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jeffrey epstein
In Latest Attack on Media, Trump Sues Wall Street Journal Over Epstein Report
Citing the suit and other recent Republican attacks on the press, one critic said that "it sure looks like an open attempt at authoritarian control of the media."
Jul 18, 2025
U.S. President Donald on Friday made good on his pledge to sue The Wall Street Journal over its reporting that he wrote a "bawdy" letter for a leather-bound album that Ghislaine Maxwell prepared for the 50th birthday of Jeffrey Epstein, the financier and convicted sex offender who allegedly killed himself in jail while facing federal sex trafficking charges.
Maxwell, who is now serving a 20-year prison sentence "for conspiring with Jeffrey Epstein to sexually abuse minors," collected dozens of letters for the book, according to the Journal.
The one allegedly crafted by Trump, the newspaper reported, "contains several lines of typewritten text framed by the outline of a naked woman, which appears to be hand-drawn with a heavy marker. A pair of small arcs denotes the woman’s breasts, and the future president's signature is a squiggly 'Donald' below her waist, mimicking pubic hair."
As the paper—part of billionaire Richard Murdoch's media empire—detailed Thursday evening:
The letter concludes: "Happy Birthday — and may every day be another wonderful secret."
In an interview with the Journal on Tuesday evening, Trump denied writing the letter or drawing the picture. "This is not me. This is a fake thing. It's a fake Wall Street Journal story," he said.
"I never wrote a picture in my life. I don't draw pictures of women," he said. "It's not my language. It's not my words."
He told the Journal he was preparing to file a lawsuit if it published an article. "I'm gonna sue The Wall Street Journal just like I sued everyone else," he said.
On Friday, the president—a well-documented liar—sued the Journal in a federal court in Miami, Florida for assault, libel, and slander, according to CNN. In addition to the newspaper and its parent company News Corp, Politico reported, "the suit names WSJ reporters Khadeeja Safdar and Joe Palazzolo. It also names Rupert Murdoch."
Trump sued Murdoch and the Wall Street Journal in Judge Aileen Cannon's district. www.cnbc.com/2025/07/18/t...
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— Alejandra Caraballo (@esqueer.net) July 18, 2025 at 5:43 PM
Trump had said on his Truth Social platform Friday morning: I look forward to getting Rupert Murdoch to testify in my lawsuit against him and his 'pile of garbage' newspaper, the WSJ. That will be an interesting experience!!!"
Later Friday, he addressed the filing in a post that noted his other recent lawsuits against media companies:
BREAKING NEWS: We have just filed a POWERHOUSE Lawsuit against everyone involved in publishing the false, malicious, defamatory, FAKE NEWS "article" in the useless "rag" that is, The Wall Street Journal. This historic legal action is being brought against the so-called authors of this defamation, the now fully disgraced WSJ, as well as its corporate owners and affiliates, with Rupert Murdoch and Robert Thomson (whatever his role is!) at the top of the list. We have proudly held to account ABC and George Slopadopoulos, CBS and 60 Minutes, The Fake Pulitzer Prizes, and many others who deal in, and push, disgusting LIES, and even FRAUD, to the American People. This lawsuit is filed not only on behalf of your favorite President, ME, but also in order to continue standing up for ALL Americans who will no longer tolerate the abusive wrongdoings of the Fake News Media. I hope Rupert and his "friends" are looking forward to the many hours of depositions and testimonies they will have to provide in this case. Thank you for your attention to this matter. We will, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!
The president's history with Epstein has received heightened scrutiny in recent days, amid demand for the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) to release its full files on the late sex offender. The two men were publicly associated with each other in the 1990s, up until a reported falling out over a business deal in 2004. Epstein was first arrested for sex crimes two years later.
Shortly after leaving the Trump administration earlier this year, Elon Musk, the richest man on Earth, claimed on his social media platform X that the president "is in the Epstein files" and "that is the real reason they have not been made public."
After congressional Republicans repeatedly blocked a measure that would force the DOJ to release all Epstein files while protecting victims early this week, Reps. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) and Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) introduced the Epstein Files Transparency Act and warned that if it is not considered by the House of Representatives within seven legislative days, a discharge petition will be circulated.
