Survivor Steps Forward to Expose All as Trump Hides Files

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As we know that one of the reasons for for this government shutdown is because Donald Trump and Magna Mike Johnson are trying to prevent this discharge petition from getting its 218 signature in order to stop the release of the Epstein files from coming out.

I don't want to lose sight of the survivors who are being impacted by these, I think, malicious moves that are just taking place in plain view to cover up the Epstein files, to cover up Epstein's dastardly acts.

And

I just want to remember the powerful, powerful move when the survivors were there on Capitol Hill last month, demanding the release of the Epstein files, demanding accountability.

And one of the moments that stood out to me during that press conference that was held by the survivors is a survivor by the name of Lisa Phillips.

I'm going to be interviewing and bringing Lisa Phillips in.

Why don't we bring Lisa Phillips in now together if we can?

Lisa, it's great to see you.

I want to show our audience this clip though, right here, of you on Capitol Hill.

I want to speak to you about

your speech, then what you make of what's going on now with the cover-up of these files, how that's impacting you as a survivor.

But then I also want to talk about your background, how you ended up on Epstein's Island, starting as a fashion model for the top modeling agency in the world at that time, elite model agency, when you were 17 years old.

You then were a model for about four years or so before you arrived at that Epstein island and you observed the trafficking there.

You saw that this was not just Epstein.

You were able to observe what the ring, the trafficking ring that was taking place there at the time.

And I want people to hear your story because

I think it's important that it's told that way, not through the prism of Democrat, Republican, Independent,

but from the prism of a survivor of a human sex trafficking ring, and that there are these predators still out there right now who are being protected by other powerful rich men.

And so let me just play this brief clip of you on Capitol Hill to remind people of your incredible speech.

And then let's talk about it.

Let's play this clip.

A platform supporting survivors.

I want to thank all of my survivor sisters who came before me today.

I'll be very short.

In the year 2000, I was taken to Jeffrey Epstein's island while on a photo shoot on a nearby island.

Who I saw and what I experienced there was

a glimpse into a very dark and disturbing world.

For years after, I tried to avoid Jeffrey, but he had introduced me to Katie Ford.

the owner of the Ford Modeling Agency.

Epstein's reach went to the very top of fashion, arts, and entertainment.

This did not just happen to underage girls in Florida.

In New York City, hundreds of young, ambitious women were abused by him.

Epstein was not just a serial predator, he was an international human trafficker.

And many around him knew, many participated, and many profited.

And yet, he was protected.

So I stand here today for every woman who has been silenced, exploited, and dismissed.

We are not asking for pity.

We are here demanding accountability, and I'm demanding justice.

Congress must choose.

Will you continue to protect predators, or will you finally protect survivors?

And also, I would like to announce here today,

Us Epstein survivors have been discussing creating our own list.

We know the names.

Many of us were abused by them.

Now together as survivors, we will confidentially compile the names we all know

who regularly,

who are regularly in the Epstein world.

And it will be done by survivors and for survivors.

Lisa Phillips, great to have you on here.

It was a powerful day.

Since that day, you've seen though the cover-up continue.

I want to know what you make of that day, but since then, it seems that the people covering this up have only dug in their heels further.

Unfortunately,

everyone focuses in the media and in the press on the relationship with Trump and

the cover-up of just a little bit here, a little bit there, just to keep the public, you know, interested, but they're not really exposing what they really have and they have everything.

There were cameras everywhere.

There There were documents.

They've seen the emails.

They basically have gone through everything

and they're not letting the public know what's going on.

And I want to rewind the story and then I will catch us up to the present because

I think that so much of the way this is reported out there is through a political lens.

And the reality is it should be reported through a survivor lens and it should be reported through the lens also of exposing what was taking place, that this was a

heinous human sex trafficking ring with hundreds, potentially thousands of victims, underage girls, young women.

You were a victim and now survivor of it.

How did you end up on that island?

And what did you observe when you were there in 2000?

You have this great modeling career, top modeling agency, you know, one of viewed as the top modeling agency really in the world, that one of the top modeling agencies in the world.

And then you get an invite.

How do you get the invite?

How do you end up there?

And then tell us, like, what did you see when you got there?

And how did it get from kind of getting there to the part where the exploitation was taking place?

Yeah, so my whole point of speaking out was just to get people an understanding of what really was going on in that world.

That it wasn't just, okay, I'm taking a young girl to a massage and that was it.

It was, he brought you into his world.

And so I was trying to get an understanding of that.

And that's what most survivors standing on Capitol Hill were trying to get the public an understanding of what really was going on.

And so for myself, I was a young model living the dream in New York City.

had worked really hard to get there.

