Epstein Scandal Is Just the Beginning of Government's Failures To Protect Kids
While it's always a good thing when child sexual exploitation receives the attention it deserves, the issue should be more than political fodder or a talking point for conspiracy theorists. It is, of course, important for the public to recognize and expose powerful people who exploit the vulnerable. That list is long—allegations have plagued Matt Gaetz, Bill Cosby, Robert Kraft, Linda McMahon, and Sean Combs, to name a few from recent headlines. The circumstances around Jeffrey Epstein's ability to obtain a secret plea deal while running an international child sex ring should absolutely be exposed.
That being said, the problem of child sexual abuse and exploitation merits sustained attention. If people really care about sexual exploitation and trafficking, their focus should be on how the powerful fail to put children first both in politics and in society.
A major battleground in the fight to protect children is social media and AI regulation. Following reports that leading Big Tech companies knew about their products' negative effects on children—including increased risks of sexual exploitation—legislators sprang into action. At the same time, however, other leading congressional figures have disrupted those efforts, allowing the exploitation to continue unchecked.
People holds signs calling for the release of files regarding late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein participate in a protest as part of the 'Good Trouble Lives On' national day of action against the administration of...
People holds signs calling for the release of files regarding late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein participate in a protest as part of the 'Good Trouble Lives On' national day of action against the administration of US President Donald Trump in Houston, Texas, on July 17, 2025. More
RONALDO SCHEMIDT / AFP/Getty Images
Last year, for example, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) did Big Tech's bidding to sink the Kids Online Safety Act, preventing it from receiving a vote in the House after it passed the Senate 91-3. Conservative news outlets identified Meta's control over House leadership as key to killing child protection legislation. This was the same congressional leadership that slipped a Big Tech-friendly non-budget provision into the budget bill that would have repealed all state legislation trying to curb AI exploitation of children.
Senator Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) tried to do the same in the Senate, but was fortunately defeated when Sens. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) and Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) had the courage to amend it—their amendment passed 99-1. But now that courage is being rewarded by Big Tech efforts to sneak the regulation moratorium into other legislation. Big Tech spent $51 million lobbying just last year, including to defeat legislation such as child online safety measures. Meta alone spent nearly $6 million dollars last quarter lobbying against, among others, child online safety provisions. The public should condemn these actions and, as we've already seen, if this child protection legislation can actually get to a vote, it passes in overwhelming margins.
If those who are upset about Jeffrey Epstein really care about child sex trafficking, they should also be outraged at the Trump administration, which is currently undermining child sex trafficking protections. The Department of State "shut down" the office primarily responsible for combating human trafficking—the Office to Monitor and Prevent Human Trafficking—a move which one former U.S. ambassador-at-large to monitor and combat trafficking in persons describes as making it "impossible" to carry out what the law requires to address human trafficking. The administration also cut funding to a group that was tracking the nearly 20,000 Ukrainian children kidnapped by Russian soldiers from their families and brought to Russia, a well-known hub of human trafficking. Domestically, the Department of Justice cut more than $500 million in grants to victim services including "direct funding for victims' services for survivors of human trafficking." Additionally, it gutted the Civil Rights Division, which houses the Human Trafficking Prosecution Unit.
If those following the Epstein scandal really care about the sexual assault of children, they should continue to act when the Epstein story fades, to address the government's assault on the nearly 40 percent of trafficking victims who are children. The government—by carrying Big Tech's water in legislatures, by cutting offices that enforce trafficking laws, and by cutting services to trafficking victims—is not only abandoning victims but facilitating their exploitation. Activists who truly care about child exploitation must continue to pressure Congress and the executive branch to act to protect children as vigorously as they demand answers in the Epstein case.
