UltraViolet Action Reacts to Reports of Trump Administration’s Failure to Release Epstein Files

For Immediate Release: December 19, 2025

UltraViolet Action Reacts to Reports of Trump Administration’s Failure to Release Epstein Files

UltraViolet Action, a leading national women-led gender-justice organization responsible for numerous impactful victories against sexual predators like Harvey Weinstein, R Kelly, and Bill O’Reilly, released the following statement after U.S. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche announced that the Department of Justice will not meet the deadline to fully release the Epstein files as required by law under the Epstein Files Transparency Act.

“If the Trump administration had its way, they would undo the sacrifice of survivors who came forward to demand transparency and accountability, as well as all those abused by Epstein who were unable to,” said Elisa Batista, Campaign Director at UltraViolet Action. “Trump’s failure to release the Epstein files is an insult to survivors and a further stain on an administration that continuously bends over backwards to protect abusers—and just violated the Epstein Files Transparency Act to do so. We will continue to fight alongside the brave survivors—many of whom were young girls when they were abused by Epstein—who took great risk to reveal Epstein’s globe-spanning sex trafficking network.”

For decades, survivors had raised the alarm on Epstein, who at the time of his death faced charges for serial sexual predation, abuse, and criminal networks. Despite these terrible crimes and having been convicted of soliciting sex from a minor in 2008, powerful people continued to befriend and enable him. MAGA political leaders used his horrific crimes to rile up their base—treating survivors as political footballs—before trying to bury his awful legacy altogether following the release of private emails alleging Trump himself personally knew several of the survivors who’d been abused and trafficked. A key whistleblowing survivor, the late Virginia Roberts Giuffre, was recruited by Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell at Trump’s Mar-o-Lago Club.

The failure to release all the files today is not just a subversion of our democracy—the Epstein Files Transparency Act was passed by Congress with overwhelming bipartisan support and then signed by Trump himself—but also a final betrayal of the more than 1,000 women and girls whose lives were completely upended and forever altered by Epstein’s serial sexual abuse and criminal network.

“Survivors have kept alive this campaign for transparency and accountability, even as Trump and his allies do everything they can to stop it, including outright disregarding the rule of law,” Batista said. “MAGA politicians think we’ll sit idly, that we’ll disengage. They’re wrong—this doesn’t end here.”

UltraViolet Action has been a leader in the movement to hold abusers accountable and end gender-based violence, fighting alongside survivors and achieving victories against sexual predators like Harvey Weinstein, Bill O’Reilly, and Andrew Tate. As part of its solidarity with survivors, the organization has publicly fought for the release of the Epstein Files, including releasing a petition, while also demanding the resignation of U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi.

“We won’t stop fighting until survivors and the public get the transparency and accountability they deserve,” Batista said. “Every day Trump is allowed to hide the Epstein files is another day justice is denied. We now call on members of the House Oversight Committee to do the right thing and hold the Department of Justice accountable for failing to adhere to the Epstein Files Transparency Act, and urge them to release all the files they have access to.”

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UltraViolet Action works directly to mobilize constituents and lawmakers and is a 501(c)(4) organization working to change sexist policies, practices, and beliefs.

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