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Bulwark Takes
Epstein Survivor Asks: Will Any GOP Senators Do the Right Thing? (w/ Dani Bensky)
00:31:18
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- [00:01]
A
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B
Refreshers contain caffeine. Hi, Bill Kristol here. Thanks for joining us on Billboard on Sunday. I'm very pleased to be joined today by Danny Bensky, who testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee just 10 days ago. I guess it was. Right. And then was one of those who attended the private meeting with Todd Blanche that has gotten some publicity, but I'm sure Dandy will tell us more about it. Blanche testified last Wednesday, a week ago Wednesday. Dandy was one of those who testified on Thursday. Really worth going back and looking at the clips of that and the whole testimony, which wasn't that long. The senators didn't keep you that long. They should have kept you longer. But that's it. We can get to that. Anyway, thanks for joining me, Danny.
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C
Yeah, of course. Thank you for having me. I'm so sorry. I was having some sound issues there, so I missed a little bit of that. But yes, thank you for having me on.
- [01:16]
B
Nothing. Nothing. You don't know. You're now a dance teacher and educator and choreographer, I believe. And I'm just curious, I mean, how did you get into that? And my sense is the dance is booming among young kids. I mean, just is partly based on sort of family in Northern Virginia. Is that right? Is that right?
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C
It is. It definitely is. And I think, you know, dance saved my life more times than I can count. I think movement for me when I was young felt very much like, you know, my mom was a performer. I grew up in a family of performers. And so she was a bit of a stage mom. But, you know, so there was always this push into ballet and into dance. And ballet was, I found it was very confining. It was a lot of, you know, sort of body image issues came out of that. There were some issues that arise. And I felt like I was, it was really the place that I was groomed to have this experience with Jeffrey Epstein when I was older. And so part of my journey through dance education right now is trying to make it safer for younger kids and make it a more holistic process, practice and just making sure that we're giving kids autonomy and agency over their own body while preserving the art form. So I started in ballet and then I transferred into more musical theater. I worked for Disney for quite some time. And now there's a show that I've been working on for the last, like, 12 years, that Japanese musical. And so we went to Japan with that for the last couple of years. And now this program that I'm working with, I'm actually in Hawaii right now working with some of my favorite kids. They're just incredible. And we just did Hadestown with them, and it opened last night. So very relevant right now. And, you know, it's just always a wild thing for me to be working with kids this age because it was, you know, the time that I was being abused. And so I always hope to give them more of a safe haven. I think for me, I went through a lot of disassociation. And when I was at Jeffries, dance was an escape for me. It was the thing that I would go into my head and just start choreographing things when the abuse got really bad. And so coming out of that, I didn't want to dance, and it was sort of robbed for me for quite some time. And I really lost my identity for a while. And it wasn't until I came back to. I went to the Neighborhood Playhouse for a little while, and it wasn't until I got to the conservatory for acting that they forced me to take modern dance and ballet again. And I was able to come back to it for movement's sake. And there was so much joy in the storytelling. And so. So much of what I'm passionate about now is storytel with youth and using, like, maybe for those that don't have a voice, because I never felt like I did have a voice. For those that don't feel like they can speak, movement is usually the way in or can be a way in. So I think for our younger folks right now, it's really imperative that they're getting into these spaces and finding their voices whatever way they can.
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B
Oh, that's great. That's really moving and inspiring. Hadestown seems like we saw that actually on Broadway, I guess, just before the pandemic, I think, right at the beginning of 2020. And now there seems to be a movie version that I think Susan, my wife, was just saying we should try to go see, because I really enjoyed it. That seems pretty ambitious for younger kids. No?
- [04:36]
C
Yes. It's such an incredible show with such universal themes. But it was really wild to leave that process in the middle of choreographing the show and jump out and give testimony and come back and they're singing We Build a Wall. And it's all about this dictator that's taking over. And it's all about. There's a line in it that I remember walking into rehearsal the day after, you know, this whirlwind of being in D.C. for two days and coming back in. And the line that they were singing about is the way, like, the dice are loaded. The person that loads the dice always thinks the toss is fair. And I just was sitting there, like holding that for a moment and I was like, you know, this is what a year.
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B
Oh, my God. Well, thank you for testifying, which was courageous, of course, as so much of what you've done and your fellow Epstein survivors have done. But so tell you, I mean, I'm curious to hear about the sort of testimony. I think people have seen clips and read about it, but just what was it like to do? What surprised you about it? I guess you've testified before Congress or at least before members of Congress before, obviously. And then I want to also hear very much about the private meeting with Todd Blanche, which I guess was later at the end of the same day. Right. Things moved pretty fast that day.
