Lisa Phillips spoke at a press conference for Epstein survivors Wednesday—and said survivors have discussed creating their own list of their alleged abusers.Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call/ZUMA
There’s one issue that is gaining rare bipartisan support in a very divided DC: Outrage over the continued stonewalling of the full release of the Epstein files.
On Wednesday, a group of Democrat and Republican lawmakers—including Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.)—held a press conference on Capitol Hill featuring survivors of the late financier and sex abuser Jeffrey Epstein. The purpose: Push Republicans to help force a vote on a House bill that Massie introduced in July, dubbed the “Epstein Files Transparency Act,” that would force Attorney General Pam Bondi to publicly release, within 30 days, all of the unclassified materials related to their investigations into Epstein and his accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell. This would include flight logs, names of people and entities with ties to Epstein, sealed settlements, and any internal Department of Justice (DOJ) communications about declining to charge or investigate his associates. The bill would also prohibit the withholding of any files based on “embarrassment, reputational harm, or political sensitivity.”
President Donald Trump’s DOJ has repeatedly purported to release new batches of the files, including on Tuesday night, when the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee released more than 33,000 pages of documents that it secured through a subpoena from the DOJ. But Democrats and those present at the Wednesday press conference said those documents had already been made public through prior court cases.
At the news conference, Massie alleged the House Oversight Committee was “allowing the DOJ to curate all of the information that the DOJ is giving them” and said that 97 percent of the documents released were “already in the public domain.”
“This is a litmus test: Can we drain the swamp?” he asked. “Are there people who are outside of the reach of the law? I don’t think there should be.”
GOP Rep. Massie: I hope my Republican colleagues are watching. The Washington establishment is asking you to believe 2 people created hundreds of victims, and no one else was involved. They are allowing the DOJ to curate all the information. The pages are heavily redacted, and… pic.twitter.com/W3r3MlS7B4
— FactPost (@factpostnews) September 3, 2025
The DOJ did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Mother Jones. Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.) said Wednesday that its investigation into Epstein was “the most comprehensive…to date” and that more documents will be forthcoming, including from Epstein’s estate.
The survivors spoke at length and in detail about the abuse they suffered at the hands of Epstein and Maxwell, who was recently moved from a Florida prison to a minimum-security federal prison camp in Texas after a two-day interview with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche. For one survivor, Marina Lacerda, an immigrant from Brazil, Wednesday was the first time she spoke out publicly about her abuse, she said. Lacerda recounted entering Epstein’s orbit while working three jobs to support her mother and sister as a high school student, and a friend offered her $300 to give a man, presumably Epstein, a massage. “It went from a dream job,” she said, “to the worst nightmare.”
Lacerda said she started getting called upon to go to Epstein’s house so frequently that she dropped out of ninth grade and never returned. Her only way out, she said, came when Epstein told her she had gotten too old to work for him.
Lacerda said she struggles to remember some of the details of her abuse, which she believes the government documents could help her fill in. “[The government] have documents with my name on them that were confiscated from Jeffrey Epstein’s house and could help me put the pieces of my own life back together,” she said, “but I don’t have any of it, and I know the same is true for many of these women.”
Epstein survivor Marina Lacerda: It’s so hard to heal knowing that there are people out there who know more about my abuse than I do. The government is still in possession right now of the documents with my name on them that were confiscated from Jeffrey Epstein’s house, and… pic.twitter.com/f0pcqePARw
— FactPost (@factpostnews) September 3, 2025
The survivors appealed to Republicans for their support in backing the bill that would require the full release of the files. Massie is trying to force a vote on his bill through a discharge petition, which compels the release of legislation from committee for a floor vote once 218 members sign on. With all 212 House Democrats reportedly signing onto the petition, plus four Republicans—Massie, Greene, Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.), and Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.)—officials at the Wednesday press conference called for two more Republicans to join their colleagues to get it done. Meanwhile, a White House official told NBC News they viewed voting for the petition as “a very hostile act to the administration.”
“The only motive for opposing this bill would be to conceal wrongdoing,” said survivor Anouska De Georgiou. “You have a choice: Stand with the truth or with the lies that protected predators for decades.”
The survivors also appealed directly to Trump, begging him to back the bill that would force greater transparency from the DOJ. “President Trump: You have so much influence and power in this situation,” De Georgiou added. “Please use that influence and power to help us, because we need it now, and this country needs it now.”
Trump, though, did not appear to be moved. In response to a question from a reporter during a concurrent Oval Office meeting, the president alleged the effort to release the files “is a Democrat hoax that never ends.”
“Nobody’s ever satisfied,” he added. “They’re trying to get people to talk about something that’s totally irrelevant to the success that we’ve had as a nation since I’ve been president.”
Word soon got back to the survivors on the Hill that the president had, again, dismissed their pleas. “This is not a hoax. We are real human beings. This is real trauma,” said survivor Haley Robson, in response to a question from a reporter about Trump’s comments.
“To say that it’s a hoax—it’s just not. Please humanize us,” she said, adding that she is a registered Republican. “I would like Donald J. Trump and every person in America and around the world to humanize us, to see us for who we are, and to hear us for what we have to say.”
In the meantime, the survivors are pursuing their own justice in the absence of government action: They said they are discussing creating their own list of people who they allege participated in Epstein’s abuse. “We know the names. Many of us were abused by them,” said survivor Lisa Phillips. “Now, together as survivors, we will confidentially compile the names we all know who were regularly in the Epstein world, and it will be done by survivors and for survivors, no one else is involved. Stay tuned for more.”
Epstein survivor Lisa Phillips: I stand here today for every woman who has been silenced, exploited, and dismissed. We are not asking for pity. We are here demanding accountability, and I’m demanding justice. Congress must choose. Will you continue to protect predators, or will… pic.twitter.com/78QKtaQUxF
— FactPost (@factpostnews) September 3, 2025
Later, Greene said that if the survivors asked her to read the names from the House floor, she would. “I’m not afraid to name names, and 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 that abused these women,” Greene said. “I can do that for them, and I’d be proud to do it.” If she did, she would presumably be protected from legal retaliation or questioning by the Speech and Debate Clause of the Constitution—the same one that Mace invoked when she accused four men of sexual abuse in a speech on the House floor earlier this year.
