like when it finally happened. Well, just hearing that, that little clip got me very emotional. I think that what we had, have been able to show is that by uniting together and working together, that we have been able to accomplish things that people thought we would never be able to accomplish.

There's a difference when you have, you know, a collective voice of survivors. People are more prone to pay attention when it's a group of people. And I think that the joy that we felt in that moment was really, we certainly didn't expect. things to move that quickly. And it was really just a moment where we felt an enormous victory while still knowing that there was a big fight ahead. Jess, you were nodding when Liz was saying that it made her emotional. Tell me about that. Liz, I was just thinking the same thing when I heard that clip because I unfortunately wasn't at the vigil where it got announced. I was at that time going from interview to interview to interview. And the first two interviews were

before there was any consideration of the Senate voting. I mean, the thing I heard at the second interview was there was potential. It might happen early. By the time I got to my third interview, I get the text on my phone as I'm walking through security into the next interview. And so I'm literally just crying and shouting to the security card that it passed. And so I was by myself and I was sad and happy and it was an incredible moment. But I was all my own. What did the moment mean to you?

I mean, this is something that has been fought for for some time. And it's not over yet. And we can talk more about that. But what did the moment mean to you? It was validating that what happened happened because it's been denied for so long. It was validating that we were right to say this is problematic. The investigation itself was problematic. The lack of accountability was problematic.

The lack of transparency is problematic. And what this felt like was a validation for all survivors. Because I know so many cases like ours, maybe not on the scale or notoriety of our case, but less complex cases where. it's just a survivor in their school. And they're not getting the response and the respect and the care and the attention that they need in trying to get justice. And so it felt monumental for us, but I really felt it for all survivors of sexual harm. Is that what it feels like, that you're finally being, not that you haven't been heard before,

but you're really being heard now? Yeah. You know, something that stood out to me is the fact that this is a case that has been going on for five administrations, but it's being politicized in a way that it really shouldn't be. And I think that it was for me really amazing because the American people spoke out about this. They called their legislators. They made their voices. heard and they they collectively let us know that they were standing behind us despite any political fodder that that might be going on. They saw that we were on the right side of this. And so to have that validation was enormously validating to us. Just you said something interesting, which is one of the things why this matters is because it tells people that it happened. I know that you've spoken about this before. And it's, difficult still to talk about, but I think it's important to, as much as you're comfortable,

talk a little bit about this. How did you meet Epstein? How old were you at the time? I was 22, and I am the earliest publicly known survivor. I was raped by Jeffrey Epstein in 1991. And it's a great question about because it lends into why laws are important. Back in 1991, in the U.S., as I understood it, rape was determined by how much you resisted. And because I froze in that moment and then proceeded to blame myself because I froze. And I'd never even heard that that was an option, that it is an involuntary automatic defensive mechanism in the body to freeze to protect itself in danger. So I met him then. When it happened, I froze. And because I believed the laws, I thought, well, nobody's going to believe me.

So I carried it for a really long time and it actually took the first four victims coming out in Julie K. Brown's perversion of justice in 2018 for me to actually recognize what had happened wasn't my fault that I thought for 27 years I thought I was the only person he had raped. I assumed it was my fault and it was a unique situation and I was the only one. I think that's important for people to understand. And And I think it's important for people to understand that back in 1991, his manipulation tactics were spectacular. I actually sat with a criminal behavioral analyst, and she said, at 22, you were no match for him. And that was in 1991. What do you mean by that, the manipulation, if you don't mind me asking? Well, if he had told me, I'm going to invite you to my penthouse.

and rape you, would I've gone? He had to obviously think of some ways to get me to go there. He had to think of ways. He had to come up with something that seemed like it could be normalized and seemed like it was an opportunity in order to get me to that place. And then it's the manipulation and coercion that goes into, you know, you can't safely say no. That is coercive control.

Actually, Liz has a great, like a great phrase that I heard. I was like, oh, my gosh, that's so it. Liz, what's your, what's that phrase? You tell me. I don't know what you're talking. The Romeo something. Oh, yeah. So I do anti-trafficking work professionally now.

And there's this concept that we talk about in the anti-trafficking work called the Romeo Pimp. And this is someone who comes into. to your life under the guise of being a romantic partner and they shower you with love and gifts and they make you feel safe and secure while they're grooming you and bringing you in. And then by the time that you realize that this is not a genuine romantic relationship, you're so far in that you feel like there's just no way to get out. Another thing that traffickers do is they isolate you. They isolate you from anyone that you're close to, your family, your friends, people who could potentially help you get out of this situation.