- [05:41]
C
Yeah, they did. I mean, every time we're in Washington, D.C. it's such a whirlwind of. You kind of never know what is going to come of it. And you know, this roller coaster ride that we're all on. But the support of the survivors and the survivor sisterhood is so strong and it's so important. And so, you know, we did walk in sort of not knowing what we were going to hear from bl. We were there for both days. We listened to the first day of his testimony and there were just so many things that were like, it's not right. Like he. He was saying this moment about that the files, the mishandling of the files were like, basically they were mishandled. The redactions were terrible. They took them down, they put them back up. Redacted within 24 hours. And it's like we're all sitting there and we're like, that's so beyond inaccurate. Inaccurate. Like my lawyer called multiple times. My name was released in all three different batches. My name, my address, my phone number, where worked at the time. I mean, literally every identifying piece of information you could possibly have was released in the January document dump, which was already after my name was released in December. So it's like you're sitting there and talking to a group of survivors with all of our information. Like, I saw nude photos of Friends. Right. Like, it's. It was so devastating and the impact of that was so devastating. And to hear him just kind of flippantly say, like, oh, no, we fixed that. Like, everything's better. And you're like, in what world? Like, you just feel completely gaslit. And then it just continued. I mean, the testimony, the second day that I was able. I was able to give testimony, it was one of the hardest experiences that I've ever done and I've ever had to go through. Because, you know, usually we're in front of people that we've spoken to quite a bit. I mean, we're in senator and, you know, congressional leaders offices pretty regularly and we're meeting with people like Chairman Comer and he's been fabulous. And so we're having these sort of face to face interactions where it feels a little bit more like at least we're familiar with them. And so walking in now to this experience was a little overwhelming because here you are having, you know, having to talk about these really intimate, hard things in front of people that might not be such a friendly face after all.
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B
Yeah, no, you were great. And I guess you testified next to Liz lawyer and they decided to go after her for ridiculously. For doing her job for when she was in the Biden administration as pardon attorney. And they didn't have the nerve.
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C
She was interrogated more than Blanche was. Really at that point, it was like, who's. Like, is there a trial?
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B
Who's up for confirmation?
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C
Right, exactly.
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B
God. Well, you did a great job. And so you testified. And one of the things that came out of the testimony, I think, was that Senator Tillis said, well, he probably thought he couldn't vote for Blanche until or unless he met with you all. And so say a little bit about that was 10:30 in the morning and then by 4. How did that all work out? And tell us about that meeting, if you would.
- [08:33]
C
Wild. Yeah. I mean, starting with the moment with Tillis and even going back a little bit further, as I was giving testimony, I noticed that John Cornyn was really listening as well. And he left right after testimony. Testimony. But he was, he was very. I could feel the energy. I could feel him like sort of leaning in and listening. And I do think that there is real interest in trying to help us there. He has been like. Cornyn has been so amazing on sex trafficking and he has been somebody that's been such a proponent for putting away perpetrators in those crimes. So I am hoping that he's like, he, he felt like a hopeful moment Honestly, I didn't expect Tillis to turn and say what he said. I was really kind of like, okay, Cornyn might be the one that we can really talk to and get to the heartstrings about how horrible this has been for survivors and that it's not political. Because we always say that it's not political. But somehow when you meet with us, you need to feel it, right? Because we really are not here to be political pawns. And yet somehow we are always put into this arena, and it's so infuriating. So that's why we feel like it's so important to get in front of the senators and actually talk to them about our stories. So, anyway, so the moment with just feeling the energy from Cornyn was sort of hopeful. And then when Tilla spoke and he did say, you know, Blanche has to meet with you, it was just such a moment of relief because we haven't seen a whole lot of humanity in all of this. You know, Bonnie didn't even turn around when we were there last time. We. There's just been no empathy and no compassion and no seeing this case for the gravity and the weight that it actually holds. Because we're talking about, you know, 6 million files. We're talking about a perpetrator that died. But sex trafficking doesn't happen with one perpetrator. Right. And the only person that Todd Blanche has spoken to is. Has been moved to a lower security penitentiary. You know, so when you're just looking at facts, you're like, how is. How are they not taking this seriously? So when Tillis finally was. Definitely did say he. You need to meet with Blanche, we were just hoping that he really wants this to be a substantive meeting and not just the check the box moment. And so, you know, we were. I just remember, like, I was trying to hide my smile, not for any other reason than just feeling like, wow, he saw us. You know, he actually did. He is trying to do. You know, he's not just saying, okay, great, let's vote him in and just be done with this topic. Like, he actually is trying to talk to us. So that is great. But then, of course, we went to the meeting and I mean, talk about a check the box moment for Blanche. It was gaslighting palooza, as we like to call it.
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B
Now, say a little bit just how these people don't know. I don't know. How did the meeting happen? Where did it happen? What? How did it get set up?