Mary Graw Leary is a Professor of Law at the Catholic University of America focusing on criminal law and human trafficking and a former state and federal prosecutor.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
17 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Epstein victims accuse Trump administration of trying to protect wealthy, powerful enablers
NEW YORK — Women who allege Jeffrey Epstein abused them have accused the Trump administration, in new court filings, of trying to protect enablers of the well-connected wealth manager and criticized the government for treating victims as pawns 'in political warfare.' In letters filed late Monday with Manhattan Federal Judge Richard Berman — one of the judges who are mulling requests by the government to unseal transcripts from the grand jury proceedings against Epstein and his convicted accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell — two women took aim at the Trump administration for its handling of the snowballing scandal. They referenced the memo released last month by the Justice Department and the FBI, in which the government declined to shed light on a trove of records gathered in Epstein investigations and concluded a major review found there was no 'client list' and that Epstein killed himself, contrary to conspiracy theories previously peddled by Trump's appointees. 'I feel like the DOJ's and FBI's priority is protecting the 'third-party,' the wealthy men, by focusing on scrubbing their names off the files of which the victims, 'know who they are'. To learn that our own president has utilized thousands of agents to protect his identity and these high-profile individuals is monumentally mind-blowing,' an anonymous victim wrote in one of the letters. The letter to Berman later added, 'I think what I would request from you, Your Honor, is to consider having an approved third party review these documents to ensure that NO victims' names or likenesses are revealed through this release. It is imperative with the scrutiny over this media frenzy that the victims are completely and entirely protected.' In another letter, a second victim addressed the government: 'What you have done and continue to do is eating at me day after day as you help to perpetuate this story indefinitely. Why not be completely transparent? Show us all the files with only the necessary redactions! Be done with it and allow me/us to heal. You protect yourself and your powerful and wealthy 'friends' (not enemies) over the victims, why? The victims know the truth, we know who are in the files and now so do you.' The second letter urged Berman to let victims' attorneys review what the Justice Department wants to redact from the grand jury transcripts the DOJ is trying to unseal and slammed the government for recently meeting with Maxwell behind bars to get more information. 'I regrettably feel the need to come forward and shed some light on the government's motion to unseal transcripts, documents and exhibits from the 'case' that was never tried. Sad to say, for the victims we never got our day in court. Apparently, Epstein killed himself under whose watch? Oh, was it Trump's DOJ? Hmmm, interesting,' the second letter read. 'I ask you to have our attorneys review the 'suggested' redactions as they are the ones who also know the victims, their names, their truths and their stories unlike the Unites States Government who did not and does not even care to know our truth. They would rather ask a convicted imprisoned sex trafficker/abuser for information.' The Epstein files scandal has only continued to grow as the Trump administration has sought to contain it. Following the memo by the Justice Department and FBI, The Wall Street Journal reported that Trump's name was included in the government's nonpublic Epstein files and that he'd been informed of such, and that Trump wrote a cryptic message to Epstein on the financier's 50th birthday. Trump has denied writing the birthday missive and is suing The Wall Street Journal. The transcripts from the grand jury proceedings against Maxwell that Trump's appointees are trying to get unsealed contain little information that is not publicly known, the government said in court filings Tuesday. The public record does not include substantive exhibits shown to the grand jurors who indicted Maxwell. Still, the Justice Department is not, for now, trying to make them public, according to the new Manhattan Federal Court filings. Trump's appointees discussed the materials in response to requests for more information from Berman and Judge Paul Engelmayer, who will rule on the motions to unseal grand jury transcripts. They included sealed annotated transcripts from Maxwell's grand jury proceedings, specifically outlining what's not publicly available. In an accompanying letter, the Justice Department conceded 'much of the information' within was revealed at the British former socialite's trial in late 2021 or had otherwise been reported in accounts shared by victims and witnesses publicly. The government filing asked the judges to give the Justice Department until Friday to take a position on whether grand jury exhibits should be unsealed. In an order later Tuesday, Engelmayer