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OK. It’s time to take the gloves off and tell it like it is: Donald Trump may not be a pedophile – but we do know he has no problem with pedophiles. At least, not with his one-time friend, convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.

This week, given a choice – side with the children sexually abused by a pedophile or stand with the pedophile – Trump chose to stand with the pedophile.

Washington has never seen a news conference like the one held Sept. 3 in front of the U.S. Capitol, where nine women abused as children by Epstein came forth to tell their stories, some of them for the first time. It was hard to watch. I wasn’t the only one in tears.

It was a powerful moment, for several reasons. One, because it was bipartisan: sponsored by California Democrat Ro Khanna and Kentucky Republican Thomas Massie. Georgia Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene was also present. Two, because it was a rare show of courage on Capitol Hill, where backbones are rare. Three, and most importantly, because it reminded us of what the Epstein controversy is all about.

As these women showed, this is not about what the media and politicians have been focused on. This is not about whether or not Epstein committed suicide, or whether he “stole” girls from Mar-a-Lago, as Trump has complained, or whether Trump risks alienating part of his MAGA base by not delivering the Epstein files, as he promised.

This is not about politics. This is about crime. This is about young girls subjected to the worst crime imaginable. This is about our sisters and daughters. This is about real people. This is about teenage victims of sexual abuse whose pleas for justice have been ignored at the highest levels for more than 20 years. And the big question is: Why? Why are their requests for justice and transparency still being ignored?

This is about girls like Annie Farmer, who said she was flown to New Mexico when she was a 16-year-old high school student – 16! – to spend the weekend with Epstein and his partner Ghislaine Maxwell, both of whom then sexually abused her. She said her sister, Maria, was invited to meet Epstein in his New York office, where she met Donald Trump. In 1996, Maria Farmer became the first person to report Epstein’s behavior to the FBI and the NYPD. Nothing happened. Why not?

Marina Lacerda said she was only 14 – 14! – when she was offered $300 to give Epstein a massage, when and where he sexually abused her for the first time – abuse that she said continued for three years, until he told her she was “too old.” He also paid her $200 for every other girl she introduced to him. She was afraid to tell her story until this week, she said, because she knew nobody in power would take her or all the other girl victims seriously. Again, why not?

One by one, they told their stories, each of them unimaginably shocking and cruel. But each victim also took time to remind everybody that this was not about politics. Some of the survivors are Democrats, some are Republicans. And they were only asking Congress and President Trump for two things: that Congress pass the Khanna/Massie-sponsored resolution asking the Justice Department to release all Epstein files, including names of other men involved; and that no special treatment be given to Maxwell -- who, as several said, not only recruited young girls to be Epstein’s sexual victims but was herself a predator who participated in sexual abuse.

And what was the reaction from the White House? A new low, even for Donald Trump. The whole matter is “totally irrelevant,” Trump told reporters. “This is a Democrat hoax.”

Wait a minute! The fact that dozens, maybe hundreds, of teenage girls are recruited and repeatedly raped by many wealthy men in a sex-trafficking ring organized by a powerful New York mogul is “irrelevant"? Calling climate change a hoax is one thing. But accusing victims of rape of being part of a “Democrat hoax"? Anybody who says that doesn’t deserve to be dogcatcher, let alone president of the United States.

(Bill Press is host of The BillPressPod, and author of 10 books, including: “From the Left: My Life in the Crossfire.” His email address is: bill@billpress.com. Readers may also follow him on Twitter @billpresspod and on BlueSky @BillPress.bsky.social.)

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