Lisa Rubin: There Are Witnesses Who Saw the ‘Trafficking Activity’ Alleged Against Epstein and Maxwell, They Have a Right to Privacy

RUSH EXCERPT:
RUBIN: "Well, first of all, I want to talk about the privacy concerns because I can understand how from where laypeople sit, there’s no excuse for covering up the personally identifiable information of other people other than like the example that you just gave the old guy who coincidentally happens to play chess with Jeffrey Epstein. But I want to give you some other examples of why that information, even in a well run normal, typical DoJ never reaches the light of day. And that’s because there are people here, even if they are accused of wrongdoing by people who testify, who are never charged. Department of Justice principles dictate that you don’t provide their names to the public because you don’t want to impugn their reputations. Right. The other thing that I am thinking about is that in this grand jury testimony, there are witnesses here who saw the trafficking activity that was alleged against Jeffrey Epstein and ghislaine maxwell. And those people have a right to privacy, too, because they have feared for their safety, just as some of the victims have for a very long time. That having been said in the motion today, Pam Bondi and Todd blanch, the only two people whose names appear on the motion, say they are prepared to redact all of this victim identifying information. And I’ll submit to you that may not be enough and it shouldn’t be enough. And the reason is because for the victims, having this grand jury testimony out in the public domain is going to be retraumatizing all over again. And we shouldn’t forget that. As you just said, there are real people involved here. In fact, hundreds of them. In the memo that you were talking about in the lead up here, you mentioned this Department of Justice memo where they said there’s nothing more that we can release. Well, in that memo, they also say that they have confirmed that there are over a thousand victims of Jeffrey Epstein, based on the review of the file. And I want to read to you from a transcript of a court proceeding right after Jeffrey Epstein died, where the judge, who also is going to have this motion to unseal the grand jury testimony, held a hearing about whether the charges should be dismissed. That’s a really typical thing to happen after somebody dies. But he also let the victims have their say. And I want to read to you something that one of the victims said, because I think it’s emblematic of the concerns that should animate this for us, she said. We, the victims, will always carry irreparable damage and pain throughout our lives after this. It’s something that’s never going to go away. You know, whoever we marry in our lives, whatever future we have in our lives, it’s always going to be something that’s always there for us. And Jeffrey Epstein, he took away the chance I had at having the future I envisioned for myself as a young girl. So I just wanted to say that it’s something that’s irreparable, and I really hope that we don’t lose sight of that. In talking about what is behind the so-called Epstein files and whether or not there’s other information that other people, because there are real people here whose trauma they don’t deserve to relive that, and we shouldn’t forget about them totally."