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C
That was disorienting and a little bit chaotic. So I had Left the testimony. I was sitting there, and as I was leaving, this woman approached me and said, doj wants to meet with survivors now. And of course, I'm like, oh, gosh, we're doing this. We're doing this now. And so I turn over to the survivor sisters, and we're like, okay, we have to go to this meeting. And everything felt crushed and chaotic. And so we're like, okay, where are we meeting him? And they're like, oh, it's not Blanche. It'll be Ali Serrano, who is the head of sex crimes. And we're like, no, no, no, no, no. We've asked for meetings with Blanche for the last nine months. We want to meet with Blanche. And they're like, okay, well, we'll see what we can do. And so we went back to this little room, and everybody started to leave. You know, it was like, we're done with testimony. We all have lives, work and kids and all of our things. So we started to disperse. And then basically, they were like, okay, Blanche can meet with you right now. They're like, where? Right now? When? Right now? And they're like, it was like one one o' clock PM and it was like, the meeting's over by two, he has to be out by two. And you're like, by the time we get to the Hill, we're not even going to be able to see him. And so then we talked to them again, and they said, okay, fine, he can meet you at four. And so. But the whole thing was really just sort of meant to put us on our heels, I think a bit. They read reporting that survivors didn't show up. You know, survivors just ghosted. You know, Todd Blanche was like, that is not what happened at all. We were trying to make arrangements. We were trying to figure it out. And so we did. We went to the doj. We had this meeting, and when we went in, you know, we went in with very specific topics that we wanted.
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B
This was in a conference room at the DOJ or his own office.
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C
There were members, a couple members of the FBI there. He had some staffers there. We had our counsel on the screen, which of course, took us, like, 15 minutes to get up, which was a whole thing. Gotta love technology. But anyway, sitting there in silence with Todd Blanche for, like, 15 minutes while the thing isn't working was really. We were like, okay, can we please just talk? Like, I've never felt so squirmy. But anyway, so. But we went in there with a real list that we have been, you know, and Also, like I want to say we are, there's a core group of us that are really good advocates about, like, when to pass the ball. If Amanda and Sky, Virginia Dupree's family, say one thing, I know how to pivot, and I know that I can say something else and I can pass it to Liz Stein, who then, you know, we're strategic about it because we've done a lot of these meetings and we were thinking we were walking into another meeting where we would at least start to be heard, you know, where we could share a little piece of our stories. He would see human beings in front of him and maybe we could work together. And instead, it was so. Not that. I mean, right off the. The bat, it felt like he would argue everything. I mean, it was like we said, okay, so in the 6 million files. And you'd be like, 3 million. And we're like, okay. And we would start to be like, but there are more documents that are missing. We know that they're missing because there are training videos that just popped up. We have all, like, we were starting naming all the things, and then we're like, you know what? Not worth it.
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A
Move on.
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C
Next topic. We're not going to get anywhere with that. Right. And so, like, I love to use the analogy of, like, it felt like you were running into a brick wall and hoping a door was there, because at every turn, it was like he would just find the language and argue semantics. And you're like, this is not the point. Can we get back on track, please? So we started asking him about why Ghislaine Maxwell was transferred and what happened there. And his answer was like, people get transferred all the time. Survivors never know. Victims never know. Next question. But he definitely approached it with sort of this, like, you came in here, you're blindsiding me. We're like, well, just tell us what happened with their redactions. Why are you protecting perpetrators when all of our information is out there everywhere? There has to. To be some sort of. Like, we just need some sort of understanding. And he just. He basically shut down and would talk in circles. And so it was a very. It was a no win situation. And I think we walked out of there. I have never felt in my adult life since recovering from a lot of what happened to me when I was a girl, and I still live with ptsd. There are things that I can't recover from fully. But I would say that that meeting was one of the most, like, re. Victimizing things that's happened. It, like, because we Just had waited so long and we just needed so many answers about how our information really, like, I've lost jobs. I know other survivors have lost jobs. Like, there's so many. Like, this is our lives and it's real and it's, it's really a shame to be passed off. Like, I mean, he said just multiple times, like, what are you getting at? And it's like you're talking to survivors of sexual abuse, right? You're talking to people in this country who have been through quite a lot. And we haven't seen any investigation. Investigations be followed through on. Followed through on. We haven't seen you. You're actually obstructing the investigation in New Mexico. You're in the White House situation room talking about reputational harm as opposed to, you know, actually prosecuting anybody, which is your job. So there are so many issues that we were just trying to get to the bottom of. And instead it was just this dance of talking in circles and it was like just the gaslighting was out of control.
- [16:12]
B
That sounds terrible. I mean, it does sound honestly that even if he didn't sincerely, you know, want to help you much or to come particularly be more truthful or more honest or open, he could at least have been courteous. I mean, you'd think he might. It would be in his interest to be courteous and understanding and kick things down the road. Well, we'll take a look at that. And you know what I mean, it's crazy.
