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jeffrey epstein
Trump Has Dismantled Anti-Human Trafficking Programs and 'Repeatedly Sided With Sex Offenders'
"The Trump administration has taken a sledgehammer to our capacity to hold sex offenders to account and undermined support and services for crime victims," said Rep. Jamie Raskin.
Sep 17, 2025
Congressional Democrats and victim advocates took aim Tuesday at President Donald Trump's gutting of federal programs combatcing human trafficking, belying campaign promises to aggressively target perpetrators of such crimes.
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), the ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, on Tuesday released an 18-page memo "detailing how the Trump administration has repeatedly sided with sex offenders and human traffickers over their victims—often rewarding sexual predators and elevating them to positions of power within the US government while crippling key offices, programs, and grants that combat sex crimes and support survivors."
This seemingly flies in the face of Trump's "Agenda 47" campaign platform, which vowed to aggressively crack down on human traffickers, and the groundswell of Trump supporters' unheeded calls for action and accountability in the Jeffrey Epstein case. Fighting child sex trafficking—both real and imagined—has long been an issue of passionate importance for the MAGA movement.
"Trump began his second term promising to 'make America safe again.' But safe for whom? Law-abiding citizens or dangerous criminals?"
Noting that "Trump and his supporters have gone from demanding the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files to doing everything in their power to prevent their release, openly tampering with potential witness Ghislaine Maxwell and calling the matter a 'Democrat hoax,'" the memo—titled Epstein Is the Tip of the Iceberg—begins by asking: "Trump began his second term promising to 'make America safe again.' But safe for whom? Law-abiding citizens or dangerous criminals?"
The memo notes that in the past seven months, Trump has:
- Gutted federal offices designed to combat human trafficking, domestic violence, and sexual violence against women and children.
- Terminated the programs and grants designed to support the victims and survivors of human trafficking networks and crimes of sexual violence.
- Made it systematically harder for law enforcement to prosecute sex offenders and dismantle sex trafficking networks.
- Repeatedly used the powers of his office to pardon individual sexual predators and give official protection, aid, and comfort to accused rapists and child pornographers.
- Rewarded numerous individuals who have a personal history of sexual predation and domestic violence by appointing them to his administration and elevating them to senior positions within the government.
Senior administration officials including Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr, Education Secretary Linda McMahon, and former de facto Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) chief Elon Musk have been accused of either committing or enabling sexual crimes or misconduct.
Trump has also been found civilly liable for sexual abuse and has been accused of rape, sexual assault, or harassment by more than two dozen women.
"President Trump in office has repeatedly taken the side of criminal sex predators and violent abusers against their victims, and this pattern goes well beyond his strenuous efforts to bury the Epstein Files," Raskin said Tuesday in a statement. "Trump is systematically dismantling the offices and programs we rely on to combat human trafficking and prosecute sex crimes."k
"Our memo shows how the Trump administration has taken a sledgehammer to our capacity to hold sex offenders to account and undermined support and services for crime victims," the congressman added. "Far from aiding victims and survivors, President Trump consistently sides with their abusers. His all-of-government policy to aid traffickers and sex criminals and abandon survivors has made American women dramatically less safe."
Following whistleblower claims "that the Trump administration concealed information about the safety of unaccompanied Guatemalan children they tried to deport in the dead of night," Sens. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) and Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) on Tuesday called for an oversight hearing to examine the US Office of Refugee Resettlement's "mass child deportation efforts and apparent lies under oath."
"The urgent call for a hearing comes after the disclosure alleged that at least 30 of 327 unaccompanied Guatemalan children the administration attempted to deport without due process 'have indicators of being a victim of child abuse, including death threats, gang violence, human trafficking, and/or have expressed fear of return to Guatemala,'" Padilla's office said in a statement Wednesday.
An investigation published Wednesday by The Guardian also detailed how the Trump administration "has aggressively rolled back efforts across the federal government to combat human trafficking."
Jean Bruggeman, executive director of the advocacy group Freedom Network USA, told The Guardian that “it’s been a widespread and multipronged attack on survivors that leaves all of us less safe and leaves survivors with few options."
