The Department of Justice on Friday began releasing documents related to the investigations of sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Legislation passed last month by Congress mandated that the files be released by Dec. 19. But in an interview with Fox News on Friday, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said only a few hundred thousand documents would be released at first, with several hundred thousand more coming in the next few weeks.
Talking with Here & Now’s Scott Tong just a few hours before the release of the files, Epstein survivor Liz Stein called the day “difficult.”
“I appreciate that people understand that it’s a really difficult day for us because while the rest of the world is, you know, just taking this information on,” Stein said. “It can be incredibly triggering for us to see things that remind us of, you know, time when we were being exploited.”
3 questions with Liz Stein
What do you want to see in these documents?
“Oh, that’s a big question. I think that there are things that we’re hoping to see collectively as a group, and then there are things that we’re individually looking for that pertain to our own cases.
“I think that some of the things that are important to us are, you know, the names of those who caused us harm. We should definitely get more information about those men.
“We’re also looking for statements that survivors have given that we are not sure if they were followed up on. We’re interested in what has happened to the surveillance footage that was taken from Jeffrey Epstein’s homes and, you know, even more than what was seized from Epstein’s homes.”
Is there anything relevant to your case that you are waiting for in these documents?
“I don’t know exactly what we’re going to see. And because we’ve requested redactions of survivors’ names and personal information. It’s going to be a more laborious chore, you know, than we might have anticipated. But I’m really just looking for anything that comes out that could validate what my experience was.”
This has been a long pursuit of accountability, and you’ve said in the past that shame is probably the biggest thing that we deal with. Is it an easy or a challenging day?
“It’s definitely a challenging day for all of us, even more so because we aren’t getting any heads up. We’re going to see this information when the rest of the public does, and we don’t know what’s going to be in there.
“I think that it’s also realistic to have the fear that we’re not going to see everything today, and we have a lot of concerns about what will be released and when it will be released.”
This interview was edited for clarity.
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Hafsa Quraishi produced and edited this interview for broadcast with Catherine Welch. Michael Scotto adapted it for the web.
This article was originally published on WBUR.org.
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