There is nothing that makes me angrier than pedophiles.
PEDOPHILES. Preying upon helpless children. CHILDREN.
The Senate Judiciary Committee is preparing to vote on Todd Blanche’s confirmation as Attorney General of the United States; Republicans must decide whether loyalty to Donald Trump matters more than justice for raped and abused children Jeffrey Epstein trafficked.
That’s ugly. That should be a no-brainer. Pedophiles deserve hell. Let us begin there, because polite language has protected powerful men for far too long.
The Justice Department identified more than 1,200 victims and affected family members connected to Jeffrey Epstein’s operation. The documented victims included underage girls: children who were recruited, sexually abused and trafficked to powerful men while other powerful adults protected the operation for years.
No one disputes. Children were recruited. Children were trafficked. Children were raped and sexually abused. Children were paid to bring Epstein more children.
Those children eventually became adults now demanding justice. Are they getting it? No.
Sadly, our President, Donald Trump, Cannot Be Separated From The Epstein Files. I cannot prove that Donald Trump sexually abused a child. Association alone does not establish that crime. But Donald Trump’s name and related terms appear more than 38,000 times across at least 5,300 individual files in the Department of Justice document releases.
Trump and Epstein were not strangers. Trump said in 2002 that he had known Epstein for 15 years, called him a “terrific guy” and observed that Epstein liked women “on the younger side.” Photographs and video document the two men socializing. In recorded interviews with author Michael Wolff, Epstein later claimed, in his own words, “I was Donald’s closest friend for 10 years.” That was Epstein’s assertion, which Trump’s camp disputed—not an independently established fact—but the long relationship itself is extensively documented. 1The Guardian summarized that record.
Trump’s own public comments make that relationship even more disturbing.
In a 1992 recording, a 46-year-old Trump looked at a child and announced, “I am going to be dating her in 10 years.” He reportedly told two 14-year-old girls that he might be dating them “in a couple of years.” In 2006, Trump said that if Ivanka were not his daughter, “perhaps I’d be dating her.” 2CBS News documented the recorded remarks.
None of those statements proves that Trump abused a child. They do establish a revolting pattern of sexualizing girls, including his own daughter—conduct the public has been told to excuse as humor. Locker-room humor? Men’s humor? Sick humor?
Trump was also found civilly liable for sexually abusing and defaming E. Jean Carroll. Judge Lewis Kaplan later explained that the conduct established by the jury constituted rape in the ordinary meaning of the word and ruled that Carroll’s statement that Trump raped her was “substantially true.” The narrow distinction resulted from the specific definition of rape in New York law at the time—not from a finding that Trump had left Carroll unharmed.
I cannot prove that Trump abused a child. But where there is smoke, the answer is sunlight: release every legally releasable Epstein file and place the investigation beyond Trump’s control.
Trump did the opposite. He chose Todd Blanche—his own former criminal-defense attorney—to lead the department deciding what the public sees and whether anyone else will be prosecuted.
Goodbye, American Pie. Move over, corruption.
The Justice Department’s official biography acknowledges that Blanche represented Trump in three criminal cases brought in 2023 and 2024. Blanche led Trump’s defense in the New York criminal trial and represented him in the federal classified-documents and election-obstruction cases. 3The Justice Department confirms that history.
Now Trump wants that same lawyer permanently installed as attorney general: the chief law-enforcement officer of the United States.
Read that again.
Donald Trump is attempting to place his former personal criminal-defense attorney in charge of the United States Department of Justice—including its handling of evidence from an international operation built around trafficking and raping children. These children turned adults are being raped again by the United States Government.
This is not independence. It is the powerful appointing their own protection.
Todd Blanche’s Epstein Record
Blanche’s record does not justify public trust. He oversaw disclosures that exposed survivors.
Epstein survivors say the Justice Department’s release exposed their names, personal information and even nude images while powerful men remained hidden behind redactions. Blanche acknowledged that redaction mistakes occurred. Survivor Dani Bensky testified that Blanche had been “at the helm” of releases that outed Jane Does and exposed survivors repeatedly. 4PBS documented the survivors’ testimony and Blanche’s acknowledgment of mistakes.
