Transcription
The estate of sex offender Jeffrey Epstein has less than two weeks to hand over a trove of documents to the House Oversight Committee. The panel has subpoenaed the estate for, among other things, Epstein's will, his financial documents, a reported collection of letters gifted in his so-called 50th birthday book for Epstein, Epstein's non-disclosure agreement with others, and any information that could be part of a potential clients list.
The oversight committee is also going to interview former labor secretary during President Trump's first term, Alex Acosta. Acosta, of course, was the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Florida when he negotiated the 2008 sweetheart deal with Epstein.
And joining us now is Liz Stein. She is a survivor of Epstein and Maxwell's trafficking ring. She now works as a survivor mentor and policy associate at the Support Center for Child Advocates in Philadelphia. Liz, thank you so much for coming on. I'm really interested to learn what your reaction is to the contents of the Maxwell transcript, the very fact of her being interviewed by the deputy Attorney General, her prison transfer, and the overall treatment of Maxwell. I think that it's pretty obvious that she's not being truthful in this interview. And I think that something that the public might not be aware of, if, you know, if you're someone who isn't following this case really closely, is that, in her federal indictment, there were perjury charges stemming from a deposition that was held in a civil suit involving Virginia Giuffre. And when it came time for Maxwell's trial, those charges were severed because the prosecutors did not want the testimony from those charges to unduly influence the jury. And when she was ultimately convicted of the other counts, those charges were dropped. So we're already talking about someone who has been less than truthful previously. And I think that it's really difficult for us as survivors to have the government speaking to someone who's been convicted of this crime and giving her any weight whatsoever, or, in terms of leniency. I mean, the move to a federal prison camp is really an unprecedented move for someone who's been charged with these crimes. And so, I'm just curious why the government is putting so much stock in what Ghislaine Maxwell is saying, but they're not talking to the actual victims of this crime.
You speak very interestingly and movingly about sex trafficking and how it's not probably what the average American envisions when they hear that term. Tell us what you mean. Yeah. So I think that it's interesting to point out that I am a victim of this crime, and I consider myself to be a reasonably intelligent and aware person, but I didn't even realize that I was trafficked until Epstein was arrested in 2019. The way that it was, in my mind, was that I became involved with these friends, and I had a really horrific, horrific experience, but I didn't even realize that I had been trafficked until Epstein was arrested. And I think that people are just not educated on what sex trafficking is. I certainly wasn't, and I thought that I knew what it was. And I think that that is also a really big piece of the puzzle that's missing. I don't know if people really understand what they're talking about.
Right. You're not, like, trapped in a dungeon, right? You're not kept in a dungeon. You're not chained. No. You're but you're manipulated. No. Yes. And so, you know, the perception, I think, in the media is that, you know, it is a man who comes along in a van and scoops up a little girl with blond hair and blue eyes and takes her somewhere and locks her up and chains her. And it really sex trafficking does not look like that in the majority of cases at all. You know, sex trafficking needs three elements to be present: fraud and coercion in order to compel someone into a commercial sex act. And a commercial sex act is anything of value that is received for a sex act. And I don't think that people understand that. You know, a lot of the young women that I work with, something of value to them could be housing. It could be a cell phone. If they don't have a cell phone, it could be anything that is, you know, of financial benefit to the person who's being compelled to do this act. And I think that there's also a misnomer, too. When people hear coercion, they think that there's some kind of choice in that. And when you're being deceived, you know, there really is no choice. And so I just think that, you know, in addition to people watching the coverage of this particular case, maybe we need some education on what the crime of sex trafficking actually is.
Yeah. And it's actually interesting because I was reading the Ghislaine Maxwell transcript in her interview that was released Friday afternoon, and she talked about how these misuses, she calls them, these young women that she, you know, drafted and brought into Epstein's orbit, that there's no way they would ever come back and meet with him again if they had been raped. And that's, of course, a complete misunderstanding of how sex trafficking works, because they would, if they depended on Epstein to live or to have a place to live or any money. Yeah, exactly. Liz Stein, thank you so much for talking to us. Appreciate it. Thanks so much.
Let's bring in Jack Scarola. He's an attorney who has represented nearly 20 victims of Jeffrey Epstein. Epstein and spent 18 years litigating cases against him. Jack, thanks for joining us. The House Oversight Committee is also finally going to interview former labor secretary for Donald Trump, Alex Acosta, who was the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Florida back in 2007, 2008, when he negotiated that sweetheart deal with Epstein. What do you or any of the victims you've represented want to hear from Acosta?
I think the one question that was identified in that interview is an important question, but it is not by any means the only important question. Not only was Jeffrey Epstein given an incredible sweetheart deal, but he was provided with a non-prosecution agreement that immunized named coconspirators and unnamed coconspirators from federal prosecution for any crime that they may have committed up to the time of the execution of that agreement. That's an incredible, unprecedented, and totally unjustifiable concession to a criminal defendant that has never been explained, and I don't know how it could ever rationally be explained. In addition to that, yeah, the terms of that agreement were actively concealed from the victims when federal law required them to be informed of the agreement and to have an opportunity to be heard about it. Those are questions that need to be explained. And Alex Acosta, if appropriately questioned by someone who is prepared and knows what the answers should be, conducts the interview and the interrogation of Alex Acosta.
The Justice Department released the transcript of Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche's interview with Epstein coconspirator Ghislaine Maxwell. Would you describe Todd Blanche the way that you said you hoped an interview would be, equipped to interview Alex Acosta, that same way? And what were your thoughts after reading through the transcripts?
I would not describe Todd Blanche that way. I have read every word of two days of interviews with Ghislaine Maxwell. Those interviews resembled more a choreographed dance than the interrogation of a convicted, a convicted child molesting coconspirator and an accused perjurer. This was not an effective interview by any means, but simply a platform for Ghislaine Maxwell to rewrite history.
What's one question you would have asked had you had a chance? There are a lot of questions that I would have asked had I had the opportunity to do that, but principally, I would have confronted her with the testimony that was presented against her at her trial. And we have a situation where the person sent to interview Ghislaine Maxwell is known to be the president's criminal defense lawyer. That criminal defense lawyer was there on behalf of an individual who walks around with a pocket full of get out of jail free cards, which he has demonstrated a willingness to distribute freely. Who could possibly believe that under those circumstances, Ghislaine Maxwell is going to remember anything whatsoever that is disadvantageous to the man with the pocket full of get out of jail free cards? It isn't going to happen, and she needed to be confronted about that motive and never was.