granted the request. Engelmayer on Tuesday also ordered the Justice Department to respond to letters submitted from the victims about the disclosure requests. The Epstein grand jury met on June 18, 2019, and July 2, 2019, according to Tuesday's filings. The disgraced financier was arrested on July 6 that year on sweeping sex trafficking charges alleging he had for years abused dozens of teen girls and young women, more than a decade after he evaded justice in a maligned sweetheart deal with federal prosecutors in Florida. He was found dead a month after his arrest on Aug. 10, 2019, in his jail cell at the federal Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan, with his death ultimately ruled as a suicide. The Maxwell grand jury met on June 29, 2020, July 8, 2020, and March 29, 2021, the Justice Department said in the new filings. She was indicted on July 2, 2020, and found guilty of sex trafficking counts, including one involving a minor, in December 2021. Maxwell was sentenced to 20 years in prison following her conviction, a term she had been serving at FCI Tallahassee, Fla., until her surprise transfer last week to a much cushier setup in a dormitory-style prison for women in Bryan, Texas, after meeting with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, Trump's former personal lawyer, who framed the meetup as a truth-seeking mission. Tuesday's filings by the Justice Department said the government had failed to make contact with one victim of Epstein whose name featured in grand jury proceedings about the disclosure requests and would try to contact other victims who weren't identified in transcripts in the coming days. _____
Yahoo
17 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Carney suggests he's considering rescinding Online News Act
OTTAWA — Prime Minister Mark Carney suggested Tuesday he is considering substituting or rescinding the Online News Act to ensure local news is disseminated wider and faster two years after Meta banned access to news on its platforms. Carney made the unexpected suggestion while announcing over $1 billion in loan guaranteed and long-term supports for the softwood lumber industry at a mill in West Kelowna, B.C. At the start of the news conference, Carney highlighted the brutal impact of wildfires this summer, including one that recently forced the evacuation of roughly 400 properties near West Kelowna. Asked if his government is considering an alternative to the Online News Act — previously known as C-18 — or simply rescinding it so that Web giant Meta would lift its ban on news articles being shared on its platforms, Carney suggested that was 'part of our thinking around' improving the reach of local media. 'This government is a big believer in the value of … local news and the importance of ensuring that that is disseminated as widely and as quickly as possible. So, we will look for all avenues to do that,' he said. The prime minister's office did not immediately respond to questions about which avenues specifically the government is considering to improve the dissemination of local news. Meta controversially banned news articles from its Canadian users two years ago in response to the federal government's Online News Act, which compels social media giants to negotiate revenue-sharing deals with news publishers for the use of their content. The bill specifically impacted Meta and Google, though both have taken diametrically opposing routes to get exempt from the Act. The former banned news content outright on its platforms when the bill became law, while the latter signed a $100 million annual deal with Canadian publishers last year. Meta has argued against the 'false premise' that it benefits from free online news articles and says that media companies are the ones that benefit from sharing their content to Facebook and Instagram audiences. Shortly after Meta barred Canadian news articles on Facebook and Instagram, then Prime Minister Justin Trudeau accused the web giant of 'putting corporate profits ahead of people's safety'. 'Instead of making sure that local journalists are fairly paid for keeping Canadians informed on things like wildfires, Facebook is blocking news from its sites,' he said in August 2023. 'Right now in an emergency situation where up-to-date local information is more important than ever, Facebook's putting corporate profits ahead of people's safety, ahead of supporting quality local journalism,' he added. During his press conference, Carney also reiterated his government's campaign commitment to boost funding for CBC/Radio-Canada and change its governance so that it could provide 'unbiased, immediate, local information' during crises such the ongoing B.C. wildfires. During the campaign, Carney committed to boosting the public broadcaster's funding by $150 million yearly. Meta did not immediately respond to a request for comment. National Post cnardi@ Trudeau slams Facebook for removal of news during wildfire season Why Meta is blocking news, and what it means for Canadians Our website is the place for the latest breaking news, exclusive scoops, longreads and provocative commentary. Please bookmark and sign up for our politics newsletter, First Reading, here.
