Epstein survivors back Talarico, urge Paxton to sue DOJ over redacted files

DALLAS (Nexstar) — Victims and survivors who say they were abused by Jeffrey Epstein are supporting Democratic State Rep. James Talarico in his bid for Texas Senate over Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton. Talarico and the survivors also called on Paxton to use his current office to sue the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) over their Epstein file redactions.

In May, the Donald J. Trump and Jeffrey Epstein Memorial Reading Room opened in New York City, featuring the entire printed version of the released Epstein files. On Thursday, the 3,437 books lined an event space in Dallas, the first stop on the exhibit’s swing state tour.

The timing appeared intentional. The day before, President Donald Trump spoke for nearly two hours just a few miles away at his GOP midterm convention. The exhibit features a timeline showing the relationship between Trump and Epstein over the decades.

“When did pedophilia become a partisan issue?” Talarico said to reporters at the exhibit. “When did holding sexual abusers accountable become controversial? When did Ken Paxton decide it was okay to ignore these survivors?”

In response to Talarico and the Epstein survivors, the Paxton campaign questioned the authenticity of Talarico’s concerns.

“If James Talarico was really concerned about the survivors of Epstein’s horrific crimes, his campaign infrastructure wouldn’t have taken over $11.5 million from Epstein’s long time associate, Reid Hoffman. Now, James Talarico continues to lie to Texans about his radical record with the help of Epstein money. It’s disgusting that the man claiming to run a campaign against billionaires is bought and paid for by Epstein’s billionaire buddy,” Campaign spokesperson Madison Cercy said.

While Hoffman has donated a significant amount to Lone Star Rising PAC, a Talarico-aligned Super PAC, he has not donated to Talarico’s campaign directly. By law, Talarico cannot coordinate with the PAC, including who the PAC decides to accept money from.

Talarico’s campaign also noted that the candidate has pledged to help ban super PACs should he defeat Paxton.

Survivor Sharlene Rochard also accused Paxton of not accepting an invitation to meet with the survivors.

Rochard’s criticism came after another survivor, Annie Farmer, said Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, also declined to meet with the group this summer regarding concerns about Trump’s attorney general pick, Todd Blanche. According to Politico , Blanche met with Epstein associate and convicted sex offender Ghislaine Maxwell right before her move to a minimum-security federal prison camp in Texas.

“Texans need leaders that will send a strong message to survivors of these crimes that no matter how powerful the perpetrator, accountability will be pursued,” Farmer said.

In his brief remarks, Talarico made two direct asks of Paxton.

“Today, I am calling on Ken Paxton to stop ignoring these survivors and their requests to meet,” he said. “And I’m calling on him to use his power as attorney general to sue the Department of Justice over the mishandling of these Epstein files.”

The survivors and Talarico raised concerns on two fronts. Talarico expressed concerns over 2.5 million files that have not been released, while survivors also criticized the Department of Justice for failing to redact some victims’ personal information.

Dani Bensky says she experienced this firsthand. The former ballerina met Epstein at 17 years old and says she was pressured to recruit new girls in exchange for preferential medical treatment for her mother.

“Every single time that it was an awful heinous crime, the email address is redacted and you can’t see who it’s coming from,” she said. “But all of my identifying information was out there, like my name, my phone number, where I went to school, where I was working.”

She said nude photos of young girls were also released by the DOJ.

“(The exhibit’s director) was walking BBC through the files and he opened a page just to show it’s not a prop book… opened up a page and it was like 800 photos of young nude girls. So who is our government protecting?”