‘We have power together’: For Epstein survivors, a day of emotion and triumph

By MJ Lee, Nicky Robertson, CNN

(CNN) — The scrum outside of the Cannon office building early Tuesday morning slowly grew in size, eventually ballooning to several dozen women. Every time someone new arrived, there was an eruption of hugs and cheerful greetings.

The scene could have easily been a joyful reunion of old friends.

But the group was made up of the survivors of Jeffrey Epstein, forever bonded by their trauma and abuse at the hands of the convicted pedophile. The women had once again descended on Washington, DC, to hold a press conference and plead with lawmakers to vote to release the Epstein files.

Dani Bensky, who met Epstein when she was a young ballerina, said she had managed to get just a few hours of sleep the previous night. She had spent the evening with the family of the late Epstein victim Virginia Giuffre, making the most out of the fact that they are rarely in the same place at the same time. It was past midnight when she realized she still hadn’t written out the remarks she would need to make at a press conference just hours later.

“Who writes a speech at one o’clock in the morning the night before? Ai yai yai, rookie mistake on my part,” Bensky said lightheartedly after the press conference, as she quickly made her way to a meeting that was scheduled with a lawmaker. Her fellow survivors, walking alongside her, were quick to reassure her that she had done just fine.

Throughout the day, the women stayed close together much like this — there to offer each other pep talks and reminders to drink water and eat; quietly squeezing one another’s hands; and making sure nobody got lost in the maze of hallways on Capitol Hill as they hoped for good news.

‘Can we give you a hug?’

In the late morning, the women found themselves consoling Republican Rep. Nancy Mace.

The South Carolina congresswoman walked out into the foyer of her office in the Longworth building in tears. She has been ensnared in a legal battle of her own after accusing her ex-fiancé of crimes including physical assault, rape and sex trafficking — allegations he strongly denies.

“You’ve given me hope that one day I might get justice,” Mace told the Epstein survivors. “It’s very raw for me.”

“Can we give you a hug?” one woman jumped in to ask.

“Yes, I would love a hug,” Mace responded, which prompted several women to take turns embracing the lawmaker.

Mace was one of only four House Republicans to support a discharge petition to force a House vote on the Epstein files. When an Epstein survivor told the congresswoman that the group had been holding their breath and hoping Mace wouldn’t cave to political pressure and abandon her support for the bill, Mace responded: “Yeah, I ran out of fucks to give a long time ago.”

“We rarely get this chance. This moment is historic,” she said. “Women never get this chance.”

Annie Farmer, who said she was 16 when Epstein and his accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell abused her, told CNN it was impossible for her now to imagine going through this experience alone.

“Every time a large group gathers, it completely changes the dynamic and the experience,” Farmer said. “It really does move us from feeling fearful to feeling like we are feared. We have power together.”

Her sister, Maria, is one of the earliest known Epstein accusers. As Farmer made her way from meeting to meeting on Tuesday, more than once, she was on the phone, keeping her sister apprised of developments.

At 2:43 p.m., the gavel came down in the House — the Epstein bill had passed on an overwhelming 427-1 vote.

As soon as she stepped out of the House gallery after passage, Farmer was back on her phone, calling Maria to share the news.

“It was just incredible to hear her voice and to be able to tell her it passed and it happened and you were such a big part of it,” Annie said.

‘It kills me that she’s not here’

One Epstein victim was not present on Capitol Hill on Tuesday but her presence could be felt everywhere that the group of survivors went.

Giuffre, one of the most prominent victims of Epstein’s sex-trafficking ring, died by suicide in August. In her posthumously published memoir released last month, she wrote about having been lent out to an endless stream of wealthy and powerful people. “I believed that I might die a sex slave,” she said.

When Giuffre’s brother, Sky Roberts, spoke at the survivors’ press conference and credited his sister for having helped to advance the fight for accountability and transparency, tears streamed down the faces of Giuffre’s fellow victims standing behind Roberts.

“Sissy,” Roberts said. “You didn’t just make a small dent. You made a monumental impact, a resounding statement that echoed across the world. You built an unbreakable wall, a barrier that will protect future generations from the horrors of abuse.”

Bensky, who credits Giuffre for having shaped her own decision to go public with her Epstein story, said she has wondered what Giuffre would have made of this moment.

“It kills me that she’s not here to see it,” Bensky said. “It’s so wrong that she’s just not here. It’s kind of devastating to think that we’re doing this without her.”

Many of the other survivors wore brightly colored butterfly pins on their lapels on Tuesday in Giuffre’s memory. For Bensky and Farmer, their green and pink jeweled brooches were all the more meaningful because they were gifts given to them by Roberts.

“Virginia chose the symbol of the butterfly because of the metamorphosis and this real belief she had that there could be post-traumatic growth — that you could go through something like this and come out the other side and have so much to give and share,” Farmer told CNN. “And that’s what she did.”

After the passage of the House’s Epstein bill, the women gathered in the early evening to hold a vigil honoring all of Epstein’s victims, including those who have passed. It was right around when Farmer was paying tribute to Giuffre that Bensky got a whisper in her ear: The Senate had decided to pass the Epstein bill immediately.

Many of the survivors had assumed that the bill’s path through the Senate — and to President Donald Trump’s desk — could be long and arduous and had been preparing for another major battle.

“Words will never ever be able to describe this day,” Bensky said. “We just feel like we never have gotten the win, and we got the win. And that feels so good.”

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CNN’s Jeremy Moorhead and Andrew Christman contributed to this report.