One woman who survived Jeffrey Epstein’s abuse has publicly urged President Donald Trump to “show some class” as Congress moves forward with efforts to release the so-called Epstein files.
Speaking at an event at the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday, Nov. 18, Jena-Lisa Jones joined other women who say they were abused by the convicted sex offender and shared her story. In her remarks, Jones pleaded with the president to stop turning the fight over the files into a political weapon.
Jones, who said she voted for Trump, criticized the way he has handled calls for transparency. Trump resisted releasing the files for months, at times dismissing them as a “hoax.” He later reversed course and urged House Republicans to back the measure once it was clear the bill already had bipartisan momentum.
On Tuesday afternoon, the House voted 427–1 to demand that the Justice Department release the files, with only Louisiana Republican Clay Higgins opposing the measure. The bill now heads to the Senate and would require the president’s signature to become law.
In her speech, Jones directly challenged Trump’s characterization of the issue. “It is also not a hoax. We are here as American survivors of a man who used his wealth and power to hurt young girls and women,” she said.
“The world should see the files to know who Jeffrey Epstein was and how the system catered to him and failed us,” she continued.
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Jones said it has been “distressing” to watch the administration claim to “release everything” related to Epstein while, in her view, having “fought to release nothing.”
She also criticized Trump for shifting attention toward investigations into Democrats “who were friends with Epstein,” a reference to his Truth Social post from Friday, Nov. 14, in which he directed Attorney General Pam Bondi to look into “Bill Clinton, Larry Summers, Reid Hoffman, J.P. Morgan, Chase, and many other people and institutions.”
“I beg you, President Trump, please stop making this political,” Jones said. “It is not about you, President Trump. You are our president. Please start acting like it. Show some class. Show some real leadership. Show that you actually care about the people other than yourself.”
Jones then revealed again that she had cast her ballot for Trump, adding, “Your behavior on this issue has been a national embarrassment,” before letting out a loud exhale.
“It is time to take the honest, moral ground and support the release of these files,” she said. “Not to weaponize pieces of the files against random political enemies that did nothing wrong, but to understand who Epstein’s friends were.”
She continued by asking, “Who covered for him? What financial institutions allowed his trafficking to continue? Who knew what he was doing but was too much of a coward to do anything about it?”
Jones previously spoke to MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell in September, saying she was abused by Epstein at age 14.
In that interview, she also mentioned voting for Trump and said she had hoped he would “protect” her and other survivors, but was dismayed when he dismissed the Epstein case as “a Democrat hoax that never ends.”
“I voted for Trump. And for him to say what he is saying, it is beyond me,” Jones said at the time. “Because I put my hope in him, and he’s supposed to protect us.”
Trump has continued to repeat the “hoax” line, recently accusing Democrats of “using the Epstein Hoax, involving Democrats, not Republicans, to try and deflect from their disastrous SHUTDOWN, and all of their other failures.”
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt has used similar language in a recent statement about Epstein-related emails released by the House Oversight Committee, in which the president was mentioned multiple times. In that statement, Leavitt accused House Democrats of pushing a “hoax” to distract from what she described as Trump’s “historic accomplishments.”
