Dem
47
GOP
53
Last Thursday, Melania Trump dropped a small Epstein bomblet. She announced that she had nothing to do with Jeffrey Epstein, was not one of his many victims, and didn't meet Donald Trump through him. There are many questions about why she made her speech last week. If she was trying to get ahead of some news story about to break, well, it hasn't broken yet. If she is trying to revive the Epstein story to make the war in Iran story go away, that is unlikely to work. Maybe the key to the mystery is that she called for Epstein's victims to testify in public.
James Comer (R-KY), Chairman of the House Oversight Committee, picked up on the latter. He responded to Melania by going on Fox and saying: "I agree with the First Lady and appreciate what she said. We will have hearings." He had better be careful. One of the Democrats on the Committee might just decide to ask each victim: "Could you please give us the names of the people who assaulted you and the names of people who assaulted other Epstein victims?" Some of them might be brave enough to do that. If the perpetrators of the crimes sued for defamation, they would be exposing themselves to discovery and cross examination in court.
Rep. Suhas Subramanyam (D-VA) tweeted: "If the First Lady wants to clear her name, she should come before the Oversight Committee and testify under oath. Otherwise, this is just a shameless book promotion." Even if she doesn't want to, Comer could send her a subpoena, but don't hold your breath on that one.
Meanwhile, a group of Epstein survivors tweeted their reaction to Melania's call for the survivors to testify. It read:
Survivors of Jeffrey Epstein have already shown extraordinary courage by coming forward, filing reports, and giving testimony. Asking more of them now is a deflection of responsibility, not justice.
First Lady Melania Trump is now shifting the burden onto survivors under politicized conditions that protect those with power: The Department of Justice, law enforcement, prosecutors, and the Trump administration, which has still not fully complied with the Epstein Files Transparency Act.
It also diverts attention from Pam Bondi, who must answer for withheld files and the exposure of survivors' identities. Those failures continue to put lives at risk while shielding enablers.
Survivors have done their part. Now it's time for those in power to do theirs.
The letter was signed by 13 women by name and two Jane Does.
Also relevant is a lawsuit filed by survivors against Bank of America for supporting Epstein. One of the plaintiffs said Epstein abused her on at least 100 occasions, including raping her and forcing her to engage sexually with other women for his amusement. Epstein paid this woman's rent and gave her an allowance, nominally from a phony job. The suit alleges that the bank knew this and should have filed a "Suspicious Activity Report" with the feds and didn't, to protect their good client, Epstein. The bank knew—or should have known if it had done its "Know Your Customer" homework—that Epstein had been convicted of sex crimes in Florida in 2008, and that should have been a red flag. The suit also accuses BofA of ignoring the $170 million Leon Black paid Epstein and not filing a SAR about it.
The bank has agreed to pay a settlement of $72.5 million, but admits no wrongdoing of any kind. The payment is just to make this go away so the bank can go back to concentrating on making money. (V)