Late Thursday, after the Journal report was published, Trump said in a Truth post: "Based on the ridiculous amount of publicity given to Jeffrey Epstein, I have asked Attorney General Pam Bondi to produce any and all pertinent Grand Jury testimony, subject to Court approval. This SCAM, perpetuated by the Democrats, should end, right now!"
In a post on X, Bondi said, "President Trump—we are ready to move the court tomorrow to unseal the grand jury transcripts."
Trump's suit against the Journal comes as CBS parent company Paramount is under fire for its $16 million settlement with the Republican, who filed suit over the media organization's handling of a "60 Minutes" interview with former Vice President Kamala Harris, last year's Democratic presidential candidate, before the November election.
Among the critics framing that deal as a "big fat bribe" intended to secure federal approval of Paramount's pending merger with Skydance is late-night host Stephen Colbert, who announced Thursday that CBS has canceled his show following his recent commentary. The network's claim that it was a financial, not political, decision has been met with widespread skepticism.
"It's pretty obvious why Paramount chose to surrender to Trump," U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said in a Friday statement. "The Redstone family, the major owners of the company, is in line to receive $2.4 billion from the sale of Paramount to Skydance, but they can only receive this money if the Trump administration approves this deal."
Tying the end of "The Late Show With Stephen Colbert" to congressional Republicans' attack on funding for NPR and PBS, the DOJ targeting Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), and Trump's threats to oust Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, Sanders declared that "this is what the march toward authoritarianism looks like."
The Paramount settlement followed one in Trump's case against ABC—which last December agreed to pay $15 million and release a note of regret after anchor and political commentator George Stephanopoulos said Trump had been found "liable for rape" of writer E. Jean Carroll. A federal jury found him civilly liable for sexual abuse and defamation, but not rape.
Sanders and several other critics have warned that the media "succumbing to pressure" from Trump sets "an incredibly dangerous precedent."
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'There Is Something Rotten in Washington': House Republicans Unanimously Reject Releasing Epstein Files
Rep. Ro Khanna said the vote was about: "Are you on the side of America's children? Or are you on the side of the rich and powerful who have had their thumb on the scales and shafted Americans for decades?"
Jul 15, 2025
Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives unanimously voted against forcing the Department of Justice to release its full files on deceased financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, just hours after the GOP-led Rules Committee rejected the measure.
The vote was 211-210 along party lines. While nine Republicans—and two Democrats—did not participate, Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.) voted with his party, after joining Democrats for the Monday night panel vote on Rep. Ro Khanna's (D-Calif.) amendment, which would require the DOJ to release the records within 30 days while protecting abuse survivors' identities.
"Wow. Republicans in the U.S. House just voted UNANIMOUSLY to not release the Epstein files. Every. Single. One. Genuinely surprised it was unanimous," said Nina Turner, who previously ran for Congress as a progressive Democrat in Ohio.
Speaking ahead of the full chamber's vote, Khanna called out the Rules Committee's other Republicans, saying that "they voted to protect rich and powerful men who were abusing, assaulting, and abandoning young women. That's what this vote is about. A nation that chooses impunity for the rich and the powerful at the expense of our children is a nation that has lost its moral purpose."
"So you ask, Why did they vote this way? Let's speak plainly," the congressman continued. "Because these rich and powerful men donate to the politicians in Washington, D.C., play golf with the elites in Washington, D.C. They are foreign leaders who we don't want to offend. They interact with our intelligence agencies that we don't want to disobey. There is something rotten in Washington."
"And this is a question of, Whose side are you on?" he argued. "Are you on the side of the people? Are you on the side of America's children? Or are you on the side of the rich and powerful who have had their thumb on the scales and shafted Americans for decades?" he asked. Khanna also praised Republicans, including Norman, who have previously supported releasing the files.
Khanna—who has been laying the groundwork for a 2028 presidential run—emphasized that "it's not a question just of Epstein, it's a question of trust in our democracy. It's a question of restoring a government of the people, by the people, and for the people."
A nation that chooses to protect rich and powerful men who abandon, abuse, and assault young girls is a nation that has lost its moral purpose.
We get a vote this afternoon.