Politico
18 minutes ago
- Politico
GOP lawmakers start to sweat redistricting
Welcome to POLITICO's West Wing Playbook: Remaking Government, your guide to Donald Trump's unprecedented overhaul of the federal government — the key decisions, the critical characters and the power dynamics that are upending Washington and beyond. Send tips | Subscribe | Email Sophia | Email Irie | Email Ben President DONALD TRUMP's gambit to grow House Republicans' razor-thin majority through redistricting is starting to meet rare resistance from his own party. Two vulnerable GOP lawmakers — Reps. KEVIN KILEY of California and MIKE LAWLER of New York — are floating separate efforts to ban mid-decade redistricting as the Trump team's push for Texas Republicans to draw a more favorable map sets off a nationwide redistricting arms race. 'What's happening here is not popular among members in either conference,' Kiley told West Wing Playbook. 'I've talked to Republican members who are in states that could potentially benefit in the general political sense, but they don't like the idea of having their districts completely changed in the middle of the decade.' Lawler did not respond to a request for comment. Kiley filed a bill Tuesday aimed chiefly at stopping Democratic governors from retaliatory gerrymandering if Texas Republicans succeed in pushing through a new map that could net the GOP five seats in the midterms. Kiley and Lawler, both swing-district lawmakers, could feel the effects of Democratic redistricting. Lawler's seat, which has long been on Democrats' target list, would be among the districts where the party would try to stretch its advantage in the state. Kiley is also trying to prod Speaker MIKE JOHNSON and House Minority Leader HAKEEM JEFFRIES to reach an agreement to stop the redistricting tit-for-tat in its tracks, though that appears unlikely. 'The onus is on the speaker to show some leadership here,' Kiley said. GREG STEELE, spokesperson for Johnson's political arm, said 'while these efforts remain at the state level, Speaker Johnson is focused on leading the fight to defend and grow the House Republican majority in any district come 2026.' But the legislative pushback also constitutes rare GOP opposition to the president, who stoked the flames of the redistricting fight Tuesday by saying that Republicans are 'entitled' to five more seats in Texas — even as a White House official told our JAKE TRAYLOR that Trump's team is taking 'a pretty hands-off approach' to the partisan battle they set in motion. Kiley suggested that Trump 'doesn't want to see the California congressional delegation upended, or the New York delegation or some of these other states,' though he said he hasn't spoken with the president on the matter. 'It seems to me he was not given full information about how exactly these things might play out,' Kiley added. A person close to the president granted anonymity to describe internal thinking said Trump's team isn't sweating Democrats' threats of retaliation. Democrats face steep obstacles to redistricting even in their best-case-scenario state of California, where Gov. GAVIN NEWSOM plans to call a special election and potentially spend massive sums to convince voters to return mapmaking power from an independent commission to lawmakers. And Republicans are starting to push for redistricting in states beyond Texas, including Missouri. 'Republicans have more opportunity than Democrats' to redraw maps, and 'Democrats' hurdles in the opportunities they claim to have are much higher, because Democrats have extreme gerrymandered maps in their favor everywhere they can,' the person said. The White House's power-protection play carries increasing political risk. As more Democratic governors vow to retaliate, BRENDAN STEINHAUSER, a Texas-based Republican strategist, warned the GOP's redistricting effort 'could backfire if there are enough Democratic seats out there and enough Democratic governors to redraw the maps in a way that ends up hurting Republicans nationwide.' Game out the chess match further and Republicans' machinations could complicate Trump's agenda in Washington. Trump has gotten nearly everything he's wanted from this GOP House. Even if Republicans hold the House next year, they could do so at the expense of some of those Trump-loyal members. 'It could become a real headache for Johnson, building a majority by sacrificing parts of the current majority,' said California-based GOP strategist ROB STUTZMAN. He added: 'What a shock Trump didn't think it through.' MESSAGE US — West Wing Playbook is obsessively covering the Trump administration's reshaping of the federal government. Are you a federal worker? A DOGE staffer? Have you picked up on any upcoming DOGE moves? We want to hear from you on how this is playing out. Email us at westwingtips@ Did someone forward this email to you? Subscribe! POTUS PUZZLER Which president signed the nation's first federal income tax into law? (Answer at bottom.) WHO'S IN, WHO'S OUT NOT A TAR HEEL: The director of Voice of America, MICHAEL ABRAMOWITZ, has been terminated after refusing to accept a demotion in North Carolina, according to court documents released Monday. JOHN ZADROZNY, a senior adviser to the U.S. Agency for Global Media, VOA's parent company, said in a letter that Abramowitz's 'failure to accept a directed geographic reassignment warrants removal from your position for such cause as to promote the efficiency of the Federal service.' In July, acting USAGM CEO VICTOR MORALES notified Abramowitz that he was being reassigned to the VOA station in Greenville, North Carolina, and being given a new position. In his sworn declaration, Abramowitz said that the rationale for sending him to North Carolina 'does not make sense.' 