Numerous critics have warned of the dangers of Trump's diversion of federal resources and personnel dedicated to combating human trafficking to enforcing mass deportations.
As Raskin told Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Kash Patel during a charged Wednesday hearing, "When Trump decided that rounding up immigrants with no criminal records was more important that preventing crimes like human trafficking of women and girls, drug dealing, terrorism, and fraud, you ordered FBI’s 25 largest field offices to divert thousands of agents away from chasing down violent criminals, sex traffickers, fraudsters, and scammers to help carry out Trump’s extreme immigration crackdown."
"You ordered hundreds of FBI agents to pore over all the Epstein files," Raskin said, "but not to look for more clues about the money network or the network of human traffickers, pulled these agents from their regular counterterrorism, counterintelligence, or anti-drug trafficking duties to work around the clock, some of them sleeping on their office desks, to conduct a frantic search to make sure Donald Trump’s name and image were flagged and redacted wherever they appeared."
"Put on your big boy pants and let us know who the pedophiles are," Raskin added.
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UK Protest Group Condemns 'Orwellian' Arrest Over Projected Trump-Epstein Images
“We’re constantly told, you know, we need to see peaceful protests," said one organizer. "Well, here’s a peaceful protest."
Sep 17, 2025
The leaders of the UK-based protest group Led By Donkeys said Wednesday that four of its members remained under arrest for displaying images of US President Donald Trump and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein on the side of Windsor Castle ahead of Trump's second state visit to the United Kingdom.
The widely available images were accompanied by a narration discussing Trump and Epstein's friendship, as well as pictures of Epstein's victims, police reports, and news reports about the case.
Trump began his visit, on which he'll meet with King Charles and other members of the royal family as well as Prime Minister Keir Starmer, amid growing scrutiny of the US Department of Justice's decision not to release files related to the Epstein case as well as of the release of a letter the president reportedly sent to Epstein containing dialogue between the two men about a "wonderful secret" they shared.
The White House has denied the letter is authentic and Trump has claimed he was unaware of Epstein's criminal activities during his friendship with him.
Police said they arrested the four Led by Donkeys members on suspicion of "malicious communications" after they displayed the "unauthorized projection."
A spokesperson for Led By Donkeys told The Guardian the group has previously displayed "25 or 30 projections" without organizers being arrested.
"Often the police come along and we have a chat to them, and they even have a laugh with us and occasionally tell us to not do it," the spokesperson said. “But no one’s ever been arrested before, so it is ridiculous that four of our guys have been arrested for malicious communications.”
“Forgive the cliche, but it is rather Orwellian for a piece of journalism, which raises questions about our guest’s relationship with America’s most notorious child sex trafficker, to lead to arrests," they added.
King Charles' brother, Prince Andrew, has also been accused of sexually abusing teenage girls during his friendship with Epstein. He settled out of court with Virginia Giuffre, who sued him for allegedly abusing her, in 2022, after being stripped of his royal patronages.
While the projection was taken down and the protesters detained, Trump is unlikely to escape condemnation from members of the British public during his visit.
The group Everyone Hates Elon, which has previously displayed messages denouncing billionaire Trump ally and megadonor Elon Musk at bus stops around London, also unfurled a banner at Windsor Castle showing a picture of Trump and Epstein.
Protesters gathered in London Wednesday for a "Trump Not Welcome" march from Portland Place to Parliament Square, with some displaying the "Trump baby balloon" that became familiar after the president's first official visit to the UK in 2018, as well as balloons showing a caricature of Vice President JD Vance.
Demonstrators carried signs reading, "No to racism" and "Stop arming Israel," among other slogans.
“We do not want our government to trade away our democracy and decency,” Zoe Gardner, a spokesperson for the Stop Trump Coalition, told The Washington Post Wednesday.
A rallygoer named Alena Ivanova told the outlet that "there's a reason" Trump is spending much of his visit outside of the nation's capital, meeting with Starmer at his country estate and staying at Windsor Castle.