The government had one elementary obligation: protect the victims while exposing the perpetrators and enablers. Survivors say it did the reverse. His department declared the review over.
After releasing roughly 3.5 million pages from more than 6 million pages identified as potentially responsive, Blanche said the Justice Department’s review was over and that no further prosecutions were expected. Survivors and lawmakers challenged both the completeness of the release and the department’s conclusion. 5The Guardian reported the disparity and the survivors’ objections.
The Justice Department says it lacks prosecutable evidence against additional people. That may ultimately prove true in particular cases. But the public is being asked to accept that conclusion from Trump’s former personal lawyer while responsive material remains withheld, redacted, or disputed. Sound like Bill Barr 2017 repeat?
Blanche eventually met with Epstein survivors—but only after Republican Senator Thom Tillis made the meeting a condition of supporting his confirmation.
Survivors described the encounter as performative. Two dozen survivors later wrote Cornyn and Tillis that the meeting was a “box-checking exercise arranged only after his confirmation was put at risk.” They described “an hour of deflection, interruption and gaslighting” and said Blanche offered no credible commitment to pursue accountability beyond Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell. 6ABC News reported their letter.
The survivors did not receive their justice.
But now, we have the Complicit (or Guilty) GOP voting on this, with two of the holdouts, Cornyn and Tillis, delaying the vote. But did Cornyn and Tillis do this because of the defiled children?
No, Cornyn and Tillis Found Their Courage When Money Was Involved.
Today, August 3, Republican Senators John Cornyn and Thom Tillis announced that they will support advancing Blanche’s nomination. The Senate Judiciary Committee is scheduled to vote tomorrow, August 4.
What changed?
Not Blanche’s treatment of survivors. Not the exposure of their identities and images. Not the disputed withholding and redaction of millions of pages. Not the absence of new prosecutions.
Blanche formally eliminated a $1.776 billion “anti-weaponization fund” connected to the settlement of Trump’s lawsuit against the IRS and clarified the scope of extraordinary tax-audit protections involving Trump, two of his sons and the Trump Organization. Once those assurances were put in writing, Cornyn and Tillis announced that their concerns had been resolved. 7The Associated Press reported the agreement and their decision.
That is what makes me furious.
These senators could have demanded an independent prosecutor. They could have demanded a complete accounting of every legally releasable record. They could have required a credible plan to investigate every recruiter, facilitator, abuser and government official who obstructed accountability. They could have made the protection of children the nonnegotiable condition of their votes.
They did not. Dirty pricks.
They fixed the money, accepted the meeting and prepared to promote Trump’s lawyer.
This Is Not One Man. It Is a Republican Pattern.
Republicans will try to isolate every case. One accusation. One candidate. One unfortunate exception. But the roster has grown far too long for that lie.
The following cases are not legally identical. Some involve criminal convictions or admissions. Some involve civil findings. Some involve official congressional findings. Others remain allegations that the accused men deny. Accuracy requires those distinctions. Accountability requires that we stop pretending the pattern does not exist.
Donald Trump
A jury found Trump civilly liable for sexually abusing and defaming E. Jean Carroll; the judge later said the conduct constituted rape in the ordinary meaning of the word. More than two dozen women have accused Trump of sexual misconduct, which he denies, yet Republicans returned him to the presidency and placed the Justice Department under his control.