I will continue to fight for the release of the Epstein files. pic.twitter.com/kKf8YLH7It
— Rep. Ro Khanna (@RepRoKhanna) July 15, 2025
Khanna pledged Tuesday he "will continue to fight for the release of the Epstein files," a vow echoed by other congressional Democrats. House Rules Committee Ranking Member Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) told Axios, "That was probably not the last time that you're going to see us deal with this issue."
House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) led a Tuesday letter from panel's Democrats urging Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) to investigate how President Donald Trump's administration has handled the Epstein files. The letter requests that the committee invite—and, if necessary, subpoena—Attorney General Pam Bondi, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Kash Patel, and Deputy FBI Director Dan Bongino to testify publicly.
"Mr. Epstein reportedly took his own life to escape justice, robbing his victims and the public of an opportunity to hold him accountable for his shocking crimes," the Democrats wrote. The New York City medical examiner ruled his 2019 death at the Metropolitan Correctional Center a suicide by hanging, but that determination has been met with widespread skepticism.
"In the absence of facts and evidence related to Mr. Epstein's sex trafficking enterprise and the 'vast network' of underage victims he created, the public will turn to conspiracy theories to fill the void of credible information," the Democrats warned. "Alas, President Trump and his team, acting out of personal and political self-interest or some other more inscrutable motive, have suppressed the release of information in their possession and, in so doing, fed yet more conspiracy theories and advanced conjecture to explain this about-face."
After tech billionaire Elon Musk left the Trump administration, he claimed in early June that the president "is in the Epstein files" and "that is the real reason they have not been made public." The DOJ then released a two-page memo about Epstein and some video footage from the jail where he was found dead. Trump—who palled around with Epstein in the 1980s and '90s until a reported falling out in 2004—has since encouraged the media and public to stop paying attention to the dead sex offender.
"At this point, the public has no idea if new information on the Epstein case even exists, why it was repeatedly promised to us if not, and if it does, what it may contain or mean for public safety and the victims of the Epstein ring," the Democrats wrote. "The Trump DOJ and FBI's handling of the Jeffrey Epstein matter, and President Trump's suddenly shifting positions, have not restored anyone's trust in the government but have rather raised profound new questions about their own conduct while increasing public paranoia related to the investigation."
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Trump, Epstein, and the GOP’s Planned Rape Culture
The question is not why they hid the list. The question is why they need it at all when the ledger is already written in their laws.
Jul 15, 2025
By the time the U.S. Justice Department released its memo in July 2025, the faithful were already starting to turn. There was no “client list,” no smoking gun, no perverted cabal of global elites laid bare for public vengeance. What they got instead was a cold government document and a half-mumbled shrug from President Donald Trump, who barely remembered the man everyone else had turned into a folk demon. “Are people still talking about this guy, this creep?” he asked, blinking like he’d just wandered out of a golf simulator.
The betrayal was almost elegant. For years, Trump’s people had promised the black book. Attorney General Pam Bondi said it was on her desk. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director Kash Patel practically branded his political future with it. Counselor to the President of the United Staes Alina Habba promised flight logs and names. And then the punchline: nothing. Or rather, a truckload of documents scrubbed clean and a memo telling the public to move on. The frenzy turned inward. MAGA loyalists melted down on camera. Laura Loomer called for a special counsel. Deputy FBI Director Dan Bongino stopped showing up for work. Right-wing media turned on itself like rats in a pressure cooker.
But the Epstein file was never the point. The real story was not buried in a locked safe or hidden by the FBI. It was out in the open. It is still out in the open. The political movement that once pledged to drain the swamp has spent its second tour of duty building a legal and bureaucratic fortress around some of the oldest crimes in the book. Modern conservatism has come to rely not just on outrage but on inertia, and nowhere is that more visible than in its handling of child sexual abuse.
We are not talking about a secret ring or coded pizza menus. We are talking about a system that tolerates child marriage in over half the states. A system that forces raped minors to carry pregnancies to term. A system that slashes funding for shelters and trauma counseling. A system that lets rape kits pile up in warehouse back rooms while politicians pose in front of billboards about protecting kids.