And these are all things that keep people trapped in trafficking. But I don't think that the public really understands trafficking in the way that it actually unfolds. I say publicly quite frequently that I didn't even know that I was trafficked until Epstein was arrested in 20. 2019. And when I realized that I had been trafficked, you know, it wasn't the media who was telling me what was trafficking was. They were telling me that I had been trafficked, but I had all of those, you know, preconceived notions about what trafficking was. And so I really had to immerse myself in the National Anti-Trafficking Movement. And that is how I learned what trafficking was. And once I did that, that was exactly what had happened to me. And to

Jess's point, just having a name for what happened in the realization that this was a very calculated process and that it was not my fault because I also, for decades, thought that I was the only one this happened to and I thought that it was my fault. And I also, you know, my involvement with them began in 1994. And the laws were, as Jess is describing, you know, how much did you fight back? Was there penetration in the act? So we looked at these things. We looked at what rape was in a very different way back then, culturally.

And I think that that contributed to both of us really not understanding exactly what had happened in the moment. Do you mind me asking how old you were when you met him? I was a senior in college. I was 21 years old. And what happened? So I was working at a high-end Fifth Avenue retailer as part of my schooling. I was a pretty ambitious college student. I had a lot of dreams. And one day, Galane Maxwell came in as a client, and I helped her. And immediately, she started talking to me like, we were friends.

and found points of connection in our two lives, and I, you know, I just, I didn't have any reason to think that anything malicious was going to happen. As part of, you know, the service that I would offer my clients, I would offer to bring their packages to them so they didn't have to carry them around New York City all day long while they shopped. But I had this hard and fast rule that I would only deliver to doorman or hotel concierge. I would never go to someone's. I would never go to someone's room or into their private residence. And that was a way to keep myself safe. The store that I worked at was owned by the Limited at the time, and the CEO of the limited was Les Wexner. And so Maxwell made it known to me in that initial meeting that

she and her boyfriend were close to Mr. Wexner. So I really wanted to be good to them. And I think that that was also part of how they manipulated me. I delivered her packages to her at the hotel. I brought them to the concierge, and the concierge told me that she was with some in the bar that she wanted me to meet, and that was Epstein. And they wound up asking me to bring the packages to their room that night, and that was something that I normally would not have done. But as I said, you know, they made their relationship with Wexner known to me, and he was. was ultimately my boss and I didn't want to disappoint. And so it was in that first meeting that they started to normalize sexual interactions. And I immediately, every alarm bell was going off in me. And another response that we don't talk about a lot is fawning and that can look like you're placating your traffickers because you know that if you are upsetting them that things are just going to get worse for you. So people, I think, really need to understand that the most common responses to assaults are freezing and fawning. And it's really just your body trying to keep

you safe in a moment of danger. I'm sorry for what you both went through. But it's important that you talk specifically about the things that we don't know about the response. And this speaks to what you've done, Jess. One of the things that you've done, when you spoke on Capitol Hill, what, in November, you were holding up photos of your younger selves at the age when you met Jeffrey Epstein. Why did you do that? You know, that was actually something that we kept hearing on social media because people were seeing us as women and they were really struggling to imagine us as those younger yourselves. And I think that's really important that people understand to just, I want to segue back to something that we were just talking about, Matt. Jeffrey had a type, and it was damaged,

traumatized. You know, 48% of childhood sexual abuse survivors go on to be abused again. If you talk to any of us, we all came from backgrounds where abuse happened. I was a childhood sexual abuse survivor. That's on the checklist, right? He actually asked about your family. He was literally monitoring me from question to question to determine what he could use to manipulate me. That was something that was said to me by an expert.

The second thing that I think is really important for people to understand is that Galane Maxwell and his operation, the way that they coordinated, this and the way that he had the woman that recruited me to go to him, that's not unique. That's actually sex trafficking 101 to have a female go out there and make it seem safe. My roommate, who's the one that brought me to him, she worked for him for six months. She told me how fabulous he was. She couldn't speak more highly of him about him training her to do this job. It was to do massage, and I was a professional dancer, so I was happy to, you know, I was like,

this is a great segue into other work. So I had a six-month, you know, faux history with him that I trusted. So it is not special or unique because it was Jeffrey Epstein. It's only special or unique that it was these wealthy, powerful men. But the planning was not, not unique at all. Hi, Steve Patterson here, host of The Debaters, the show where Canada's funniest arguers battle it out. Are you one of the last people you know to still use a landline phone? This week, we're asking if every home should have one, and I promise we won't be phoning it in.