Matt Gaetz
The bipartisan House Ethics Committee found substantial evidence that Gaetz paid women for sex and had sex with a 17-year-old girl when he was 35, findings he denied; the Justice Department did not charge him. Trump nevertheless selected him for attorney general before Gaetz withdrew. 8
Dennis Hastert
The longest-serving Republican Speaker of the House admitted in court that he sexually abused boys he coached, and the sentencing judge called him a “serial child molester.” Hastert had risen to one of the most powerful offices in America. 9
Ralph Shortey
The former Republican Oklahoma state senator pleaded guilty to child-sex trafficking after soliciting a minor for a commercial sex act and was sentenced to 15 years in federal prison. 10
Ray Holmberg
The former Republican North Dakota state senator pleaded guilty to repeatedly traveling to Prague to pay for sex with minor boys and was sentenced to ten years in prison. 11
Joel Greenberg
The Republican Florida official and Gaetz associate pleaded guilty to sex-trafficking a minor; his plea says he repeatedly paid the child for sex and introduced her to other adult men. 12
Anton Lazzaro
The Republican donor and operative was convicted of conspiracy and five counts of sex trafficking minors and was sentenced to 21 years in prison. 13
Philip Giordano
The Republican mayor of Waterbury, Connecticut, was convicted of federal crimes arising from his repeated sexual abuse of two girls, ages eight and ten, and received a 37-year prison sentence. 14
Roy Moore
Multiple women accused the Republican Senate nominee of sexual misconduct or inappropriate pursuit when they were teenagers—one said she was 14; Moore denied the allegations and was not adjudicated responsible. Trump endorsed him, and the Republican National Committee restored its financial support before voters rejected him. 15
Pete Hegseth
Hegseth was accused of sexual assault, which he denies, and prosecutors declined to charge him, citing insufficient evidence. He acknowledged paying his accuser a $50,000 confidential settlement, and Republicans confirmed him to lead the Department of Defense. 16
Brett Kavanaugh
Christine Blasey Ford testified under oath that Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her when they were teenagers; Kavanaugh emphatically denied it, and no court adjudicated the allegation. Senate Republicans confirmed him to a lifetime seat on the Supreme Court. 17
Clarence Thomas
Anita Hill testified under oath that Thomas repeatedly sexually harassed her while he was her supervisor, and Angela Wright reported similar conduct; Thomas denied the allegations. An all-male Judiciary Committee interrogated Hill’s credibility, and the Senate confirmed Thomas 52–48—with 41 Republican and 11 Democratic votes—establishing a protection playbook later repeated for Brett Kavanaugh and Donald Trump. 18
Jim Jordan
Former Ohio State wrestlers accused Jordan of knowing that team doctor Richard Strauss was sexually abusing athletes while Jordan was an assistant coach and failing to act; Jordan denies knowing, and no tribunal has found that he participated in the abuse. Republicans nevertheless repeatedly attempted to make him Speaker of the House while survivors said he had abandoned them. 19
Mark Foley
The Republican congressman resigned after sending sexually explicit messages to young male congressional pages; investigators did not establish that he had sex with minors or sent them sexual images, and he was not criminally charged. He later returned as a Republican donor and received a service award from his county Republican Party. 20
Dan Crane
The conservative Republican congressman admitted having sex with a 17-year-old female congressional page and was censured by the House. He lost reelection. 21
This list is not exhaustive. It deliberately excludes consensual affairs and ordinary hypocrisy because those would dilute the far more serious record of rape, sexual abuse, trafficking, harassment and exploitation of minors. Sexual abuse is not exclusive to one political party. Complicity, however, is measured by what a party does after it learns whom it is protecting.
Again and again, the modern GOP has answered:
Protect the man. Question the victim. Call the investigation political. Restore the funding. Deliver the endorsement. Cast the confirmation vote.
Complicity Is Participation
You do not have to rape a child yourself to become part of the system that destroys that child’s life.
You become complicit when you discredit the child or adult survivor.
You become complicit when you conceal evidence, restrict an investigation, or refuse to pursue credible leads.
You become complicit when you fund the accused man’s campaign, place him on television, restore his committee assignment, or confirm him to public office.
You become complicit when you elevate the president’s personal lawyer over the objections of the children who survived an international trafficking operation.
Complicity is not merely standing nearby while something terrible happens. Complicity is supplying the votes, money, silence, legitimacy and government power that allow the protection to continue.
That is why this indictment reaches beyond Blanche, Cornyn and Tillis.
Tomorrow, Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee will place their own names into the record: Chairman Chuck Grassley, 92; John Cornyn, 74; Mike Lee, 55; Ted Cruz, 55; Josh Hawley, 46; Thom Tillis, 65; John Kennedy, 74; Marsha Blackburn, 74; Eric Schmitt, 51; Katie Britt, 44; Ashley Moody, 51; and Darline Graham, 62. 22They are the committee’s current Republican membership.
