Ahead of the midterms, survivors are demanding the full Epstein files, investigations into modeling industry, and laws that would give victims a path to justice.
The final installment of The Pipeline to Predators, a four-part Ms. investigation into the modeling industry’s connections to Jeffrey Epstein and survivors’ fight for accountability.
Survivors who have pressed for investigations into the modeling industry’s ties to Epstein are confronting a political impasse in the United States.
Six presidential administrations and 30 years after Maria Farmer filed one of the first formal complaints against Epstein and Maxwell for sexual assault as well as stealing and then distributing nude images of her two underage sisters, survivors are organized and are pressing lawmakers, leaders and prosecutors to take meaningful action. For now, the most significant barrier to accountability appears to be in the White House, and those working to protect the president from whatever the remaining files may still hold.
A New York Times review of the January files release found more than 38,000 references to Trump, Melania Trump, Mar-a-Lago and related terms across more than 5,300 DOJ-released documents. Trump’s connection to the modeling industry is also not incidental. He founded Trump Model Management in 1999, the same year he was dating Melania Knauss, then a model, whom he married in 2005. In April 2017, seven months after protests organized by the New York chapter of NOW and the Feminist Majority Foundation (publisher of Ms.), and a few months after Trump was inaugurated, the Trump Organization announced the agency would close.
Since when is rape and trafficking and assault a political conversation?
Stacey Williams, model and Epstein survivor
The White House has repeatedly called the Epstein matter a “hoax,” insisting Trump has been “exonerated.”
But Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan tell a different story in their new book, Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump. According to Haberman and Swan, senior White House and Justice Department officials, including Todd Blanche, Trump’s former personal lawyer and then deputy attorney general, met repeatedly from July to August 2025 in the White House Situation Room to strategize about the political fallout, treating the Epstein files not as a legal, accountability or transparency crisis, but rather as a messaging crisis to be managed.
Congressional Democrats, including Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.), ranking member of the House Oversight Committee, have pressed for full release of the files, public hearings, subpoenas and sworn testimony, but without bipartisan support, investigations have remained limited in scope. Asked by Ms. about plans to investigate Epstein’s modeling industry ties, Garcia responded:
“The American public deserves the full truth about Jeffrey Epstein’s criminal network and all those who enabled, profited from or helped conceal it. A Democratic majority [in the House] would provide the subpoena power and investigative tools necessary to compel testimony, obtain financial and business records, and follow the facts, including examining any connections between the modeling industry, agencies, executives and Epstein’s trafficking operation. Our focus will remain on accountability, transparency, and ensuring justice for the survivors.”
Those survivors have made clear that regardless of who is in office, they will not give up. Speaking with Ms., survivor Stacey Williams captured the sentiments of many survivors about the politicization of the Epstein investigations, asking, “Since when is rape and trafficking and assault a political conversation?”
What Accountability Requires
Every survivor we spoke with agrees on the first and most important step: the full release of the Epstein files.
Lara Blume McGee, an Epstein survivor who came forward publicly in 2025, says she also wants the photos and tapes released, with appropriate redactions for victim safety. Survivors emphasize that compliance cannot come at the expense of their privacy and safety.
Survivors and WWE are advocating for passage of the REDACT Act. Introduced by Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) this summer, the bill would give Epstein survivors a private right to sue the DOJ to seek removal of their private information from public files and recover monetary damages for harms caused by the DOJ’s failure to appropriately redact this information.
Meanwhile, on Sept. 15, Reps. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.), Teresa Leger Fernández (D-N.M.) and Deborah Ross (D-N.C.) introduced a new bill, the Survivors Rights Restitution Act. The Survivors Rights Restitution Act proposes to create a restitution fund and framework within the U.S. Court for Federal Claims for survivors of sexual violence whose rights were violated by the federal government, including survivors of Epstein and Maxwell. The bill has a significant number of cosponsors after just a month.
Next, the Model Alliance, an advocacy organization for workers in the fashion industry, has called for specific agencies, executives, scouts and industry figures to be investigated over ties to Epstein, including the late Jean-Luc Brunel and MC2; Faith Kates and Next Management; Katie Ford and Ford Models; Daniel Siad; Fabrizio Lombardo; and Gérald Marie and Elite Model Management; as well as Epstein’s reported use of Victoria’s Secret/L Brands in his recruitment efforts. Siad, a French modeling scout whose name appears close to 2,000 times in the Epstein files, was under investigation by French authorities for allegations of rape and trafficking when he was found dead in July outside of Paris.
New Mexico is one prototype for meaningful investigation. There, the state legislature unanimously created a bipartisan “Truth Commission” to examine alleged criminal activity connected to Epstein’s Zorro Ranch. The commission has issued roughly 24 subpoenas thus far to law enforcement agencies, financial institutions, state agencies and multiple U.S. attorneys’ offices.
New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez also reopened the matter, directing more than two dozen banks, airlines, telecommunications firms and technology companies to preserve Epstein-related records. At the start of August, Torrez announced a lawsuit against the DOJ and Attorney General Blanche to gain access to the unredacted Epstein files and other unreleased materials pertaining to Epstein’s time spent in the state.
These inquiries are similar to what many survivors are calling for more broadly: investigating financial relationships, including payments, records and other documentation, in order to understand the connections between the modeling industry and their abuse.
Institutional failures allowed Epstein to continue abusing young victims for years. The delayed investigations, the 2007 plea deal that allowed Epstein to avoid federal prosecution and the harmful handling of survivor information in the files’ release have led to widespread frustration at the lack of appropriate tools to hold bad government actors accountable for failures. Legal avenues in the U.S. for holding federal officials civilly liable are limited, and even where they exist, these cases are often difficult to pursue. More than 30 survivors are testing whether lawsuits filed under the Federal Tort Claims Act might offer a path to address government harm.
Advocates and Democratic lawmakers are currently pushing Virginia’s Law, introduced in February and named in honor of Virginia Giuffre, a prominent Epstein survivor who died by suicide in 2025. It would eliminate statute-of-limitations deadlines for certain federal civil claims involving sexual abuse, forced labor and trafficking; open a one-year window for previously time-barred claims; and create a federal civil remedy encompassing anyone who “knowingly benefits … financially or by receiving anything of value” from the abuse, thereby reaching many enablers, associates and beneficiaries of trafficking, including modeling agencies.
Survivors are also advocating for the bipartisan Courtney Wild Reinforcing Crime Victims’ Rights Act, requiring that victims be consulted before plea deals like the one Epstein received in 2007 are finalized.
Survivors Are Not Giving Up
None of these reforms currently have the bipartisan support needed to move through a stalled Congress, even as investigations abroad continue to unfold.
For survivors, that stall is the story as the U.S. heads into the November elections—whether a change in Congress finally supplies the votes, and the subpoena power, these efforts have lacked.
But the women Ms. spoke to have made clear they are not going anywhere.
Virginia Giuffre remains a touchstone for many, who say they are finding healing by coming together and honoring her fight.
“These survivor sisters, they understand what happened, because it happened to them, too, and they were there,” Blume McGee says. “And so, when we’re together, there’s a peace you can feel.”
From that sisterhood, survivors in the modeling industry are gaining even more strength for the work ahead. As Carré Otis tells Ms., “Now I’m, like, on a fucking horse with … a fucking banner.”
This article is excerpted from a larger feature in the Fall 2026 issue of Ms., hitting newsstands soon. Become a Ms. member and get print issues delivered right to your mailbox.