I had graduated high school in Belgium.

And so I just had worked my way, Miami, LA,

Cape Town, South Africa, Europe.

And then I arrived in New York City.

And shortly after I arrived, I booked a really big job with another girl from my agency.

She was a Polish model, beautiful.

And we flew to Tortola in the British West Indies, next to St.

Thomas, and just spent a few days shooting there.

And then we had an extra, like a free day.

The other young model was like, well, I know this guy who owns an island nearby.

And I spoke to him and he said that we we can go and hang out there for the day and

I was like oh they're never gonna let us go so we spoke to the clients and they were actually like well go ahead

and so

we got on a boat and we went over to Little St.

John's

and so you know I was just spent the day at the pool And at the pool, I observed an older man there with a couple young girls.

They were blonde.

And the girl who took me was blonde.

And I started noticing I was a little kind of out of place.

But

everything was fine.

I got to know the girls.

We played in the pool.

We played in the ocean.

And we actually had a really fun day.

And then we got ready later on for dinner and

went to this beautiful long dinner table, lots of delicious food and seafood.

had a really great time talking with the other young girls.

And

that's when, you know, this charming man walks up and says, hi, I'm Jeffrey.

And, you know, kisses me on the cheek, sits down right next to me and begins to, you know, focus in on me.

He had already known the other girls there.

So he was just asking questions and wanted to know a little bit more about my life and where I grew up.

And I told him, you know, I lived in England.

as a child because my father was in the Air Force and we traveled around a lot in Europe.

And he said, oh, do you want to meet a prince and I was just like sure and so at that moment there was a man that was walking up I recognized him from the man from the pool

and just met him briefly and then he walked away and then Jeffrey would ask me questions about

my family and my relationship with my father and how close I was to him these kind of questions that

I triggered me a little bit at the time because I didn't have a very close relationship with my father.

And I think he could sense that.

And

so we spoke kind of a deeper conversation that you don't normally have with a man.

So he made me feel really comfortable and

almost like he cared about me in a weird way.

And I don't know, he just had this mentorship quality about him, asking about my dreams and aspirations.

And I felt like I had a really great conversation with him.

And I felt good about the situation at that point.

So finished up with dinner and then went back to our quarters and got ready for bed because it was the evening.

We were going to spend the night there and then head back to our island

and photo shoot early that next morning.

So I remember being on the

sitting on the bed with the other young model and talking to her.

And then there was a knock at the door.

And one of the other young girls walked in and said, you know, Jeffrey's ready for his massage.

And at that point, I just looked at the other girl and was like, what's going on?

Like, I don't know how to do a massage.

And she's like, oh, well, Jeffrey just likes massages.

It's kind of what we have to do.

I wasn't really expecting for you to do that, but I guess he likes you and we're just going to have to go do it.

And so I kind of argued a little bit with her because I just thought it was kind of weird.

And, but I ended up going with her and walked across, you know, the island to where Jeffrey's quarters were in his bedroom.

And

we walked into that room.

and you know he was lying down on a massage table naked and uh

you know had this little silly grin come in and um was very playful

the energy shifted a little bit it was now more personal questions like do you have boyfriend and and asking

a little like sexual things and um

you know, did a real massage

and taught me some massage techniques and

kind of, you know, it was uncomfortable.

But at that point, it was, it was just like a weird, creepy massage.

And then he turned over.

And that's when things got a little bit dark.

His demeanor changed.

And

I didn't feel really safe anymore.

And I didn't really know what was going on.

And I kept looking at her.

And she was just like, looking at me like you need to do this.

And so, you know, at that point, that's when he assaulted both of us together in that room.

Yeah.

So that's that's basically what happened on the island.

And we kind of just finished up and ran out of there.

And then did you leave the next day or did you go back to the where you were before, where with the where the client was?

Well, we had to stay the night there.

So we went back to the room and I remember, you know, staring at the ceiling the entire night, didn't sleep, like, what the heck just happened?

And I didn't really understand what was going on.

And I was scared to death that he was going to come back or there was going to be another knock on the door and it was going to get worse.

but it didn't that night.

I just, like you said, got on the boat, went back to the photo shoot, did my job, flew back to New York City.

Did he try to contact you afterwards?

Was there further kind of communication or contact that took place?

Yeah, and this is the part of the story I really like people to understand about Epstein and his world.

You're not getting away from his world.

So once you've been abused by him,

and I actually saw someone on the island that day, so I was kind of in and wasn't getting away.

I didn't know that at the time, but I, his, his, the youngsters, well, sorry, those secretaries that worked for him would call me profusely.