They range from 44 to 92 years old. Every one of them is old enough to understand what rape does to a child. Every one is old enough to understand complicity.
It sickens me that these women—WOMEN—can hear survivors describe being raped and trafficked as children, watch their government expose those survivors while protecting powerful men, and still consider voting for the man who presided over it. Blackburn, Britt, Moody and Graham receive no moral exemption because they are women. If they vote yes, they are endorsing the political protection of men who rape children—and abandoning the children who survived them.
Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins: Where Are You?
Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins are not members of the Judiciary Committee, but Blanche will need the full Senate if his nomination advances. Both women are repeatedly presented to America as the Republican Party’s independent moderates—its remaining voices of conscience.
Where are those voices now?
Murkowski and Collins both voted to confirm Todd Blanche as deputy attorney general on March 5, 2025. 23The official Senate roll call records both votes.
They gave Blanche power once. Now they know what he did with it.
They know his department exposed survivors’ identities and images.
They know he declared the Epstein review finished while survivors and lawmakers disputed whether millions of responsive pages remained withheld.
They know survivors described their meeting with him as deflection, interruption, and gaslighting.
They know he was Donald Trump’s personal criminal-defense lawyer before Trump installed him at the top of the Justice Department.
As of this publication, I can find no public commitment from either senator to oppose Blanche’s elevation to attorney general.
So, Senator Murkowski and Senator Collins: Where are you?
Will you stand with the children who were raped and trafficked—or will you again vote to place Donald Trump’s protector in charge of their justice?
Silence is not moderation. Waiting until Blanche has enough votes before announcing your position is not courage. And voting yes after everything now known would not be independence.
You gave Todd Blanche power once. Now that you know what he did with it, what possible excuse could justify giving him more?
Some may vote no. If they do, that must be reported honestly. But anyone who votes yes will be unable to claim ignorance. Survivors have testified. Survivors have written. Survivors have begged the Senate not to entrust the Justice Department to Blanche.
The senators know.
What Does It Say About the GOP?
What does it say about the GOP when its most powerful members protect the men who rape children—and abandon the children who survived them?
It says the Republican Party has built a hierarchy of human worth.
At the opening of the 119th Congress, women constituted only 15 percent of congressional Republicans. Approximately 85 percent were men. By comparison, women constituted 42 percent of congressional Democrats. 24Pew Research documented the divide.
This is what an 85-percent-male power structure looks like: men protecting men while women and children carry the lifetime damage.
The Republican men preparing to vote on Blanche are not naĂŻve boys who do not comprehend sexual violence. They are middle-aged and elderly men, ranging from their forties into their nineties. They have mothers. Many have wives, daughters and granddaughters. They understand perfectly well that women and children are human beings whose bodies, futures and dignity matter.
So why does that knowledge disappear when the violated child belongs to someone else?
Why can John Cornyn understand the humanity of his own wife and daughters but support Blanche after Epstein survivors pleaded with him to vote no?
Why can Thom Tillis recognize that survivors deserved a meeting, hear them describe that meeting as deflection and gaslighting, and then treat the performance as sufficient?
Why must a woman or child be personally connected to a powerful man before her destroyed life becomes politically important?
Their families are not responsible for these senators’ choices and should never be attacked or exposed. But those relationships demolish any claim that the senators simply cannot understand what is at stake. They can understand. They are choosing Republican power anyway.
Powerful Republican men sit at the top. Women and children are valuable when they can be invoked in speeches about “family values,” abortion, transgender Americans, schools or religion. But when an actual child accuses a powerful man—or asks the government to expose the system that protected him—that child becomes disposable.
Do they believe women and children exist to be controlled, used, or defiled? I cannot know what sits inside another person’s mind. But I can judge what their political choices communicate: when the bodily safety of children conflicts with the protection of powerful Republican men, the children are expected to absorb the damage and disappear.
The GOP claims to protect children while calling LGBTQ Americans “groomers.” It claims to defend women while attacking women who report sexual abuse. It claims to represent law and order while preparing to make Trump’s personal defense lawyer the nation’s highest law-enforcement officer.
