As DOJ begins to release Epstein files, his many victims deserve more attention than the powerful men in his ‘client list’ |
The U.S. Department of Justice has made a partial release of documents from what’s become known collectively as the “Jeffrey Epstein files,” with more to follow at an unspecified time. On a special part of its website that the department titled “Epstein Library,” it lists documents such as court records and records released in response to Freedom of Information Act requests to the government.
Their release was ordered by Congress in bipartisan legislation passed in November 2025. The deadline imposed by Congress was Dec. 19, 2025, and the Department of Justice met it with the partial release of documents in its possession with eight hours to spare.
Those files will be read, dissected and discussed by politicians and the public and reported on by the news media. It will be the latest eruption in a story that has slipped in and out of the headlines for years, but in a very particular way. Most news articles ask a specific question – which powerful men might be on “the list”? Journalists and the public are watching to see what those documents will reveal beyond names we already know, and whether a long-rumored client list will finally materialize.
Headlines in the past have focused on unidentified elites and who may be exposed or embarrassed, rather than on the people whose suffering made the case newsworthy in the first place: the girls and young women Epstein abused and trafficked.
Alongside that, there has been a stream of survivor-centered reporting. Some outlets, including CNN, have regularly featured Epstein survivors and their attorneys reacting to new developments. Those segments are a reminder that another story is available, one that treats the women at the center of the case as sources of understanding, not just as evidence of someone else’s fall from grace.
These coexisting storylines reveal a deeper problem.........