This is not a moral failure or a bureaucratic oversight. It is an architecture. It is built from votes, funded by budgets, signed into law by men who say they fear God but fear losing donors more. The Epstein affair may have collapsed in a cloud of whimpering and spin, but what it revealed is far more corrosive than any one man’s crimes. The question is not why they hid the list. The question is why they need it at all when the ledger is already written in their laws.
Legalized Child Marriage as Institutional Abuse
As of mid-2025, child marriage remains legal in 37 U.S. states. In most of these jurisdictions, statutory exceptions allow minors to marry with parental consent or judicial approval. Some states permit marriage for individuals as young as 15. Others lack any explicit minimum age when certain conditions are met. These legal frameworks persist despite growing evidence of their links to coercion, abuse, and lifelong harm.
Missouri serves as a prominent example. Until recently, it permitted minors aged 15 to marry with parental consent. Testimony from survivors has revealed how this legal permission facilitated predatory relationships cloaked in legitimacy. In one case, a girl was married off to a man nearly a decade older, and the marriage became a vehicle for sustained sexual and psychological abuse. Former child brides in Missouri have since called for a statutory minimum age of 18 with no exceptions. Legislative efforts to enact such reforms have repeatedly stalled.
Tennessee offers a more recent and pointed illustration. In 2022, Republican lawmakers introduced legislation that would have created a new category of marriage not subject to age restrictions. The bill failed under public pressure, but it signaled a continued willingness by some conservative legislators to bypass modern child protection norms. Even when confronted with documentation of exploitation, physical violence, and long-term trauma, these lawmakers often frame the issue around religious liberty and parental authority.
The Epstein affair was never going to end in justice. It was a mirror. What it reflected was not a single man’s sins but a political order that treats predation as a price of stability.
The prevailing rhetoric in these debates centers on traditional family values. Proponents argue that restricting child marriage infringes on the rights of families to make decisions without state interference. In some cases, advocates for maintaining the status quo invoke Christian theological justifications or present marriage as a preferable alternative to state custody. These arguments shift the legal focus away from the vulnerability of the minor and toward the autonomy of adults, particularly parents and religious leaders.
This legal tolerance undermines the enforcement of statutory rape laws. When marriage can be used as a legal shield, older adults who would otherwise face criminal prosecution gain immunity by securing parental consent or exploiting permissive judicial channels. In practice, the marriage license functions as retroactive permission for sexual contact with a minor. Law enforcement agencies are often reluctant to investigate allegations within a legally recognized marriage, even when age discrepancies raise clear concerns.
The persistence of child marriage statutes in conservative-controlled states is not simply a relic of outdated law. It reflects a policy choice. The choice is to preserve adult control over minors, particularly in contexts that reinforce patriarchal and religious hierarchies. In doing so, the state becomes an active participant in the erasure of consent. Legal recognition of these unions confers legitimacy on relationships that, in other contexts, would be subject to prosecution. The result is a bifurcated legal system where a child’s age and rights are contingent on the adult interests surrounding her.
Forced Birth Laws and the Abandonment of Minor Victims
Following the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, state legislatures moved swiftly to implement abortion bans. As of July 2025, 10 states enforce prohibitions with no exceptions for rape or incest. These laws apply equally to adults and minors. In doing so, they erase the distinction between consensual and coerced sexual activity and impose state control over the bodies of children.
The consequences are observable. In Ohio, a 10-year-old girl became pregnant after being raped by a 27-year-old man. Because Ohio law prohibited abortion past six weeks and included no exception for rape, the girl traveled to Indiana to terminate the pregnancy. The physician who provided the abortion was targeted by state officials and subjected to professional disciplinary action. The child’s identity was shielded, but her case became a national flashpoint. No changes were made to Ohio’s statute in response.
In Mississippi, a 13-year-old girl gave birth after being raped by a stranger. Her family, unable to afford travel or secure an out-of-state appointment, watched as the pregnancy advanced. Though state law permitted abortion in cases of rape, it required police reporting and formal certification by the authorities. The procedural burden, combined with lack of local providers, rendered the exception functionally inaccessible. The pregnancy was carried to term. No support infrastructure was provided beyond birth.
In Texas, multiple cases have emerged involving girls under 14 who were raped by family members or acquaintances. One minor received abortion pills through informal networks. Another did not. In that case, the pregnancy continued until birth. In both situations, school staff, health workers, and shelter employees described an atmosphere of legal ambiguity and fear. Providers worried about prosecution for aiding what could be construed as an illegal abortion. Parents feared legal action or custody loss if they sought help out of state.
