Amid bipartisan pressure on U.S. President Donald Trump's administration to release additional files in the case of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, a claim spread online that survivors of the financier's abuse planned to hold a news conference on Sept. 3, 2025, in Washington, D.C.
The rumor circulated — often alongside a photo collage of eight women who accused Epstein of sex abuse — on platforms such as Facebook, X, Instagram and LinkedIn. Several posts claimed that some survivors would be speaking about their experience publicly for the first time.
People who have accused Epstein and his associate, Ghislaine Maxwell, of abuse did, in fact, hold a news conference on Sept. 3. Reps. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., and Ro Khanna, D-Calif., first announced the event in Aug. 11 social media posts as part of a push to pass their co-sponsored bill to release the so-called "Epstein files."
One of the lawyers representing the survivors, Brad Edwards, confirmed the accuracy of Massie's and Khanna's posts via an Aug. 26 email to Snopes. Live video of the news conference on Capitol Hill was available through various news media organizations. Thus, we've rated this claim true.
See the full news conference recorded by
The exact number of Epstein's victims is unclear, but there were significantly more than those who spoke at the news conference. The Department of Justice alleged in a July 2025 document that Epstein, who died by suicide in 2019 while awaiting trial for federal sex-trafficking charges, "harmed over one thousand victims."
The survivors and Giuffre's family all called on lawmakers to pass Massie and Khanna's Epstein Files Transparency Act after Republican Speaker of the House Mike Johnson reportedly sent lawmakers home early to stall a vote on the legislation. Massie filed a discharge petition on Sept. 2, a rare procedural tool to bypass Johnson and force a vote on the bill. As of this writing, four Republicans, including Massie, have signed the petition.
"I encourage my colleagues, please, there's over 200 Republicans who have not signed this discharge petition. We only need two of them to sign it. And every Democrat will sign it and that will get us the number we need to force this vote," Massie said (see 1:03:48).
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