"People on the streets will say what our government seems unable to: Donald Trump is not welcome here," said Ivanova.
Observers in the UK view the invitation for a state visit as an attempt to appeal to the president as he threatens the country with tariffs and an end to aid for Ukraine.
"We want our government to show some backbone," Gardner told the BBC, "and have a little bit of pride and represent that huge feeling of disgust at Donald Trump's politics in the UK."
The Led By Donkeys spokesperson told The Guardian that the arrest of the four organizers "says a lot more about the policing of Trump's visit than it does about what we did."
More than 1,600 police officers have been deployed to respond to protests while Trump is in the UK.
“We’re constantly told, you know, we need to see peaceful protests. Well, here’s a peaceful protest," said the spokesperson. "We projected a piece of journalism on to a wall and now people have been arrested for malicious communications."
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Trump Won't Make America Safe Again By Minimizing Domestic Violence
The president’s remarks come at a time when he and his enablers celebrate toxic masculinity while cutting services for the most vulnerable, including domestic violence prevention and support for Survivors.
Sep 13, 2025
For those of us who work to prevent domestic violence and support survivors, it was beyond disheartening to hear the president of the United States, one of the most powerful men in the world, say, “If a man has a little fight with the wife, they say, 'This was a crime,' see?" His off-the-cuff remark was in regard to the crime rate in DC and is hard not to interpret as downplaying domestic violence.
It was notable to me that these remarks were made at the Bible Museum, at a conference for the freedom of religious education. Sadly, organized religions have too often been places that have turned a blind eye toward domestic violence, with an attitude that things that happen in the home should stay private or are to be worked out in the home. This, of course, minimizes the power and coercion behind domestic violence. Every day I speak to victims who are in situations where they cannot get help because the violence is happening at home, whether it is because they know what will happen when their abuser posts bail or they will have no place to live, or they do not want to disrupt their children’s lives and pull them out of school. The list goes on and on.
The president’s remarks come at a time when he and his enablers celebrate toxic masculinity while cutting services for the most vulnerable, including domestic violence prevention and support for Survivors. Recently Housing Urban Development funding has been cut, even though the connection between homelessness and domestic violence is clear. The California Inter Agency Council on homelessness reported that 74,779 survivors and 24,721 children of survivors experienced homelessness in 2024, that survivors had a higher rate of return to homelessness after exiting homeless services, that 14% of survivors returned to homelessness versus 10% of the overall homeless population, and that Survivors had a lower rate of exits to permanent housing—14% among survivors versus 18% among the overall homeless population. Yet funding for homelessness prevention at organizations, like the Survivor Justice Center that I run, are being cut.
Just last week I was interviewed about a hand signal that went viral that started when people were trapped at home with their abusers during the pandemic and need a nonverbal way to get help. Many of us are also standing in solidarity with survivors of Jeffrey Epstein and their re-traumatization by the ongoing dismissal of his crimes by the powers that be.
We must stop minimizing abuse just because it happened with someone you know.
Next month is Domestic Violence Awareness Month, where advocates, survivors, and supporters across the nation come together to commemorate those lives that have been lost to intimate partner violence and to continue the work to end domestic violence. I hope we can come together this month to commemorate those lives, and to raise awareness that this is not just a little fight that happens between a husband and a wife at home.
Every day, a friend, colleague, neighbor, community supporter, a good Samaritan, whomever asks me how this could still be happening, how could these ingrained power and control and coercive and abusive behavior be happening. They ask how they can help.
This is why I wrote earlier this year about the blame game. And about the burden that is placed on the survivor. We must stop minimizing abuse just because it happened with someone you know.
You can help. You can recognize the hand signal. You can say “a little fight with the wife” is wrong for so many reasons—even the reference to “the wife” removes agency from the victim spouse and makes it sound like a reference to property. As if we are returning to a far-off time from the 1950s, when domestic violence was not discussed and women were not seen as equal partners, but people that should know their place and be barefoot in the kitchen. We won’t go back.
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