Fourteen months into President Donald Trump’s second term, high-profile survivors of sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein are publicly rescinding their support for the administration, accusing the White House of stalling the full release of investigative records.
In a podcast interview released Thursday, March 26, survivor Jena-Lisa Jones expressed profound remorse for backing Trump in the 2024 election. Jones, who has lobbied extensively for the Epstein Files Transparency Act of 2025, stated that the president’s campaign promises of “total accountability” have yielded to administrative obfuscation.
“Trump ran his whole election on the release of these files,” Jones told The Shadow Sessions host Hiba Balfaqih. “It gave us hope. Now, as soon as he gets in… it’s a ‘Democratic hoax.’”
The friction centers on the implementation of the Epstein Files Transparency Act, a bipartisan measure passed late last year that mandated the Department of Justice (DOJ) release all evidence related to the deceased financier. While the DOJ claims compliance, survivors argue the “Epstein Library”—the public repository of these documents—is intentionally incomplete.
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Jones, who maintains she provided extensive testimony to the FBI, claims her specific records are missing from the public cache.
The DOJ defended its position in a statement, suggesting that survivors may be struggling to navigate the database due to heavy redactions. A spokesperson confirmed that while interviews have been released, “personally identifiable information (PII)” has been scrubbed, rendering many documents unsearchable by name.
The internal pressure on the administration is mounting as other survivors join the dissent. Haley Robson, another prominent advocate and survivor, recently told CNN she “redacts” any previous support for the President and his top officials.
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The backlash has specifically targeted key administration figures:
- Pam Bondi: Attorney General
- Kash Patel: FBI Director
Robson called for both officials to resign, citing “disgust” with the administration’s handling of the December file batches, which critics described as heavily sanitized.
During the 2024 cycle, the Trump campaign leveraged the Epstein case as a cornerstone of its “anti-establishment” platform, suggesting that a second term would expose well-connected figures linked to the financier.
However, the administration’s current insistence that remaining files are “privileged” or “part of ongoing investigations” has stalled the transparency movement. For survivors like Jones, the political maneuvering has replaced the justice they were promised.
“I beg you, President Trump, please stop making this political,” Jones stated. “Show that you actually care about the people other than yourself.”
