A great betrayal at the heart of Epstein scandal media coverage

To survivors all over the world, the Epstein files are more than just documents; they attest to the truths of survivors and their determination to demand justice. As Anouska De Georgiou, a British survivor of Epstein’s abuse says: “I’m every girl this happened to, and every one of them is me.”

Over three million documents were released from the Epstein files on January 30 by the US Department of Justice (DOJ), containing details explicitly accusing or connecting some of the most powerful men of crimes such as trafficking, rape, and sexual abuse of women and children in connection with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

If all the files were to be stacked on top of each other, it would be twice the height of the Eiffel Tower, the BBC reported. Yet to date, only two convictions have been made: that of Jeffrey Epstein, who died by suicide in 2019, and Ghislaine Maxwell, who is serving a 20-year sentence for child trafficking.

Now picture the world’s reaction to three million documents being released with explicit evidence of activity by a well-known terrorist organisation. Contrast that with the muted response to evidence from the files implicating world leaders in sexual abuse.

With this in mind, we are confronted with a deeply distressing reality: when powerful men rape, assault, traffic, and abuse women and children, the world turns a blind eye in terms of holding those accused to account.

Beyond institutional inaction, the media has also played a key role in reframing the narrative around the crimes described across the millions of documents.

Blurred headlines and sanitising violence

If we look at several major Western media outlets, namely Fox News, NBC News, and The Daily Telegraph, from the initial release of the documents to the week that followed, the three outlets combined published over 150 articles on the topic.

The headlines failed to use any of the accurate legal terminology for the crimes described in black and white throughout the Epstein files, such as: child rape, rape, child abuse, paedophilia, sex trafficking, or sexual assault. Of those headlines, the term “sex offender” was mentioned once. Illustrating how violence is sanitised before the reader even reaches the first paragraph.

Instead, the accused were made out to be part of a controversy and a scandal, rather than central figures accused of assault, rape, and facilitating Epstein’s trafficking network.

When outlets with millions of readers worldwide avoid naming crimes, it stops being an editorial choice and starts being structural censorship.

Within the articles, the pattern of censorship that protects the abuser continues. Across the coverage analysed, the word ‘child’ is notably absent or sparingly used.

Instead, survivors are repeatedly described as “underage,” diminishing the fact that these are children who were raped and exploited. One example by NBC News fails to explicitly name the survivor as a child or the crime as child rape, instead saying “underage victim.”

“A photo of one girl who was underage when she was hired to give sexualized massages to Epstein [...],” The Washington Post writes, using language that frames abuse as employment and coercion as consent, fundamentally altering how readers process its severity.

In an article by CNN, it recounts an accusation that President Donald Trump raped a girl “when she was 13,” but never explicitly names the crime as child rape. The wording treats the age as a detail, rather than a core fact of the crime and the child’s inability to consent.

These patterns mirror a broader habit of describing acts rather than naming crimes, which protects men from the moral and legal weight of what they are accused of.

No accountability

In a memo from the DOJ last year, it attested that in the files, as many as 1,000 women and children were abused by Epstein. The institutional inaction following the release sheds light on why the violence against women and children is rampant.

American non-profit The Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN) says in the US, the vast majority of perpetrators, nearly 98%, ‘are never held fully accountable through the criminal justice system’.

The latest files accused numerous world leaders and high-profile figures of crimes or revealed evidence of their collaboration in Epstein’s criminal activities.

Among those named are Donald Trump, Elon Musk, former Prince Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, Bill Clinton, and Bill Gates, men who, despite the scale of evidence released, have faced no criminal investigation, prosecution, or meaningful legal scrutiny.

Hopes of holding power to account since the release have been quashed by surface-level procedural statements, bureaucratic red tape, and silence where action should be.

“We are exhausted from surviving the trauma and then surviving the politics that swirl around it,” survivor Wendy Avis said.

Few profiles illustrate the impunity of the rich and powerful more than former Prince and Duke of York Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor. Images of the former Duke on all fours looming over an unidentified woman are now globally recognised.

Alongside these images were emails showing the close relationship between Andrew and Epstein. All of these conversations come after the ex-Duke said he had broken off all ties with Epstein after his conviction in 2008 for abusing a 14-year-old child in Florida.

From royal to state impunity

President Trump continues to deny any wrongdoing despite being mentioned over 6,000 times in the Epstein files.

In addition to the accusations in the files, 27 other women have accused Trump of sexual misconduct or abuse since the 1970s. The man who infamously said, “[w]hen you’re a star. They let you do it. You can do anything. Grab ‘em by the pussy. You can do anything,” denies all claims.

He showed complete disregard for survivors named and for bringing abusers to justice, saying, “the world should move on” from the Epstein files days after the latest release.

The same lack of urgency has been echoed in the statements of Deputy US Attorney General Todd Blanche, who has said the US government's review of the Epstein files is over, and there are no grounds for new prosecutions.

"There's a lot of correspondence. There's a lot of emails. There's a lot of photographs," Blanche said. "But that doesn't allow us necessarily to prosecute somebody." This statement brings the question, what counts as evidence if not 3.5 million documents of correspondence and photographs?

The justice system failed to protect the rights and safety of survivors during the release of the files, the DOJ made an extensive effort to redact the personal information of the accused. Meanwhile, the same vigour was not made for the survivors, with thousands of incidents where their personal information and identity were published, an act of gross negligence.

Law enforcement agencies and prosecutors have treated the Epstein files as historical records rather than active evidence, with three million more files yet to be released. The DOJ was required by law to make the full release in December 2025. The department argues that the unpublished files were either unrelated, duplicates, had been withheld under deliberative process, attorney-client privilege, or because they depicted violence.

Survivors stood up yet again to call for justice, posting a video on Super Bowl Sunday, demanding action and the full release of the files without redacting the abuser's information.

Over three million files. Countless survivors. And still, the powerful escape scrutiny.

That is the measure of impunity in the world, and the cost is paid by the women and children who deserve justice.

Olivia Hooper is a British journalist based in Morocco specialising in humanitarian and gender-based topics, writing for Middle East Eye and Al-Monitor, among others.

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Opinions expressed in this article remain those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The New Arab, its editorial board or staff.