They would call me every single day saying, Jeffrey really, you know, liked you.

He thought you were powerful, he thought you were a great all these compliments to get me to go back and meet with him at his Upper East Side home.

And I just refused every single day.

It went on for months, and they were basically harassing me.

And

one day Jeffrey called me and he just said to me, Lisa, I remember what you said on the island that your dream was to be a Ford model.

And I know Katie Ford and she's a good friend of mine and I would love to send you over there.

He told her about you and, you know, you just need to go meet with her.

And I was like

thinking, okay, he's not a bad guy.

He wants to help me out.

He listened to me.

Maybe that was just like my fault.

Maybe I was flirty.

I don't know.

I had just, you know, victims just blame themselves in these kinds of situations.

I think it's a coping mechanism just to say, oh, maybe he's not bad.

And

so I just did what he said because it was the biggest goal for me.

I told him that on the island.

And I went and met with Katie Ford a couple days later, and she signed me up and

you know, got into Katie's world at that point,

thinking at the time that, you know, I've made it and this is, this is like the next step for me and this is what I deserve.

And I just started seeing Jeffrey more in a

light of mentor and helper like he presented himself in the beginning.

And Katie Ford said, I love Jeffrey and everyone that I would meet in New York at that time also did love and adore and took and spoke very highly about Jeffrey Epstein at that time.

So I was starting to get a little confused about him, but I never forgot what had happened.

And then what happened next?

When did the kind of communication stop with Epstein in that world?

Was it around the arrest?

When did communications really cease?

Oh, no, it didn't stop after that.

Because now I was in the modeling industry world.

There's a very well-known sex trafficking ring that was going in the modeling industry world, John Luke Burnell, you know, John Casablanca, you know, Katie, and many others that were sending young girls to Jeffrey.

And Jeffrey was also, you know, would use, you know, I know, you know, Victoria's Secret.

I have a part ownership.

And so there was a lot going on in that world.

And that's actually when I spoke out at Capitol Hill, I brought that into it so people can be aware what was going on during that time.

Jeffrey would call me up and say, I have an audition for you.

Put me on a plane, go travel for an audition.

who was with a very powerful producer or a director at the time.

And I'm thinking it's an audition.

Found out many years later, the same, many girls were sent to the same producers directors or people in Hollywood for an audition but it was a lot more it ended up being a lot more than that

I also have an NDA with a with a celebrity a very big celebrity

that Jeffrey had sent me to for like a party and

later on something terrible happened.

So there were things that were going on that I was just like, what is going on?

Then to answer your question, I had a young friend who was blonde, who was a beautiful, ambitious young woman who knew Jeffrey at that time.

And she came to me crying one day and said, you know, you don't really understand who Jeffrey is.

And I'm like, I'm starting to get a,

I don't understand what's going on here either.

So we started talking about it.

And she said she was made to have sex with someone.

And she could, she just spiraled out of control.

And

the young girls at the time, we just all started talking and

started to figure out something that's going on.

And that's when the Vanity Fair article was released with him flying with Bill Clinton to South Africa, Kevin Spacey.

And

then shortly after he was arrested.

So

he started unraveling through those years and getting more exposed

in that world and people starting to figure things out.

And then, of course, the major cover-ups that were happening.

So as you brought the other survivors together and you all started kind of talking and sharing these experiences,

what were some of the themes, if you will, that came up kind of over and over again?

It seems that this was a highly structured, kind of an organized thing.

You arrive at the island, there's the,

they

impress you with the pool and

owning an island.

Then the dinner takes place where he does the routine.

He seems to be asking certain questions to determine family relationships.

You know, are you close with your parents?

Things like that.

Have the initial sexual assault take place and then afterwards utilize a victim or survivor to then send to the other.

rich people and other celebrities fake auditions and things like that.

And again, it seems highly structured.

It's why I wanted to talk to you about this too, is just so that people understand

the way this sex trafficking and organization worked.

It was methodical.

It was,

there were levels to it.

There were lieutenants and there were generals and there were different tiers of the people who young models were being pushed to to be sexually assaulted.

Yes, you just summed it up right there.

And that's why I spoke out originally.

And you're going to understand this is 15 to 20 years later for a lot of us survivors.

So back then we were kind of figuring things out, but we had no idea the magnitude of what really was going on.

And we wanted to get on with our lives and and most of us we got on with our lives became mothers and a lot of us work in this advocacy world uh or became therapists and

and but it wasn't until he died in 2019 i mean until he died it was when I realized okay wait a second now I feel safe enough to start like understanding what happened to me back then.

It was always so confusing and there was never anyone to really talk to about it.

