I am so furious and heartbroken that we elected that monster not once, but TWICE. I can’t stand it. When’s the protest? Where are we marching? How are we all just going about our lives like this is normal?!
I like your spirit. Marches, protests, phone calls, post cards, yes, but how about withholding sex? Not doing the housework? Not being the supportive partner? How about the Greek solution? Somehow, the men of this country need to wake up, show up, speak up and actually try to be the good fathers/partners they claim to be. And every woman needs to ask the men in her life if they support the trafficking and sexual abuse of girls and young women.
Katie Johnson is a hero. Thank you so much for preserving her testimony and shining a light on this aspect of the Trump/Epstein Slime. Not believing women will truly be our downfall. What I find somewhat weird is that I've just about come around to believing that there IS/WAS an international cabal of wealthy white sexual abusers---I just believe that Donald Trump played an outsized role in it. Let's see if MAGA finally sees that, too. I say expose them all.
I would just like to add that, aside from Donald Trump, another of Epstein's very good friends back in the day was Thomas Barrack, a billionaire private equity real estate investor, whom Trump has made our current ambassador to Turkey. I know, I know, one mustn't judge others by the company they keep. Still. Mr. Barrack doesn't appear to have any experience as a diplomat. Could it be a little reward? I would dearly love to see the names of all the wealthy patrons of Epstein's "spas."
This is the saddest and most infuriating thing I have ever read. I knew the basics of this accusation, but the minute details make it so much more horrifying. I feel bad that I was previously downplaying the sex stuff, not because I thought it wasn’t true or important, it’s both those things. But because I personally think the part that’s most hidden is the money. The money between Wexner & Epstein for example. But now, reading this, your enlightened, insightful & important essay and the transcript, I realize that the sex stuff is equally important. I am so thankful to be a subscriber to your Substack and I am so deeply grateful for the work you do.
I'm sorry to say that I did not follow this scandal when it happened. I heard QAnon and tuned right out. That was a huge mistake. A failure. Plus, it was the same old story---real victims of rape and abuse not being believed. Powerlessness creeps into your head---makes you the author of your own downfall.
The current financial corruption is happening in plain sight and most people don't seem to care about it. But even a lot of people who voted for him care about children being raped and abused. Just his association with Epstein has hurt his popularity. I think if more people can be convinced that he was an active participant and not just a bystander, this is the thing that can take him down. And, of course, we owe it to the women and girls he's harmed to shine a light on it.
This exactly: 'When women speak, and tell us of rich and powerful white men’s misdeeds, we not only don’t believe them; we often don’t even bother to listen in the first place.'
In her memoir, Rebecca Solnit wrote that 'voice' consists of three components, in this order: Audibility, Credibility, Consequences.
Her formulation unpacks the dynamics of the conspiracies dominating the news. And more.
I had to stop and start a couple times in reading this, it's so viscerally upsetting.
My suspicion is that Trump and Epstein were deeply involved together in funneling girls into abuse. Given Trump's power over the teen beauty pageants, I would not be surprised if that was a direct pipeline for exploitation and trafficking and that Epstein's trafficking victims were not the only girls Trump attacked. His open sexual obsession regarding his daughter suggests she may also likely be another direct victim.
What I still don't know is whether American society can handle facing the truth of it all. I have a hard time being optimistic about it, though.
There is no doubt that he is the monster she describes. I have been sexually abused, as a child, and I relate to the terror she experienced, being at someone's mercy and unable to stop that person, that person who was doing their actions solely for their own benefits without regard for the feelings of the other person/Katie/me, who just didn't count as being a human being. I don't share with her the belief that we live in a wonderful, beautiful country, but I share with her the horror of being in a country led and controlled by this monster.
I hate to even ask but this is already graphic and since we wouldn't be here if this account, or women in general, were universally believed: She asks about pregnancy after the last rape. Was Tr*mp wearing a condom or not? The germ phobia is so important in the other encounters, but maybe he doesn't have the same concern about the vagina of a virgin, compared to mouths and hands? Or maybe he was but she's still worried about being impregnated anyway? That stood out to me and I wanted to reconcile that detail to make the story consistent. The question is rhetorical; I don't expect we know any more than what we have here.
I am sure the truths here are horrific regardless, but when we highlight the testimony of this specific victim we want to be able to defend the credibility, because we know every other victim account will come under attack by association, as if it were a chain which were only as strong as its weakest link.