Listen wherever you get your podcasts. Liz, do you think, and you were nodding along to what Jess was saying, do you think that your stories and what we have just heard has been lost in some of the politics around this and the larger kind of story that seems. to be taking place as we talk about Epstein? Yeah, I definitely think so. We frequently see and hear other people who were not involved in this case commenting about this case, but we're the ones who experience this crime.

And so I think that we have a lot to add to the discussion that might not be in the discussion because we're getting so confused by how this has been politicized and how this is kind of weaponized as a subject. This is unique in the fact that our government has admitted that there are over a thousand victims of this crime. And so it's really important, I think, for people to hear our stories and for us to tell our stories. And I think that part of us coming together as a group has really promoted us.

us being able to do that. Because when you look past the headlines and you look at what this story is really about, we were young women who were just starting our lives. We had hopes. We had dreams. There were things we wanted for ourselves and lives. And our experience with Jeffrey Epstein and Gleine Maxwell, in my case, really just took that all away. And I think that a lot of times people think, well, you're out of your trafficking situation. Everything's better now. And that's really not the case. The emotional repercussions of being trafficked stay with you for your entire life.

It affects your mind. It affects your body. It affects who you are as a person. Part of what traffickers are really skilled at doing is when you're being trafficked, you are removed from the people that care about you. You're removed from whatever educational experiences you might be having at the time, any professional experiences you might be having at the time. And when you get out of trafficking in a lot of ways, your suffering is just beginning. And I don't think that people understand what the lifelong impact of this kind of trauma is on someone. The new law that we were talking about recently passed requires the Justice Department to disclose Epstein-related records to the public by December 19th means that those records have to come out a week from today. Liz, you have been fighting for the disclosure of these files for a long time. and as you've done that, you've had a range of support. Republicans in Congress have been defying the president and are in many ways leading the effort to get this act passed.

Thomas Massey and Marjorie Taylor Green in particular. And Marjorie Taylor Green, she's a longtime ally of Donald Trump. She's kind of deep in the MAGA universe. And yet she said that she wanted these documents to come out. And for saying that, she has faced the fury of Donald Trump. She spoke with Leslie Stahl on 60 Minutes about this. Have a listen to this. He was extremely angry at me that I had signed the discharge petition to release the files.

I fully believe that those women deserve everything. They're asking for all of it to come out. They deserve it. And he was furious with me. What did he say? He said that it was going to hurt people. Liz, what does that support mean to you, coming from her especially? It makes me feel very hopeful.

You know, there was a time in our country not so long ago where people in competing political parties were able to come together on issues and really put their party lines behind them. And I don't understand how anyone of either political party really cannot see the humanity of this issue. And I think that all of the Republicans that have stood behind us in this fight really are steadfast. And the fact that this isn't a political issue, it's a crime. And we can't get confused because of the people in power that are potentially involved. The people in power that are potentially evolved are perpetrators of a crime. And we would not stand for it, you know, if this was happening in our community. So why are we standing for it as a nation?

What about Donald Trump as the president? We know that he knew Epstein, that they were friends, and then they had this falling out. And there's this email written by Jeffrey Epstein saying that Trump knew about the girls, and he asked Tulane to stop. Donald Trump has denied any wrongdoing saying he didn't know anything about Epstein sex trafficking. But in these documents, are you anticipating more information to come out about the president? I'll jump in on that one. Given that they were friends for 15 years, it was. would seem counterintuitive to say that there wouldn't be more information about him in those

files. We're working on many things to stand strong regardless of what happens on December 19th, and that's really, really important. The other thing I really, I think it's important to say is Marjorie Taylor Green has actually been on this release of files case since June of 24. It's actually the one issue that I do agree with her on and have supported her when she has spoken out very publicly about releasing these files. So this is not anything new. When she showed up at our press conference, the other thing that she said that was really incredible was she said that there was an unprecedented amount of response from the American people reaching out to their representatives and their senators, unprecedented, historical. That says something.

that regardless of whether you're the president of the United States, you're the president of these people. And this may be the one issue, Matt, that we as a country can come together. I mean, there used to be a time in politics where being able to cross the aisle was a sign of integrity and character. Maybe we need to get back to that a little bit more. How do you understand, though, I mean, you both said this. This has gone on for five administrations.

How do you understand why Epstein was able to abuse girls and women for so long and why it took until now to get to the point that we seem to be at? Jess? I believe there are a couple things that happened. One, I think it was a huge misstep on the part of the administration to decide they were closing the investigation and sealing the files because all of us were kind of waiting to see what was going to happen with all of these investigations. And so by putting that mark of halt, we're not doing any more, that was infuriating.

