Inside Speaker Johnson’s Closed-Door Meeting With Epstein Survivors

Exclusive details on what was said behind the scenes — and why it could determine whether Congress ever releases the Epstein files.

Epstein Survivor Annie Farmer with Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) on Capitol Hill. (Photo credit Annie Farmer)

Welcome back to The Red Letter.

Thank you to everyone who sent notes of support after I announced my first real break since launching The Red Letter community in March. I’ll admit it was hard to step away from reporting. I was even tempted to send out a note about a 75-pound Lobsterzilla at the Menemsha Fish Market in Martha’s Vineyard that my friend Adam Green tried to save. He offered to put together a “Lobsterzilla Liberation Jar,” where people could throw in donations to pay the market to throw the lobster back into the sea.

Of course, there was a dark side to the story. Just as Green thought he was doing the right thing by saving this exceptional specimen, he learned that the animal had only achieved that size by essentially being a “sea rapist”—and that it needed to be killed. Those are Green’s words, not mine.

I had to investigate further, so Green forwarded me an email exchange with owner legendary owner Stanley Larsen at the Menemsha Fish Market, who wrote back:

“Most lobsterillas [sic] are males on account that they mate right after the female sheds her shell and she is very soft. The males gang up on her and fight, often damaging her, killing her and eating her. The big male sit at the bottom of the ocean and eat anything they can catch, including smaller lobsters. One of those 75 year old lobsters has probably eaten hundreds of other lobsters. So I believe we are doing the bio-mass a favor by eliminating them. We have released hundreds of smaller lobsters that are the same size as the local lobster population. We also mark them, mostly females, so the fishermen will release them to reproduce again. Thank you for your consideration and we are happy to accept donations towards the release of female lobsters if you might be so inclined.”

So of course, I know what you’re thinking: no matter where I go, there it is. I only hope this kind of behavior isn’t what pop-psychologist Jordan Peterson prescribes to men when he encourages them to mimic dominant male lobsters—“stand up straight with your shoulders back”—as a way to climb higher in the hierarchy.

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Okay, enough about lobsters. I’m back on solid ground and heading to Washington, D.C. this morning to cover the press conference and rally that Jeffrey Epstein survivors are holding on the steps of Capitol Hill as they pressure lawmakers to release the files. I woke up at an ungodly hour—4 a.m.—to make it for this event, because as POLITICO finally pointed out, this is a crime scene.

In Playbook this morning, Jack Blanchard and Dasha Burns wrote:

“You could almost forget, amid the political feeding frenzy this summer over the non-release of the Epstein files, that at the heart of this case lie the most heinous crimes imaginable. That stark reality will be brought jarringly back into focus here in D.C. this morning when we hear directly from 10 of Jeffrey Epstein’s survivors in what should be a remarkable news conference on the steps of the Capitol.”

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I’ve always seen this as a story of two-tiered justice and a government cover-up of a sprawling criminal operation—despite political consultants framing it as merely a partisan issue. Maybe I don’t see it through those partisan lenses because I know Democrats and Republicans alike will look bad once the files are finally revealed.

For now, survivors plan to tell their stories on the Capitol steps not because they want to be “protected” by Speaker Mike Johnson, who claims he’s looking after the “innocent,” but because they want him to put a vote on the floor to release the files. It will be extraordinary if Congressman Thomas Massie (R-KY) can scrape together a few more votes to force the bill out of the House Oversight committee and onto the House floor—despite Johnson’s best efforts to kill it for President Trump, who wants this story to go away. A White House official has told CNN that voting for the bill would be viewed as “a very hostile act to the administration.” Johnson even changed the summer recess schedule to try to kill the bill.

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🔒 Subscribe to read the details of what happened behind closed doors in Speaker Johnson’s meeting with survivors. What was revealed about who’s in the files and what Congressional leaders promised the Epstein survivors they would do about it.