The entire Epstein enterprise is so upsetting, and yet it still feels like merely a blip in the misogyny this country is built on. Ugh.
Thanks for the like and reply. I felt really bad about even asking, but my understanding is that we do know that something like 1-2 % of accusations are not true, and that suspect accusations are more likely to be characterized by highly dramatic details and storytelling. I don't want our side to be said to be putting all its chips on one account, but I also don't want to be doubting women.
Whatever the details, we know that a LOT of abuse of girls took place at the hands of Epstein and his associates, and that the only person ever held accountable for it was a woman. It feels like too much to hope for any justice, and that we can only wish that abuse happens less going forward in our world. 💔
Given that so few rape allegations are not true, the logical default assumption should be that women are telling the truth. I'm really bothered by this constant concern with vetting every little detail of every woman's account just in case she could potentially be one of the exceedingly rare women who might be making something up. In my opinion, it isn't really those very rare instances of false accusations that discredit every other women who is telling the truth—it's the way we always highlight the existence of false accusations as an excuse for why we have to be *so careful* when considering whether *this* woman *might* be one of the very few, rather than giving her the benefit of the doubt and logically assuming that she is probably one of the 99%.
And the details that women remember are as different as the variety of women who are raped. Some women remember sights, some remember sounds, some remember scents, some block out as much as they possibly can and some have it seared in their memory. Some rapes *are* dramatic and others are mundane. Some women are discredited because their stories aren't dramatic or detailed enough. The Netflix limited series "Unbelievable" gives a great example of this. The end result is that we question seemingly every woman who accuses a man of rape and pick apart her account, just in case.
Concerning the condom, remember that he did not use a condom with Stormy Daniels either even though she worked for her particular porn company because they were one of the only ones that required condoms. According to Planned Parenthood: "If you use condoms perfectly every single time you have sex, they’re 98% effective at preventing pregnancy. But people aren’t perfect, so in real life condoms are about 87% effective — that means about 13 out of 100 people who use condoms as their only birth control method will get pregnant each year."
And why do we never frame this the other way around? The vast majority of men who have raped women lie about having raped them. Why are we not picking *their* testimonies apart when we know by basic math that most of the time they are lying (and in this case both men are adjudicated sex offenders)? By default we assume that every man is in the 1% who has been falsely accused and every woman is in the 1% who made something up. Why do we always give men the benefit of the doubt and always doubt women? I know the answer to this, it just pisses me the fuck off.
And just to challenge the premise a bit, according to Wikipedia: "Although there are widely varying estimates of the prevalence of false accusation of rape, according to a 2013 book on forensic victimology, very few reliable scientific studies have been conducted," and "Rates of false accusation are sometimes inflated or misrepresented due to conflation of false with designations such as unfounded. Designations such as unfounded allow law enforcement to close cases without arriving at a conclusion and are used to describe cases without enough evidence, as opposed to false cases where the accuser is not credible or eventually admits that the accusation is untrue."
Yes the default assumption should be that the story is true. Sometimes there are circumstances in which a rare fabrication might be a little less unlikely, and those might get looked at a little closer. I completely agree that this is nowhere near where the balance ends up in practice. And yes maybe (probably?) that 1-2% is too high. I thought this particular case was one where it's worth being careful, given all the valid motivations to attack Tr*mp. I didn't mean to suggest the default assumption should be anything other than that the story is true. I was just asking how other people were making sense of one of the details, given that the story doesn't seem to have gained the traction it should. I very much agree that the 99/1 ratio is inverted in the way our society handles sexual abuse, and it's an atrocity. I was approaching it as looking to clear any doubts this could be a rare outlier, rather than being skeptical of the story. Regardless civilization is failing terribly at finding any kind of justice, because, as you say, we don't want to. And yes that is despicable.
I remember being afraid of getting pregnant from a toilet seat when I was about 13. Directly after being raped, I'm sure she was terrified of being pregnant - condom or no.
I’m embarrassed I never followed the stories of the Epstein/Trump victims before. Also embarrassed as I read the story that I did have fleeting thoughts “Why did she allow this to happen“ before I remembered she was 13 surrounded by powerful people, including a woman who was supposedly watching out for her. This poor kid thought she was going to be a model.
