Here's what Epstein survivors actually said about releasing 'client list'

After a group of survivors of abuse by the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein held a news conference on Sept. 3, 2025, in Washington, D.C., a claim (archived) circulated online that the group would release a list of the names of the disgraced financier's clients.

The hypothetical list of Epstein's clients to whom he allegedly trafficked underage girls has been a major topic of discussion during the second administration of U.S. President Donald Trump, whose connection to Epstein has been the subject of much speculation. In February 2025, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said the list was "sitting on my desk." However, a Justice Department memo in July 2025 said no such list existed.

On Sept. 3, the political commentator Benny Johnson shared an X post that featured video from the survivors' news conference, writing:

🚨BREAKING: Epstein victims and survivors announce they will be releasing their own client list: 

"We know the names. Many of us were abused by them. We will compile the names we all know were regularly in the Epstein world."
pic.twitter.com/aI7hCTaU8e

— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) September 3, 2025

Johnson's post had nearly 5 million views at the time of this writing.

The claim that the Epstein abuse survivors would release their own "client list" also circulated on Facebook (archived), Instagram (archived), Threads (archived) and Bluesky (archived).

However, while Lisa Phillips, one survivor who spoke at the news conference, said survivors had been "discussing" creating their own list of Epstein's clients, she also said that the survivors would "confidentially compile" that list and that they might not share it with the public. "We're not quite sure, you know, how we're going to release that or even if we're going to," Phillips said. 

Given the above, we've rated the claim that the survivors announced they would release the list false.

We reached out to Edwards Henderson, the law firm representing the Epstein abuse survivors, for clarification on the status of the list and await a reply.

At the news conference, Brad Edwards and Brittany Henderson, two lawyers representing the Epstein abuse survivors, explained that the women feared backlash or legal inaction if they publicly named the people they knew received trafficked girls from Epstein.

"Most of the individuals, the victims, are very scared to say these names because they could get sued. They're going to get attacked, and nobody protected them the first time and that was against one person," Edwards said.

While Phillips, Edwards and Henderson did not promise to release a list if the survivors compiled it, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who also spoke at the news conference, said she would read out the list on the House floor if the survivors allowed it.

Rep. Thomas Massie, who hosted the Sept. 3 news conference along with Rep. Ro Khanna, made an X post (archived) on Sept. 3 stating that both he and Greene had offered to read the survivor's list out on the Congress floor, where the representatives would be protected from prosecution by the Constitution's Speech or Debate clause. Massie repeated these statements during a Sept. 4 appearance on CNN.

Survivors at our press conference announced they are privately compiling their own Epstein list.

They would be sued into homelessness for naming names, but @RepMTG and I are willing to name names in the House of Representatives under Constitutional "speech or debate" immunity.

— Thomas Massie (@RepThomasMassie) September 3, 2025

Epstein died by suicide in 2019 while awaiting trial for federal sex-trafficking charges. According to the July 2025 Justice Department memo denying the existence of an official client list, investigators believe he "harmed over one thousand victims."