And I think that that's actually one of the things that brought us all together to recognize, like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. This has been blundered for too long. The other thing I think, I think in the past, the way things that have happened for sexual assault survivors is even when they are coming in as a collective, they're very isolated. isolated from each other. So I think this is the first time that survivors have really come together in this volume to support a very specific action. And I think that's what's unique about it. People have also said that this is, it's a story about many things. It's a story about abuse and the victims of abuse, but it's also about power and the way that power has protected itself. Yeah, definitely. I mean, I think that we're going to find out so much more than just about a sex trafficking ring. Because we're not just trying to deal with the crime. We're now trying to focus on the cover-up. Liz, when you spoke on Capitol Hill, you said that you were part of a sorority that none of us asked to join.

What has that sisterhood, that sense of being together with others? What has that given you? The relationships that we have formed have been just invaluable to me. And I don't think that I'm alone when I say that. It has been incredibly validating to have this group of women that you can rely on for support where you don't have to keep re-explaining and re-explaining and re-explaining your story or not even talking about your story, just having a group of people. women that understand without you having to say. It was really important for me to bring survivors together. I said earlier that I do anti-trafficking work professionally. And so I was

really lucky to bring a national anti-trafficking organization in to kind of try and help us navigate all of this and to have this collective voice makes us feel like we have. have some sort of power in a situation that we've felt powerless in for decades. And it's just been really nice to get to know these other women on a human level, you know, past the shared trauma that we have. For me, it's been really wonderful. Jess, you were smiling when she was saying that. Yeah, we actually wouldn't be together as a collective if it wasn't for Liz.

So I just have to point that out because I love that woman. I love you, Liz. She is the one that when all of this was going down and the news was covering it, but no one in the media was covering our voices. It was Liz that got together with the nonprofit world without exploitation and said, hey, we need to get our voices out there and we need to get together. And so none of this would be happening without this. And none of it would be happening.

I have to say this too. None of it would have, I think, happened if it hadn't been, for Virginia Joufrey going first. Yeah. I watched her bravery, and I remember thinking to myself, whoa, I could never do what she's doing. That is incredible. And I just would hear her do interviews,

and I would just be weeping, and I hadn't really talked about anything to anybody, hadn't connected with any survivors. September 3rd was the first time I actually connected with any other survivors. So we're in this sorority, we're in it for good, and we're in it for the long haul. We know this is the beginning of our work. December 19th is not the ending.

We know we have a lot of mountains to climb. And I think the only reason we're going to be able to do it is because we're doing it together. Jess, you mentioned Virginia. She'd accused Epstein and the man formerly known as Prince Andrew of sexual abuse and traffic, and she died by suicide in April. When you think of her going first, what do you think she would make of this moment? I think she'd be incredibly proud of us. And she's with us.

So, yeah. I think that part of why we do this is because it's so important to keep her advocacy alive, to keep her with us. And we have been incredibly lucky that her family, has been in this fight with us. You know, it's hard, I think, for people sometimes to understand how someone so brave could take their own life. But that really is, you know, just an illustration of the duality of what we experience as survivors. And for me at least, weakness was not a thing in Virginia's, but it was not a word in Virginia's vocabulary. And I think that the best way that we can honor her and honor all survivors of sexual assault

who have felt like they needed to take their own life is by doing this work and coming together. Jess, just finally, in D.C., you spoke about a survivor revolution. What does that look like to you? A Survivor Revolution is when survivor voices are centered in making laws, in teaching law enforcement and justice systems and attorneys about what trauma actually looks like. It's when accountability is normal for sexual harm rather than rare. A survivor revolution says that we start to treat this crime like an injury first before we start an interrogation or an investigation, because it is an injury to our nervous system, to our sense of safety in the world, our sense of trust in the world first.

And the same way we would treat someone that just said, I was in a car accident. We don't say, oh, we have to call the insurance company. You say, are you okay? If we could start to treat sexual assault survivors in a way that allows them to feel safe and secure and supported within those first 24 to 72 hours after something happens, I think that's how we change this epidemic. These are hard conversations, but you're both doing vital work, and I really, really appreciate. We've talked about this story a lot, but we have not talked. I don't think about the heart of the story and to the heart of the story

nearly enough. And I really appreciate you both being here to speak with us. Thank you very much. Thank you, Matt. Take care of yourselves. Thanks. Jess Michaels is a public speaker and educator on sexual violence.

Liz Stein is a survivor mentor and an anti-trafficking advocate. They are both survivors of abuse by Jeffrey Epstein and we're instrumental in the fight to have the Epstein files released. You've been listening to the current podcast. My name is Matt Galloway.

Thanks for listening. I'll talk to you soon. For more CBC podcasts, go to cbc.ca.ca slash podcasts.