In a rare display of bipartisan unity, two Republican members of Congress joined Democrats Tuesday night in drawing attention to the Jeffrey Epstein scandal during President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address — even as the administration faces mounting scrutiny over its handling of the case files.
Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina attended the speech wearing a butterfly pin that once belonged to Virginia Giuffre Roberts, one of Epstein’s most prominent accusers, who died by suicide last year.
Mace said the pin was given to her by Giuffre’s brother as a symbol for every victim still fighting for justice. She called the survivors’ presence at the address “courageous” and “vindicating,” adding that the Epstein saga should not end “until people go to jail.”
Meanwhile, Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky sat alongside Mace on the Republican side of the chamber in a show of support for survivors.
Massie had originally planned to cross the aisle and sit with Rep. Ro Khanna, a California Democrat and co-author of the Epstein Transparency Act, but those plans shifted before the speech began.
The bipartisan gesture came as dozens of Democratic lawmakers brought Epstein survivors and their family members as guests to the address. Khanna invited Haley Robson, who has said Epstein trafficked her beginning at age 16.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer brought survivor Dani Bensky. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries hosted survivor Marina Lacerda.
Rep. Jamie Raskin brought Sky and Amanda Roberts, the brother and sister-in-law of Virginia Giuffre Roberts. In total, an estimated 10 to 12 survivors were present in the Capitol.
The protest unfolded against the backdrop of a damning NPR investigation published the same day, which found that the Justice Department had withheld or removed more than 50 pages of Epstein files from public view — pages specifically related to allegations that Trump sexually abused a minor around 1983.
The investigation revealed that the FBI interviewed the accuser four times, but only one of those interview memos was included in the millions of pages released to the public, and it was heavily redacted.
Rep. Robert Garcia, the ranking Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, confirmed the findings after reviewing unredacted evidence logs at the Justice Department.
He announced that Oversight Democrats would open a parallel investigation into what he called the DOJ’s apparent illegal withholding of FBI interviews with the survivor.
The Justice Department pushed back, insisting that nothing had been deleted and that any documents not published were either duplicates, privileged, or related to ongoing federal investigations. Trump has claimed the Epstein files have “totally exonerated” him.
Beyond the Capitol, more than 30 Democratic lawmakers skipped the address entirely to attend a “People’s State of the Union” rally on the National Mall, organized by MoveOn and MeidasTouch.
A separate “State of the Swamp” event hosted by DEFIANCE.org featured celebrities including Robert De Niro and Mark Ruffalo.
Survivor Dani Bensky, speaking before the address, directed pointed questions at the administration. “Where are the rest of the files? The truth must come out.
Why are there no investigations when there are plenty of people in these files to investigate?” she said. “This administration needs to do better.”
The evening made one thing clear: the Epstein case is not going away. With survivors refusing to be silenced, bipartisan lawmakers demanding transparency, and investigative journalists uncovering gaps in the public record, the pressure on the Trump administration to fully comply with the Epstein Transparency Act is only growing.
The question now is whether that pressure will translate into the accountability that survivors have been fighting for — some of them for decades.