Can't stop thinking about all of this. This morning I woke up with this question for the sports world: Is boasting about sexually assaulting women really "locker room talk?" If so, why does anyone pay to watch any men's sports, why pay to support a bunch of potential sexual predators? If not, if the folks in the locker room AREN'T potential sexual predators, why don't athletes, media, fans speak out? Why let "locker room talk" be an excuse? If we still think boasting about sexually assaulting women is just lying, joking, boys will be boys stuff---I think we can all see where that leads.
Although I think when the term "locker room talk" is used in this way, it's referring to men-only spaces, not just literally locker rooms. And even if people are thinking of locker rooms, they're not thinking primarily about professional athletes, but all locker rooms--schools, gyms, etc.
This makes sense. I guess, then, what I'm asking for is that ALL men---not just professional athletes---stand up and deny that they think boasting about sexually assaulting women is OK.
Yes, that. This was discussed a lot after the "grab 'em by the pussy" tape and #metoo--that men need to hold other men accountable in this way. The same way that if you hear a slur against a group you're not part of used in conversation, you speak and not let others think you're OK with it just b/c it's not about you.
Kate, thank you. And thank you for allowing this to be free for all to read. I just became a paid subscriber because of this. I hope everyone else reading this follows suit. This is important digging, important work.
I particularly appreciate the point here about how many women have been discredited by association with Jerry Springer-esque journalists. It's a vivid catch 22, if those are the only folks who'll listen. I've written about these themes for The Hope Desk newsletter (Aug. 1) and linked both of your recent articles as resources...
Much gratitude to you for bringing this story forward and for providing the transcript. Katie Johnson’s story needs to be widely shared and your sober, intelligent presentation of it is invaluable.
Thanks so much for this compelling and informed piece. I kept looking for something like this in all the media accounts of the Epstein controversy, and the most that gets mentioned is that the lawsuit was dismissed. Makes my blood boil. I wish this was being published in the New York Times. Please consider writing something like this for the mainstream media!
I am so furious and heartbroken that we elected that monster not once, but TWICE. I can’t stand it. When’s the protest? Where are we marching? How are we all just going about our lives like this is normal?!
I like your spirit. Marches, protests, phone calls, post cards, yes, but how about withholding sex? Not doing the housework? Not being the supportive partner? How about the Greek solution? Somehow, the men of this country need to wake up, show up, speak up and actually try to be the good fathers/partners they claim to be. And every woman needs to ask the men in her life if they support the trafficking and sexual abuse of girls and young women.
Katie Johnson is a hero. Thank you so much for preserving her testimony and shining a light on this aspect of the Trump/Epstein Slime. Not believing women will truly be our downfall. What I find somewhat weird is that I've just about come around to believing that there IS/WAS an international cabal of wealthy white sexual abusers---I just believe that Donald Trump played an outsized role in it. Let's see if MAGA finally sees that, too. I say expose them all.
I would just like to add that, aside from Donald Trump, another of Epstein's very good friends back in the day was Thomas Barrack, a billionaire private equity real estate investor, whom Trump has made our current ambassador to Turkey. I know, I know, one mustn't judge others by the company they keep. Still. Mr. Barrack doesn't appear to have any experience as a diplomat. Could it be a little reward? I would dearly love to see the names of all the wealthy patrons of Epstein's "spas."
This is the saddest and most infuriating thing I have ever read. I knew the basics of this accusation, but the minute details make it so much more horrifying. I feel bad that I was previously downplaying the sex stuff, not because I thought it wasn’t true or important, it’s both those things. But because I personally think the part that’s most hidden is the money. The money between Wexner & Epstein for example. But now, reading this, your enlightened, insightful & important essay and the transcript, I realize that the sex stuff is equally important. I am so thankful to be a subscriber to your Substack and I am so deeply grateful for the work you do.
I'm sorry to say that I did not follow this scandal when it happened. I heard QAnon and tuned right out. That was a huge mistake. A failure. Plus, it was the same old story---real victims of rape and abuse not being believed. Powerlessness creeps into your head---makes you the author of your own downfall.
The current financial corruption is happening in plain sight and most people don't seem to care about it. But even a lot of people who voted for him care about children being raped and abused. Just his association with Epstein has hurt his popularity. I think if more people can be convinced that he was an active participant and not just a bystander, this is the thing that can take him down. And, of course, we owe it to the women and girls he's harmed to shine a light on it.
This exactly: 'When women speak, and tell us of rich and powerful white men’s misdeeds, we not only don’t believe them; we often don’t even bother to listen in the first place.'
