Congress has been unable to ignore Jeffrey Epstein‘s crimes this week. 10 survivors have been meeting members of Congress to tell their stories, with their accounts so harrowing that Nancy Mace left their meeting in tears.
Yesterday, the 10 women delivered a nationally televised news conference on Capitol Hill and weren’t drowned out even when a suspiciously timed military jet flyover blared over them. Meanwhile, over at the White House, Trump was visibly unsettled.
During a meeting with the president of Poland, Trump angrily insisted the Epstein issue is a “Democrat hoax” and a conspiracy theory. Condemnation has been swift, even from close Trump ally Marjorie Taylor Greene, who said: “It’s not a hoax because Jeffrey Epstein is a convicted pedophile. That takes away the whole hoax thing. It’s not a hoax, it’s not a lie.”
One of the Epstein survivors, Jena-Lisa Jones, is taking it personally. She’s a Trump voter and seems bewildered that he’s come out against them. In an interview with MSNBC, she was asked what she thought of Trump’s dismissal of their stories. She almost broke down as she said:
“I’m a Republican. I voted for him. I voted for Trump. And for him to say what he’s saying is.. beyond me. Because I put my hope in him and he’s supposed to protect us. And for him to say that this is a joke and that it’s sides, this is not sides.”
Jones continued, underlining that this group of survivors isn’t even coming after Trump, but can’t help but conclude from his comments that he’s protecting abusers:
“We will say it time and time again, none of us are up there accusing him of anything, there is no-one that is accusing him of any wrongdoing so the fact that he is saying those things, and saying it’s a hoax… Who are you hiding for then? Because if it’s not you, then who is it? And that scares me, who is it?”
Maybe not the smartest vote
I have a huge amount of sympathy for Jones, who’s been through things most of us can’t imagine. But, seriously, what exactly was it about Donald Trump that made you ever think he’d side with victims of sexual abuse? Was it his open misogyny, the litany of claims by women against him, the jury finding him liable for sexually abusing E. Jean Carroll?
I could go on, but if you voted for Trump because you saw him as a noble warrior against abusers, you may have backed the wrong horse.