That is not hypocrisy alone. It is a protection system.
Trump protects Blanche. Blanche protects Trump. Republican senators protect both.
The children remain outside the circle, still waiting for justice.
The Republican Party did not rape every child harmed by Epstein and the other men named here. But Republicans who know the record and continue providing votes, money, appointments, excuses and silence are responsible for maintaining the political sanctuary in which powerful men escape accountability.
They may not all have committed the rape.
But if they knowingly protect the men, bury the truth and abandon the children, they are complicit.
What Happened to Decency? When did decency become conditional?
Republicans offer it to women and children when they can use them in campaign speeches. They withdraw it when decency would require confronting Donald Trump, rejecting his lawyer, or surrendering political power.
Decency would mean believing that no office, fortune, party or presidency is worth sacrificing a child.
Decency would mean protecting survivors before protecting reputations.
Decency would mean demanding an investigation structurally independent of Trump and his personal attorney.
Decency would mean that a senator hearing children were trafficked and raped would ask first, “How do we obtain justice?”—not, “Has the $1.776 billion fund been erased?”
That is what disappeared: not their ability to recognize right from wrong, but their willingness to choose what is right when it costs their party something.
Tomorrow, when the Senate Judiciary Committee votes on Todd Blanche, there will be no confusion about what is at stake.
The question is whether Republicans will protect these children when doing so requires them to confront Donald Trump and reject his personal lawyer.
The children have already paid the price.
Now every Republican senator must decide whether protecting powerful men is worth making those children pay again.
As the Senate Judiciary Committee prepares to vote on Todd Blanche, Republicans must decide whether loyalty to Donald Trump matters more than justice for the children Jeffrey Epstein trafficked and abused.
Sources:
1. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jul/18/trump-epstein-friendship
2. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/more-unearthed-footage-trump-says-of-10-year-old-i-am-going-to-be-dating-her-in-10-years/
3. https://www.justice.gov/ag/staff-profile/meet-acting-attorney-general-0
4. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/senators-question-blanche-on-trump-loyalty-jan-6-cases-and-epstein-files
5. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jan/31/democrats-justice-department-epstein-files
6. https://abcnews.com/US/epstein-survivors-urge-senators-confirm-todd-blanche-attorney/story?id=134927693
7. https://apnews.com/article/a38decfc7f20e4f73a181914d53111da
8. https://ethics.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/Committee-Report.pdf
9. https://apnews.com/article/lawsuits-sexual-abuse-illinois-dennis-hastert-99160a4428db66e86da8e275e57c8ec7
10. https://www.justice.gov/usao-wdok/pr/former-oklahoma-state-senator-sentenced-fifteen-years-child-sex-trafficking
11. https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/former-north-dakota-state-senator-sentenced-10-years-imprisonment-traveling-prague-engage
12. https://www.justice.gov/usao-mdfl/pr/former-seminole-county-tax-collector-joel-micah-greenberg-pleads-guilty-multiple
13. https://www.justice.gov/usao-mn/pr/anton-tony-lazzaro-sentenced-21-years-prison-child-sex-trafficking
14. https://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/usao-ct/legacy/2011/11/23/07-3487-cr_USvGiordano.pdf
15. https://abcnews.com/Politics/republican-national-committee-reverses-support-roy-moore-senate/story?id=51580284
16. https://apnews.com/article/6674cc8cfee654c374725948e01ff666
17. https://www.reuters.com/article/world/after-fight-that-split-us-kavanaugh-wins-place-on-supreme-court-idUSKCN1MG0A4/
18. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GPO-CHRG-THOMAS/pdf/GPO-CHRG-THOMAS-4.pdf
19. https://apnews.com/article/e93ccc3f13d74ff8b3486826fb0391ba
20. https://www.advocate.com/politics/14-republican-sex-scandals
21. https://ethics.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Historical_Chart_Final_Version-in-Word_0.pdf?utm_source=chatgpt.com
22. https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/about/members
23. https://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_votes/vote1191/vote_119_1_00105.htm
24. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/02/21/women-account-for-28-of-lawmakers-in-the-119th-congress-unchanged-from-the-last-congress/