These laws are not merely restrictive. They are designed to inhibit access through a combination of legal uncertainty, bureaucratic obstruction, and geographic isolation. Requirements for parental consent and judicial bypass impose additional delays. In conservative jurisdictions, judges often refuse bypass requests outright. Clinics have closed. Providers have left. In many counties, no legal abortion services exist. For minors with limited mobility, no resources, and histories of abuse, these constraints function as a full prohibition.
Psychological consequences are profound. Research conducted by trauma specialists indicates that forced pregnancy following sexual assault exacerbates the risk of suicidal ideation, self-injury, and long-term mental illness. Minors compelled to remain pregnant often experience acute dissociation and chronic anxiety. Social workers report increased incidents of runaway behavior, substance use, and refusal to attend school. The medical literature consistently describes these outcomes as preventable harm.
The political response to these outcomes has been largely nonreactive. Elected officials in affected states have declined to revisit statutory language. When presented with specific cases, responses are limited to procedural defenses or deflections. Conservative media outlets often ignore these incidents altogether or question their veracity. State agencies rarely publish disaggregated data on minor pregnancies resulting from assault. In legislative hearings, victims are not called to testify.
This absence of acknowledgment is not accidental. The architecture of forced birth laws depends on abstraction. It requires a conceptual fetus without context, a generic moral narrative without victims. The insertion of real children into that framework exposes its contradictions. In response, the system silences or discredits those who do not fit the script.
The effect is the systematic abandonment of minor victims. The state declines to intervene in the act of abuse, imposes control over the outcome, and then withdraws when support is needed. In doing so, it transforms rape from a crime to a reproductive event and reclassifies children as bearers of state policy. The result is not a deviation from conservative thought. It is one of its clearest expressions.
The Systematic Dismantling of Survivor Support
In early 2025, the Trump administration released a proposed federal budget for fiscal year 2026 that included significant funding reductions for agencies and programs supporting survivors of domestic and sexual violence. The Office on Violence Against Women removed all open funding opportunities from its website. This move came amid a broader effort to eliminate what the administration referred to as “woke” or ideologically driven programs. Internal Department of Justice (DOJ) memoranda confirmed that existing grant language was being revised to align with White House policy preferences, with particular scrutiny directed toward anything referencing diversity, equity, or inclusion (DEI).
The proposed budget eliminated the Centers for Disease Control’s National Center for Injury Prevention and Control. That agency had previously overseen funding for rape prevention and domestic violence education through the DELTA and RPE programs. These initiatives provided critical infrastructure for community-based interventions, including education campaigns, prevention training, and partnerships with local law enforcement. Their elimination removed a core pillar of upstream support.
At the same time, DOJ grant freezes disrupted downstream services. Nonprofit organizations across the country reported immediate and severe impacts. In Ohio, the Hope and Healing Survivor Resource Center announced potential layoffs of its court advocates and a reduction in emergency shelter capacity. In Washington D.C., House of Ruth stated it was experiencing multiple levels of new scrutiny when seeking reimbursement for already-approved expenditures. Organizations were directed to pause hiring and halt finalization of pending grant applications. Many could not meet payroll obligations for March.
Survivors of violence were displaced not by explicit prohibition but by the withdrawal of every practical means of assistance.
In Philadelphia, Women Against Abuse reported difficulties accessing funding for its LGBTQ-specific services. In Washington state, the King County Sexual Assault Resource Center prepared to end its legal advocacy program entirely. In both cases, staff warned that client wait times for crisis response had doubled within a single quarter. Administrators noted that many of their clients were minors or undocumented women who lacked other options. Reductions in services were expected to increase reliance on emergency departments and law enforcement, systems ill-equipped to handle trauma recovery or long-term safety planning.
The effects extended to rural programs as well. In smaller counties, shelters funded primarily through DOJ block grants began closing intake lists. Survivors were told to wait or relocate. Legal assistance for restraining orders and custody cases became difficult to obtain. Mobile crisis units were discontinued. Hospital advocates who had previously accompanied victims during forensic exams were no longer available. Each removed position created a compounding absence in systems already operating at capacity.