So it was Virginia Duffrey who spoke out and said, I was trafficked to,

she has a long list of men.

And when she was saying these men, I remember seeing some of those men.

So I believed her.

And I had a friend also who was trafficked to the same one.

And so I said, you know, I want to support this woman.

And not knowing what I was getting into at the time, and I started speaking out of documentaries.

And then slowly I had to start telling my story.

And I wasn't ready for it because I had so much to support the other women.

I wasn't really ready to start saying I was abused too, because I didn't understand my role in it.

I always felt like it was my fault, and I didn't know how to get out of it.

I just was so confused about it until we start learning about the grooming and how all these young women were just groomed by him, masterfully, masterfully manipulated and groomed by the best of all time who had enablers and all these other people helping him.

And Jeffrey was a a fiend.

He was a sex fiend.

All he talked about was sex.

He had to get off six to eight times a day, young woman going into his Upper Eastside mansion six to eight times a day.

And a lot of the girls knew about his creepy massages, but we didn't speak further on how, and this is common amongst serial predators.

Most of the Larry Nassar, you know, the the doctor for the gymnast, like none of them, they would say, oh, you're getting this weird doctor thing.

No, but no one spoke about it until many years later.

When someone had the courage to speak up, then it's like, Oh, that's what's happening to me, too.

And when I spoke, when I spoke to these survivors that were underage at the time, I was like,

Okay, I was in my early 20s, like hundreds of others, but it was the exact same type of abuse that he was doing.

It was the exact same MO with the massage turning into an assault.

So I just started speaking out and

gained confidence and through therapy.

And

I just was building into this powerful woman who wanted to make a difference.

So that's kind of what led up to today.

So you've spoken Capitol Hill.

It's important for you and the survivors you were with to have these files released to bring transparency to what's been taking place.

Tell us why that's important.

Just so people,

it may seem obvious, but it may not be obvious.

Why do you want to see those files get released and bring transparency there?

Well, really for me, it's just because people are so confused about what's going on.

Not only us survivors are still confused, but like the transparency, what is really going on.

Everyone makes it about Trump and Epstein.

Okay, maybe there's something there.

And about Epstein, but it's about this whole ring of men.

The only person in jail is Ghelane, a woman.

So where are all the other men that were benefiting and profiting from all of this?

That's what makes me upset because us survivors, we know that they were there.

We saw them.

We know that we're royalty princes, very powerful people in academia and tech.

And

we saw them at parties.

They knew what was going on.

Why aren't they exposed?

And people say, well, why are you speaking out now?

Well, we're pissed off now because nothing has happened.

And

yeah,

it's just a frustrating thing for me.

So I'm at the point where it's like, I'm at my wit's end standing on Capitol Hill.

It was more just like, look, I'm not going to sit up here and just tell my sob story like everybody else is.

We need to do something about it.

You think you have the power?

I mean, you don't think that we have the power too?

You don't think that we understand what's going on here?

So it was really just to say,

you need to do something because we also have the power to do something.

And as you saw, look how many people stood up for us, too.

Absolutely.

I mean,

the country's standing up for you.

I mean, the frustrating thing is that most of the country standing up for you and saying, release these files.

And it shouldn't be a political thing.

Just release the files and support the survivors.

It should be very, very simple thing.

I mean, it should be the obvious thing.

Now, the Speaker of the House, Speaker Johnson, he often invokes the victims and the survivors.

He says, the reason that we can't release these files is I'm looking out for the survivors here and the victims.

He said that over, thus we can't release the files.

So what would you say there to Speaker Johnson or anybody who invokes the name of survivors as the reason why they're not releasing the files?

Well, I think there's something to be said that's very truthful when Johnson says that is because

what they do know involves a lot of survivors that were underage and some children.

So maybe in some ways they do want to protect that.

I've always said it goes very dark.

And so a lot of times

what they're going to release, the real evidence and the real stuff that's out there, a lot of people probably aren't really ready to see.

And there are young survivors

that were abused.

And so in a way, there might be some protection of the survivors.

We do collectively understand that.

And

many of us or many young women or children at the time were probably on those, in those records or in those videotapes, from my understanding.

So maybe there is some type of protection and maybe there's taking time to really figure out how to handle this.

And then we have, you know, the very powerful people who don't want anything released as well.

So there's probably some protection there, major protection there.

Has there been any effort to try to talk with them or speak with

the FBI?

I mean, they spoke with Delane,

but there hasn't seemed, at least.

Up until now, I've heard that they hadn't returned the calls of survivors or haven't set meetings with survivors, because perhaps one of the ways to address all of these concerns would be to speak to the survivors directly and figure it out.

