If you’ve been reading the Jeffrey Epstein emails or following the discussions about them, there are names you’re probably seeing: Michael Wolff, Peter Thiel, Larry Summers, Noam Chomsky, the commoner formerly known as Prince Andrew, Peggy Siegal, Kathryn Ruemmler, Deepak Chopra. Politicians and celebrities, business leaders and academics, friends and frenemies — a boldfaced roster of the famous and the infamous who corresponded with the convicted sex offender, attended his dinner parties or sought his counsel.
There are other names you might not be seeing at all: Courtney Wild, Rachel Benavidez, Michelle Licata, Maria Farmer, Annie Farmer, Liz Stein, Jess Michaels, Marina Lacerda, Danielle Bensky, Anouska De Georgiou, Shawna Rivera. Those are some of Jeffrey Epstein’s victims, scores of whom have come forward and accused Mr. Epstein of sexually abusing them.
The women’s names have been redacted from the 20,000 pages of documents that Congress released last week. But often no redaction was necessary, because there’s no name to be covered up. In Mr. Epstein’s world, and in his gossipy, elliptical, frequently misspelled correspondence, women were often described by categories: “hawain tropic girl,” “my 20 year old girlfriend in 93,, that after two years i gave to donald,” “girls in bikinis” or, simply, “the girls,” as in, Trump “knew about the girls
.” In her memoir, Virginia Roberts Giuffre, the best known of Mr. Epstein’s survivors, wrote that he “liked to tell friends that women were merely ‘a life-support system for a vagina.’
” Twenty years after Mr. Trump mused about grabbing women by the genitals, Mr. Epstein’s emails are an unwelcome reminder of how some powerful men think and talk about women.
The world has never been kind to women who accuse powerful men of sex crimes. Despite that, Mr. Epstein’s survivors have displayed tremendous courage. They’ve given interviews and news conferences. They’ve appeared in documentaries and on podcasts. Ms. Giuffre’s memoir, “Nobody’s Girl,” is currently on best-seller lists. On Sunday, a group of survivors
released a public service announcement urging viewers to ask their representatives in Congress for a “yes” vote on the Epstein Files Transparency Act bill, which is now expected to land on President Trump’s desk shortly. In a different world, Ms. Giuffre might have appeared in the video, or on talk shows. She might be headlining rallies, telling her story, explaining why this is more than a political scandal. She didn’t live long enough to have that chance.
It’s hard to tune out the gossip and listen instead to the people who paid the price for Mr. Epstein’s cruel depravity. “Victims” — like “girls” — is a category, while the boldfaced names in the emails are titillating and specific. “Girls and women harmed by powerful men” is sadly not a new story. And little can compete with the revolting sight of sophisticated, powerful people fawning over a moral leper.