The budget’s emphasis on eliminating federal programs associated with DEI goals shaped the targeting of these cuts. While many victim services agencies did not explicitly advertise such language, internal reviewers flagged any mention of racial disparities, LGBTQ outreach, or culturally specific programming as potentially noncompliant with revised priorities. A senior DOJ official, speaking anonymously, stated that the Office on Violence Against Women had been instructed to avoid “risk exposure” by minimizing support for identity-based initiatives.
Although the Violence Against Women Act had been reauthorized in 2022 with bipartisan support, its implementation now faced procedural obstruction. Staff who had expanded under the prior administration were informed they might be subject to termination. A memo from the Office of Management and Budget described plans for agency-wide attrition. Staff with less than three years of tenure were given no assurances. Departments were instructed to prepare for reduced grant-making capacity over the following two fiscal cycles.
The dismantling of support systems was neither sudden nor undocumented. It unfolded through administrative erasure, funding attrition, and legal recalibration. Survivors of violence were displaced not by explicit prohibition but by the withdrawal of every practical means of assistance. Those left behind were often the least able to navigate the resulting gaps. For these individuals, the state offered no replacement. Instead, it imposed a bureaucratic silence where aid had once existed. The outcome was a deliberate contraction of the public obligation to protect.
Forensic Neglect and the Rape Kit Crisis
Despite the adoption of sexual assault kit tracking systems in over 30 states, the United States continues to face a persistent national backlog. Tens of thousands of kits remain untested in police storage facilities, hospital evidence rooms, and crime labs. Many of these kits have been stored for years without analysis. Others were never submitted for processing due to departmental triage, lost documentation, or discretionary decisions by investigating officers. While some states have mandated timelines for submission and testing, enforcement mechanisms remain weak, and compliance is inconsistent.
The Sexual Assault Kit Initiative, a federal program designed to support evidence processing and data coordination, has received limited attention under the current administration. Although the initiative has produced measurable results in jurisdictions that prioritized its implementation, recent Justice Department actions suggest a deprioritization of forensic reform. The DOJ has declined to expand funding, and the program has not featured in recent public safety messaging. Internal budget documents indicate that grants for kit testing were not included in the administration’s revised funding priorities for fiscal year 2026.
As a result, survivors often experience long delays in receiving updates about their cases. Some discover years later that their evidence was never tested. Others are notified only after investigations are closed due to expired statutes of limitation. Communication is sporadic and mediated by agencies with limited resources and unclear protocols. Victims who attempt to inquire directly are frequently redirected or denied information outright. In some states, survivors have been required to submit formal public records requests to learn whether their kits were processed.
These delays compromise prosecutions. When evidence is eventually tested, witnesses may be unreachable, suspects may no longer be within the jurisdiction, and memory degradation may weaken the reliability of victim testimony. Prosecutors, facing caseload pressures and limited bandwidth, often decline to pursue cases that were mishandled in their early stages. Defense attorneys use the lag in testing to undermine credibility or introduce procedural challenges. The net effect is a collapse in accountability long before any trial begins.
The failures of evidence handling disproportionately affect marginalized populations. In rural areas, law enforcement agencies lack personnel and funding to maintain evidence integrity or pursue cold cases. In urban centers, kits from Black, Indigenous, and Latina victims are more likely to go untested. Multiple studies have found that law enforcement officers are more likely to doubt the credibility of victims from low-income neighborhoods, undocumented communities, or those with previous contact with social services. These judgments influence whether evidence is submitted for analysis and whether cases receive investigative follow-up.
The forensic crisis is compounded by data gaps. Many states do not track the number of untested kits in private hospitals or non-mandated reporting facilities. Others exclude kits from the backlog if they were collected before a specific year. The result is an undercounting that obscures the true scope of institutional failure. Federal authorities have not established a national registry or auditing mechanism to standardize reporting. This lack of oversight permits continued neglect without consequence.
Efforts to reform the system remain fragmented. Some jurisdictions have implemented notification protocols to alert survivors when their kits are tested or their cases reopened. Others have passed legislation requiring mandatory submission timelines. These efforts, however, rely on sustained funding and political will. In the current policy environment, neither can be assumed.
