Updated August 18, 2025 at 1:18 PM EDT
When the Department of Justice said it would not release any more files on disgraced financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, it outraged a portion of President Trump's base.
As part of its rationale for not releasing the files last month, the Justice Department said the materials include sensitive information about Epstein's victims, who number more than 1,000. But at least one survivor of his abuse wants the documents to be made public with redactions to protect victims' identities.
The administration, which had previously promised transparency on Epstein, has said it has made all it can public and pushed back on calls to release more. U.S. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, who is the president's former attorney, met with Epstein's accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell, who is serving a 20-year sentence on several counts including sex trafficking of a minor. The meeting prompted concern from victims that Maxwell could be seeking a deal.
NPR's Morning Edition spoke with Annie Farmer, who has said for years that Epstein and Maxwell sexually abused her at Epstein's New Mexico ranch when she was 16. She testified publicly, using her full name, both at a 2019 bail hearing for Epstein and at Maxwell's 2021 criminal trial.
Farmer told NPR's Leila Fadel that the barrage of news has been "exhausting" for survivors. "It feels like we're not being considered and we're not being included," she said.
The interview, which includes details of sexual assault, took place Aug. 8 – before a federal judge in New York rejected a request by the Justice Department to unseal grand jury transcripts related to the criminal investigation of Maxwell.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Interview highlights
Leila Fadel: How have you felt as you've watched how the administration has handled all this?
Annie Farmer: I'd say it's been very chaotic and left me and many others I've spoken with pretty anxious and sometimes pretty angry.
Fadel: And nobody has consulted with you and others. Has anyone from the government approached you to ask what you want?
Farmer: No, not at all. I've reached out and spoken with one of the prosecutors, the one remaining prosecutor [for the Southern District of New York] who was responsible for the guilty verdict for Ghislaine Maxwell. And it was clear to me that they were not even being involved in this process. So I did put my concerns into a letter and sent that to Deputy Attorney General Blanche, and I haven't heard a response from that. And I know others have done the same – have written letters about their concerns about how this is all unfolding.
Fadel: What are your concerns?
Farmer: One thing that seems very, very important is that Ghislaine Maxwell does not receive preferential treatment for any information that she provides. To have her be a part of this process and potentially trade information for a lesser sentence feels very wrong, not just for those of us directly involved in the trial, but for so many of the women that she harmed. That sends a very damaging message to our country.
Fadel: How do you think the Justice Department should approach Ghislaine Maxwell?
Farmer: With a lot of caution. The government charged her with perjury because they did not believe she was a reliable witness in the past. So, I think there are plenty of other places that they could get information. They do not need to be getting it from her.
Fadel: Ghislaine Maxwell has been moved to a lower-security prison. She's also met with a top DOJ official. Watching that happen, what's going through your mind?
Farmer: I was really in disbelief at how quickly that all unfolded. And, again, that there wasn't any sort of a heads up given to – I spoke with other people that were involved, and I know that nobody received any kind of information about that before it happened.
Fadel: The request to unseal [the grand jury papers] – something Maxwell does not want, something that your lawyers have said you do want. Why do you want those public, and what might be in them?
Farmer: Well, I think it goes beyond just the grand jury papers. What most people who have followed this case are interested in is more transparency about what happened, again, with those initial reports. Why were they not followed up on? And things like, when my sister Maria Farmer reported to the FBI, she also reported that photos of hers had been stolen. She was a visual artist. She had taken photos of my younger sister and myself that were partially nude to paint from. We don't ever know what happened to those photos. When I was in the courtroom for Jeffrey Epstein's bail hearing, I learned that they had found a lot of photos on his property. But no one ever followed up in any way, whether those might have included our photos. So there's, I think, just a lot of information that pertains to the survivor's individual experiences, whether there were other perpetrators or just understanding more about what went wrong here and who else might be involved.
Fadel: You're the only victim who testified with your name publicly in the Maxwell case. And that takes a lot of bravery. If you want to share at all what happened to you and why, in this moment, you don't want to see Maxwell get a deal.
Farmer: When I was alone with Epstein and Maxwell at this ranch in New Mexico, she's the one who started instructing me, this is how we massage Jeffrey. And this is what a massage is like. So you should get undressed, and I can give you a massage. And then, you know, expose my body and touch me. And I think that people don't necessarily understand that she was not just involved in finding young women for Epstein, but she was also involved very much in the abuse and perpetrating those crimes herself. So, she is not being blamed for someone else's crimes. She is serving a sentence for her own crimes, and I just want to make sure people remember that and understand that.
Fadel: Now, Maxwell's lawyers say releasing her documents, among the grand jury documents, would be a, quote, "intrusion into grand jury secrecy" – that Epstein may be dead, but she is living and has due process rights. What do you make of that?
Farmer: I'm not surprised that they would be hesitant for more information to be revealed that would paint her in a damning light. They're trying to rehab her image right now, so people's testimony about the kinds of crimes she committed probably would not help with their goal.
Fadel: If there were one thing you wanted people to hear from you, what would it be?
Farmer: Just remembering that there are real individuals involved. These are their individual, very challenging experiences at the heart of this case. And that's had tremendous repercussions for people's lives. And so I think it's important to step back and try not to fall into that political game around the case and be clear that this is really about the abuse of power and about protecting young people and making sure that people are held accountable when they commit these types of crimes.
The radio version of this interview was edited by Adriana Gallardo and produced by Kaity Kline.
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