'I understand that Defendants have indicated that they only plan to broadcast in four languages at VOA (Mandarin, Farsi, Pashto and Dari),' he wrote. 'But the Greenville station, which has historically provided shortwave radio broadcasts mainly to West Africa and Latin America, does not serve countries that speak any of those languages.' Abramowitz is the main plaintiff in a lawsuit against the Trump administration after the president issued an executive order dismantling USAGM. 'My efforts are not about holding onto a government job, but instead about upholding the rule of law and preserving the Voice of America, which is so important to the national security of the United States,' Abramowitz wrote in a message to VOA staff Monday. KARI LAKE, who serves as USAGM senior adviser, told West Wing Playbook that 'We're in good faith union negotiations. This is part of the process.' WE'RE HIRING: The National Weather Service has received permission to hire 450 meteorologists, hydrologists and radar technicians months after the agency faced sweeping DOGE-led cuts, CNN's ANDREW FREEDMAN reports. The new hiring number includes 126 new positions that will apply to 'front-line mission critical' personnel, a NOAA official told CNN. Musk Radar FIVE THINGS UNDONE: The White House today officially ended a program which required federal employees to summarize five weekly achievements in emails, our NICOLE MARKUS and Sophia report. The mandate was originally introduced in February by ELON MUSK as part of an effort to trim the federal workforce. Office of Personnel Management Director SCOTT KUPOR said in a statement that OPM informed agency leads that it would no longer 'manage' the process 'nor utilize it internally.' 'At OPM, we believe that managers are accountable to staying informed about what their team members are working on and have many other existing tools to do so,' Kupor said. Agenda Setting ZELDIN'S ON A HEATER: The EPA is preparing to terminate $7 billion in federal grants aimed at assisting low- and moderate-income families to install solar panels on their homes, NYT's MAXINE JOSELOW reports. The agency is drafting termination letters to 60 nonprofit groups and state agencies that received the grants under the 'Solar for All' program, with the goal of sending the letters by the end of this week. It's the latest move by the Trump administration to claw back billions of dollars in grants awarded under former President JOE BIDEN's Inflation Reduction Act. Representatives for the EPA did not immediately respond to a request for comment. REVERSING COURSE: Months after the Trump administration said it axed a multibillion-dollar grant program for disaster protection, administration officials said in a court document that it did not actually cancel the program, POLITICO's E&E News' THOMAS FRANK reports. In April, the administration canceled the grant program called Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities, and removed all $4.1 billion from the BRIC account. But in a declaration last month for a court case challenging the move, FEMA acting administrator DAVID RICHARDSON said, 'FEMA has not ended the BRIC program, contrary to publicity otherwise.' He acknowledged his agency's role in that publicity, saying, 'Despite FEMA's public announcements … FEMA/DHS has not ended BRIC.' When presented with the declaration, even BRIC supporters struggled to understand it. 'The information that has been out so far seems to contradict [the declaration], and we want to make sure we're understanding FEMA's intention. This is happy news if this is the case,' said MARY JO FLYNN-NEVINS, head of governmental affairs for the International Association of Emergency Managers, which strongly supports the BRIC program. WHERE'S THE MONEY, LEBOWSKI? The investigative arm of Congress found that the National Institutes of Health illegally withheld funds lawmakers required it to spend, our ERIN SCHUMAKER reports. The Government Accountability Office today said that the Trump administration failed to follow the requirements of the Impoundment Control Act, which determines when a president can cancel funding appropriated by Congress. In implementing a communications pause earlier this year at HHS, and in complying with Trump's various executive orders, the 'NIH withheld funds from obligation and expenditure,' according to the GAO's report. The watchdog also found that HHS failed to inform Congress or the GAO of whether the money is being spent in another way. OUR LIPS ARE SEALED: Defense Secretary PETE HEGSETH has banned officials at a missile defense conference in Alabama this week from discussing the president's favorite weapon system: the multibillion-dollar Golden Dome missile shield, our JOE GOULD and JACK DETSCH report. It follows new rules from the Pentagon that ban personnel from participating in think tank and research organization events. Hegseth's public affairs office told organizers of the Space and Missile Defense Symposium to keep the Golden Dome off the agenda. The Pentagon, when asked for comment, pointed to a July announcement about the creation of an office to oversee the missile shield's development. What We're Reading A Terrible Five Days for the Truth (The Atlantic's David A. Graham) 'Unlike Anything We've Seen': The Energy Industry is Counting on the AI Boom (POLITICO's Debra Kahn) A Look Inside Jeffrey Epstein's Manhattan Lair (NYT's David Enrich, Matthew Goldstein, Jessica Silver-Greenberg and Steve Eder) POTUS PUZZLER ANSWER President ABRAHAM LINCOLN signed the first federal income tax into law on this date in 1861 in a rush to finance the Civil War. Lincoln's tax imposed a 3 percent tax on annual incomes over $800.