In her memoir, Rebecca Solnit wrote that 'voice' consists of three components, in this order: Audibility, Credibility, Consequences.
Her formulation unpacks the dynamics of the conspiracies dominating the news. And more.
Kate Manne you are a brilliant thinker and researcher. I’m so appalled this is the only place I’m hearing this story.
I had to stop and start a couple times in reading this, it's so viscerally upsetting.
My suspicion is that Trump and Epstein were deeply involved together in funneling girls into abuse. Given Trump's power over the teen beauty pageants, I would not be surprised if that was a direct pipeline for exploitation and trafficking and that Epstein's trafficking victims were not the only girls Trump attacked. His open sexual obsession regarding his daughter suggests she may also likely be another direct victim.
What I still don't know is whether American society can handle facing the truth of it all. I have a hard time being optimistic about it, though.
Same, same, as to all you wrote, Rosemary.
There is no doubt that he is the monster she describes. I have been sexually abused, as a child, and I relate to the terror she experienced, being at someone's mercy and unable to stop that person, that person who was doing their actions solely for their own benefits without regard for the feelings of the other person/Katie/me, who just didn't count as being a human being. I don't share with her the belief that we live in a wonderful, beautiful country, but I share with her the horror of being in a country led and controlled by this monster.
Ooof, thanks for compiling this testimony, which must have been hard to do.
I hate to even ask but this is already graphic and since we wouldn't be here if this account, or women in general, were universally believed: She asks about pregnancy after the last rape. Was Tr*mp wearing a condom or not? The germ phobia is so important in the other encounters, but maybe he doesn't have the same concern about the vagina of a virgin, compared to mouths and hands? Or maybe he was but she's still worried about being impregnated anyway? That stood out to me and I wanted to reconcile that detail to make the story consistent. The question is rhetorical; I don't expect we know any more than what we have here.
I am sure the truths here are horrific regardless, but when we highlight the testimony of this specific victim we want to be able to defend the credibility, because we know every other victim account will come under attack by association, as if it were a chain which were only as strong as its weakest link.
The entire Epstein enterprise is so upsetting, and yet it still feels like merely a blip in the misogyny this country is built on. Ugh.
I wondered about this too. I think the rule was likely waived for virgins?
Also condoms aren’t infallible, especially when you’re raping an unwilling 13 year old.
Sorry a tautology, I meant to say raping a terrified 13 year old.
Thanks for the like and reply. I felt really bad about even asking, but my understanding is that we do know that something like 1-2 % of accusations are not true, and that suspect accusations are more likely to be characterized by highly dramatic details and storytelling. I don't want our side to be said to be putting all its chips on one account, but I also don't want to be doubting women.
Whatever the details, we know that a LOT of abuse of girls took place at the hands of Epstein and his associates, and that the only person ever held accountable for it was a woman. It feels like too much to hope for any justice, and that we can only wish that abuse happens less going forward in our world. 💔
Given that so few rape allegations are not true, the logical default assumption should be that women are telling the truth. I'm really bothered by this constant concern with vetting every little detail of every woman's account just in case she could potentially be one of the exceedingly rare women who might be making something up. In my opinion, it isn't really those very rare instances of false accusations that discredit every other women who is telling the truth—it's the way we always highlight the existence of false accusations as an excuse for why we have to be *so careful* when considering whether *this* woman *might* be one of the very few, rather than giving her the benefit of the doubt and logically assuming that she is probably one of the 99%.
And the details that women remember are as different as the variety of women who are raped. Some women remember sights, some remember sounds, some remember scents, some block out as much as they possibly can and some have it seared in their memory. Some rapes *are* dramatic and others are mundane. Some women are discredited because their stories aren't dramatic or detailed enough. The Netflix limited series "Unbelievable" gives a great example of this. The end result is that we question seemingly every woman who accuses a man of rape and pick apart her account, just in case.
Concerning the condom, remember that he did not use a condom with Stormy Daniels either even though she worked for her particular porn company because they were one of the only ones that required condoms. According to Planned Parenthood: "If you use condoms perfectly every single time you have sex, they’re 98% effective at preventing pregnancy. But people aren’t perfect, so in real life condoms are about 87% effective — that means about 13 out of 100 people who use condoms as their only birth control method will get pregnant each year."