And, you know,

can we redact the names of the victims?

And obviously, we shouldn't be showing the videos of sexual assault and rape of anybody.

So there's a way not to release those, but also release the names of the powerful men, because I can't see how, I can't see the justification for invoking the names of survivors for not releasing the information on the sex trafficking ring that's still out there today.

I certainly get, let's make sure

survivors that don't want their names out there or don't want their images out there.

Sure, absolutely.

But on the sex trafficking ring, these men are still out.

These people are still, a lot of them are still alive out there, probably doing this right now.

Oh, yeah, that doesn't go away, right?

That addiction and that perversion doesn't go away.

It only gets stronger.

Has there ever been,

where does that stand with FBI DOJ meeting with you?

Have you requested meetings with them?

We have requested and they have reached out.

I don't think they're doing 100% full effort, but they...

They have reached out to a few survivors.

And,

I mean, we're in the process.

I mean, there is a confidential process in development that allows for survivors the opportunity to share what they know with people in DC.

So that

is an ongoing thing right now.

And what do you make of it when

to your point, I mean, look, was there a Trump-Epstein friendship relationship?

Yes.

grounding the story in a purely Trumpy,

is he in the files?

I don't know.

Maybe, who knows?

but the reality is, he seemed to have made it a lot about himself by himself making it about.

That's been the strange part is that he's very personalized this and said,

this is an attack on me, and this is a hoax, and this is an attack on me.

And so he's been one of the main people who have like, I was like, okay, we'll just release the files.

The survivors want the files released i just

when you regardless of whether the president was trump or some other person just the fact that the president of the united states

is using the word hoax and he could maybe say well i mean as it relates to i don't know but he's using the word hoax around a story that you described that is catastrophic, traumatic, and has impacted thousands of women in the worst way possible.

just don't use the word hoax around this.

Yeah, it was insensitive for him to say it like that.

I mean, I do see that he is getting extremely attacked.

And so now he's getting so he's relating everything to him.

And I do wish the press, the media, would stop attacking him so much so we can actually look at the others.

that are involved because when they do focus on him so much we're not getting answers of of what's going on with everyone else So

I can agree with him in that way of stop attacking him so we can shift the focus somewhere else.

And I don't know if that would help or not, but I just feel like every single interview is about the relationship with Trump.

And I'm trying to say there's so many more out there that we can focus on to get answers.

And

what's the message that you want out there more than that?

Just about like as you went to Capitol Hill, said you want the files released.

You want others,

in addition to Gheelane,

held accountable.

Let me ask you about that before this, because we haven't talked about Gheelane.

You know, Ghilane's acted like she knows nothing about this and that she's, you know,

barely even knew what was going on.

Like

when she spoke to the DOJ, she acted like she was not anywhere knowledgeable.

What did you make of that interview?

It was infuriating.

Gillaine was

the mastermind.

I know in the 90s, everyone, from what I've researched and have been told, that she was the mastermind in the 90s.

I think other people took over this whole operation in the 2000s, but

she knows everything.

I mean, everyone who was involved knows that she knows everything.

I think she just is just trying to, You know save grace at this point that she so she can get out and be free

But there there's a lot of survivors that were affected by her and abused by her so They're not standing down and they're they will not let her be released They will be a very big fight

What what message do you want to send to to everybody out there who you know you you have a survivor for survivors podcast.

You're going to be one of the people leading the sexual predators accountability Institute, which is a nonprofit to help other survivors.

So you've made this also part of your life work.

So what other message do you want to send out there to people?

Well, my message is always for survivors, just to own your story and be able to speak out and try to get the justice that you really do deserve,

whether it's through litigation or just through healing.

And on Monday, Governor Newson signed the Assembly Bill 250, which reopens the California adult window for another two years starting on January 1st of 2026.

So that's a big deal.

That's

a great start in the right direction for survivors to go back, whether it's 10, 20, 30 years, and be able to go after

and get justice

for what happened to them.

So I always stand for survivors.

My podcast is about, you know, survivor voices, and that's my mission.

Thank you so much for sharing your story with us.

And

I know it's hard to go back into some of those areas.

I should say, I don't know as a man, but

I can't even imagine.

There's no words for me to describe what you've been through other than for me to thank you about

what you're doing to bring attention to this.

And so when the website goes live for the Sexual Predator Accountability Institute, we'll make sure to promote that here and

tell other survivors where they can go to contact you as well.

And thank you for sharing your story, Lisa.

We appreciate you.

Thank you so much.

Lisa Phillips, everyone, and everybody hit subscribe.

Let's get to 6 million subscribers.

Thanks for watching.

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