The accumulation of untested rape kits reflects more than a bureaucratic shortfall. It reveals a hierarchy of value embedded in forensic practice. Victims whose experiences align with prosecutorial priorities receive attention. Those who fall outside those norms are left in limbo. The backlog is not only a logistical failure. It is a measure of who is deemed worthy of pursuit.
The Performance of Protection and the Reality of Harm
In the contemporary conservative lexicon, few terms have gained as much political traction as “groomer.” Once associated narrowly with criminal prosecutions of adults who built relationships with children for the purpose of sexual exploitation, the term has been repurposed as a generalized insult. It now targets a wide array of perceived ideological enemies, from public school teachers to LGBTQ advocates to librarians. In its current usage, “groomer” does not denote a specific criminal act. It signifies dissent from cultural orthodoxy. It functions rhetorically rather than descriptively.
This shift is not accidental. The term has become a central instrument in the conservative culture war arsenal. It is applied liberally to any policy, institution, or public figure that departs from a narrow conception of sexual and gender norms. The invocation of grooming no longer requires evidence. It requires proximity to subjects deemed socially suspect. Teachers who support inclusive sex education, therapists who serve queer youth, and public health professionals working with at-risk adolescents are all subject to the accusation. The result is not the exposure of exploitation. It is the expansion of suspicion.
The logic underpinning this rhetorical turn is strategic. By collapsing the distinction between ideological disagreement and criminal intent, the conservative movement recasts public discourse as a permanent battlefield of moral danger. In this framework, policy is secondary. What matters is posture. The capacity to signal vigilance becomes more important than the provision of safety. The accusation becomes the protection. The spectacle replaces the intervention.
By focusing public energy on the symbolic boundaries of morality, policymakers insulate themselves from accountability for structural abandonment.
This performance obscures the absence of actual safeguards for children. While conservative figures warn of drag queens and inclusive curricula, they vote against background check expansions for youth workers. They resist efforts to create national child abuse registries that include religious institutions. They block legislation to raise the minimum age of marriage. They eliminate funding for school counselors and after-school programs. They cut budgets for child protective services and reduce oversight of private adoption and foster care networks.
There is no contradiction here. The performance is the policy. Protection is not measured in outcomes. It is measured in volume. The louder the accusation, the less scrutiny is applied to legislative choices. Policy failure is neutralized by narrative substitution. When a child is raped and forced to give birth, the story is not told. When a teacher reads a picture book about diverse families, the story is told at volume. One incident is silent law. The other is national scandal.
The political value of outrage lies in its ability to redirect attention. Material neglect becomes invisible behind symbolic noise. The passage of laws criminalizing drag performances near schools draws headlines. The failure to fund rape crisis centers does not. By focusing public energy on the symbolic boundaries of morality, policymakers insulate themselves from accountability for structural abandonment. The child becomes a rhetorical device. She exists in theory rather than in law.
This asymmetry is visible in legislative activity. Since 2022, Republican-controlled legislatures have introduced hundreds of bills targeting LGBTQ speech, education content, and library access. Fewer than 10 bills have addressed forensic backlog reform. Even fewer have advanced. Proposed federal legislation to protect minors from online exploitation has repeatedly failed due to concerns about regulation of private companies. At the same time, multiple states have attempted to prosecute school staff for discussing gender identity under “grooming” statutes. The alignment is clear. Threats are defined ideologically. Interventions are reserved for performance.
Media infrastructure amplifies this distortion. Conservative news outlets and online influencers produce continuous content warning of threats posed by social workers, librarians, and drag performers. The framing consistently positions adults who support youth autonomy as predators. At the same time, actual cases of child sexual abuse in religious, athletic, and political institutions are downplayed or reframed. The function of this narrative is not to inform. It is to sustain a moral panic that legitimizes surveillance and censorship while diverting attention from systemic failures.
This process also redefines harm. Under the current paradigm, harm is not measured by suffering or injury. It is measured by deviation from normative identity. A child exposed to age-appropriate information about gender is framed as endangered. A child raped and forced to carry a pregnancy is not framed at all. She exists outside the moral narrative. Her pain is illegible because it does not confirm the ideological premise. She does not symbolize anything useful. She is inconvenient.