And why do we never frame this the other way around? The vast majority of men who have raped women lie about having raped them. Why are we not picking *their* testimonies apart when we know by basic math that most of the time they are lying (and in this case both men are adjudicated sex offenders)? By default we assume that every man is in the 1% who has been falsely accused and every woman is in the 1% who made something up. Why do we always give men the benefit of the doubt and always doubt women? I know the answer to this, it just pisses me the fuck off.
And just to challenge the premise a bit, according to Wikipedia: "Although there are widely varying estimates of the prevalence of false accusation of rape, according to a 2013 book on forensic victimology, very few reliable scientific studies have been conducted," and "Rates of false accusation are sometimes inflated or misrepresented due to conflation of false with designations such as unfounded. Designations such as unfounded allow law enforcement to close cases without arriving at a conclusion and are used to describe cases without enough evidence, as opposed to false cases where the accuser is not credible or eventually admits that the accusation is untrue."
Yes the default assumption should be that the story is true. Sometimes there are circumstances in which a rare fabrication might be a little less unlikely, and those might get looked at a little closer. I completely agree that this is nowhere near where the balance ends up in practice. And yes maybe (probably?) that 1-2% is too high. I thought this particular case was one where it's worth being careful, given all the valid motivations to attack Tr*mp. I didn't mean to suggest the default assumption should be anything other than that the story is true. I was just asking how other people were making sense of one of the details, given that the story doesn't seem to have gained the traction it should. I very much agree that the 99/1 ratio is inverted in the way our society handles sexual abuse, and it's an atrocity. I was approaching it as looking to clear any doubts this could be a rare outlier, rather than being skeptical of the story. Regardless civilization is failing terribly at finding any kind of justice, because, as you say, we don't want to. And yes that is despicable.
If 1-2% accusations are deemed untrue, I feel like 100% of reports by women are dismissed completely by all. Instead of a report it’s an “accusation”.
I remember being afraid of getting pregnant from a toilet seat when I was about 13. Directly after being raped, I'm sure she was terrified of being pregnant - condom or no.
I’m embarrassed I never followed the stories of the Epstein/Trump victims before. Also embarrassed as I read the story that I did have fleeting thoughts “Why did she allow this to happen“ before I remembered she was 13 surrounded by powerful people, including a woman who was supposedly watching out for her. This poor kid thought she was going to be a model.
Can't stop thinking about all of this. This morning I woke up with this question for the sports world: Is boasting about sexually assaulting women really "locker room talk?" If so, why does anyone pay to watch any men's sports, why pay to support a bunch of potential sexual predators? If not, if the folks in the locker room AREN'T potential sexual predators, why don't athletes, media, fans speak out? Why let "locker room talk" be an excuse? If we still think boasting about sexually assaulting women is just lying, joking, boys will be boys stuff---I think we can all see where that leads.
Although I think when the term "locker room talk" is used in this way, it's referring to men-only spaces, not just literally locker rooms. And even if people are thinking of locker rooms, they're not thinking primarily about professional athletes, but all locker rooms--schools, gyms, etc.
This makes sense. I guess, then, what I'm asking for is that ALL men---not just professional athletes---stand up and deny that they think boasting about sexually assaulting women is OK.
Yes, that. This was discussed a lot after the "grab 'em by the pussy" tape and #metoo--that men need to hold other men accountable in this way. The same way that if you hear a slur against a group you're not part of used in conversation, you speak and not let others think you're OK with it just b/c it's not about you.
Kate, thank you. And thank you for allowing this to be free for all to read. I just became a paid subscriber because of this. I hope everyone else reading this follows suit. This is important digging, important work.
🙏❤️
I particularly appreciate the point here about how many women have been discredited by association with Jerry Springer-esque journalists. It's a vivid catch 22, if those are the only folks who'll listen. I've written about these themes for The Hope Desk newsletter (Aug. 1) and linked both of your recent articles as resources...
Much gratitude to you for bringing this story forward and for providing the transcript. Katie Johnson’s story needs to be widely shared and your sober, intelligent presentation of it is invaluable.
Thanks so much for this compelling and informed piece. I kept looking for something like this in all the media accounts of the Epstein controversy, and the most that gets mentioned is that the lawsuit was dismissed. Makes my blood boil. I wish this was being published in the New York Times. Please consider writing something like this for the mainstream media!
Really glad to see this piece getting the traction it deserves. Thanks so much, Kate.