This redefinition produces policy that protects ideology rather than people. It enshrines the fiction that surveillance and restriction produce safety. It displaces accountability by substituting criminalization for care. The result is a system in which the primary targets of protective legislation are not predators but professionals. Teachers, counselors, and medical providers are monitored more closely than the men marrying minors or the judges enabling child pregnancies. The apparatus of protection becomes an apparatus of control.
This structure is not malfunctioning. It is performing as designed. The emphasis on symbolic enforcement over material assistance ensures that power remains centered. Actual protections would require redistribution. They would require funding, oversight, and transparency. They would require confronting the institutions most closely aligned with conservative authority: churches, courts, families. That confrontation is not forthcoming. Instead, the state protects the ideology of protection while abandoning the child.
The cumulative effect is institutionalized harm. Systems nominally built to safeguard children instead categorize them. They are either politically useful or they are not. Those who conform to the narrative of victimhood receive visibility without assistance. Those who contradict it receive neither. The performance of protection absorbs public attention. The reality of harm proceeds without interruption.
This disconnect is not unique to recent years. It has precedent in every era of moral panic. What is distinct in the current moment is the speed and reach of narrative enforcement. Digital media enables rapid mobilization around symbolic events. Legislation follows quickly. Meanwhile, data on actual abuse, assault, and neglect remains underreported and underanalyzed. The disparity between visible outrage and invisible harm grows wider. The system becomes harder to map and easier to perform.
The result is a hollow institution of child protection. It possesses language without infrastructure, law without care, and policy without contact. It functions as a mirror reflecting ideology back to its authors. The child at the center of the performance is not protected. She is used. The system that claims to speak for her leaves her undocumented, unsupported, and unacknowledged. This is not a gap in the system. It is the system.
A Coherent System, Not a Series of Failures
This is not the result of a broken machine. It is the machine.
Child marriage laws that legalize statutory rape. Forced birth mandates that turn trauma into state policy. Rape crisis centers shuttered by budget design. Evidence kits rotting in closets. Drag queens banned from libraries while judges greenlight the weddings of 15-year-olds to grown men. None of this happens by accident. The patterns are too consistent, the outcomes too aligned. This is not a case of good intentions gone astray or bureaucratic confusion. It is a deliberate configuration of legal tools designed to shield abusers and discipline the abused.
The architecture holds. What looks like hypocrisy from the outside is strategy from within. It is not a contradiction to scream about “protecting children” while erasing them from legislation, data, and policy. It is not a glitch that the same people who ban books on puberty also block efforts to process rape kits. It is not ironic that the man whose administration claimed to be exposing Epstein’s secrets ended up presiding over their burial. It is structural.
The Epstein file was never about closure. It was about control. It served as a pressure valve, a vessel for all the anxiety and suspicion the base could not voice elsewhere. But when the promised reckoning finally came, it was blank pages and black ink. No fireworks. No arrests. Just a memo and a shrug. The silence that followed was not empty. It was full of meaning.
Because while they waited for the names to drop, the rest of the machine kept humming. Pregnant children were denied care. Shelters lost funding. Backlogs grew. Survivors disappeared into legal limbo. And the same men who had built their brand on outrage offered nothing but slogans and deflection. The spectacle of protection kept playing. But behind the curtain, the laws were doing exactly what they were designed to do.
It is easy to mock the true believers who spent years convinced that justice was one release away. But they were right about one thing. There is a network. It is not secret. It is written into the statutes and reinforced by the budgets. It lives in the votes cast to stall reforms and the speeches given to demonize victims. The rot is not hidden. It is codified.
The question now is not whether the system will be exposed. It already has been. The question is whether people are willing to see what has been made plainly visible. To understand that the policy scaffolding of modern conservatism is not a malfunctioning child safety program. It is a functioning disciplinary regime. Its purpose is not to protect the vulnerable. It is to sort them. To elevate the compliant and erase the inconvenient.
The Epstein affair was never going to end in justice. It was a mirror. What it reflected was not a single man’s sins but a political order that treats predation as a price of stability. The client list doesn’t need to be released. The clients wrote the laws. The machine is working.
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