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C
It's like this is the largest sex trafficking ring that we have ever seen in modern day history. And we know that with sex trafficking, the demand has never slowed down. So my worry is that young girls, the girls that I teach, young people that I teach, are still exposed to this kind of harm. It's taken me a lifetime to get over this and I'm still not over it. And I think about them all the time and it's like, we have to make it safer. And that's really the fight in this. And so for him to sit there and try to play these games of like, President Trump says, the Democratic hoax, and now he's like sitting in circles, it's just like, it just feels so awful because you're like, this is our government. They're meant to protect us. They're meant to protect the American people. That should be where the interest is, not in reputational harm. And at every turn, it's just been highly disappointing and, yeah, just truly disheartening.
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B
It's a good point. That hasn't been Made enough. This isn't just about going back and doing justice and telling the truth, though. That's very important. It is about what happens going forward and what lesson people take from this whole episode. And right now, now the lesson, sadly, could be the US Government's not going to take this seriously. Right. If they're new, do such episodes.
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C
The Survivor Sisters and I always talk about the chilling effect about, if you watch this case unfold, would you want to come forward? If you had a perpetrator that was a position of power, would you want to step forward right now? And I think, honestly, I hope the answer is yes. For a lot of people. It's what I would tell my students to do. But unfortunately, I think it's a no. I think that it's because there is a massive chilling effect that is happening here. Like, you can't look at this case and say that the government is caring about victims of sexual abuse and trying to change it moving forward. There are perpetrators out there that are still walking around that are very powerful right now. Like, we know that there are people that Jeffrey Epstein trafficked other girls to that are out there. And we just, we need to find a way to remedy that. We need investigations to start. And like, we've walked into so many offices and been like, here are investigative leads. What can we do? Like, literally, you want to name the names? Here's the list of names. Like, we've had. There's an FBI document that literally has a list of names of people, and we bring it into every meeting that we go into. And so I think Comer's office is really working beautifully with us. So that's been great. And he did give two referrals to Blanche and the doj. And we asked about, you know, said, be your own party. Like, Comer just gave you referrals, like, this week. And he, his response was like, it wasn't in a letter. I'm like, who cares? Like, he referred somebody to you. Like, who cares how you get the referral if it's by phone or a letter and email? Like, like, the idea behind having people that, you know, like this just came up in testimony in the last couple of weeks with Sarah Cowell. And like, you, these two people were named. At least start there. Just. And I, what I kept saying to Blanche was just give us something in good faith, right? We need a good faith commitment from you, because you've never been on the side of survivors in this country. So, like, can you show us that you're going to start one investigation like one active investigation or even just meet with survivors separately with our counsel, if that's what you want, and talk to us about what we actually know, because these are our stories, these are our lives in the files. And his response was like, well, you need to go back to the FBI first. And it's like, why do you think we have 302s? Like, we've been going to the FBI for 30 years. Like, this is just. You're just passing us back off to the FBI. So it's just. It's so infuriating. And, you know, I just hope that we can find a way to have an ag that really does protect the American people. That's why I think he's just so beyond unfit for this role. I don't understand how, you know, for Senator Tillis, I mean, Senator Tullis is a businessman, right. So for him to be able to look at these numbers and see millions of files, like 30 years of victim testimony, you know, all of these numbers, and then to see nothing, like sex trafficking doesn't happen in a vacuum. Right. So you know that there are more perpetrators than just this one person. So I'm hoping that Senator Attilus does see that and just realize that he's. You know, Amanda and Sky love to say that Todd Blanche is bad for business. And he is. He's bad for business. He's bad for business. He does not care.
- [20:57]
B
Yeah. I mean, one thing as you're saying this occurs to me. People haven't quite made enough of, I think, is that what was their initials before 7 January, before the thing blew up, and there was the meeting in the Situation Room. And then he files Santa C. Maxwell and everything else. And then finally Congress forces the release of the files. What was their initial instinct? Their initial instinct on July 6th, as you well know, was the joint DOJ FBI memorandum saying, nothing to see here. We're closing it down, releasing nothing, nothing to see here. Which is very revealing, isn't it? I mean, what does that even mean? How is that possible? Almost, I want to say.
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C
Yeah. Well, the deeper you go into this, the more you see how much of a cover up there has been for so long.
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B
It was an attempted stonewall that sort of had to morph. The way I thought about it, it was a stonewall that didn't work. I mean, there was such an explosion after the July 6 memo, and then it morphed into a cover up, which then is harder. I mean, honestly, to do a cover up is harder, but you have to actually release some Documents and not others. You do your redactions, you pretend that there's nothing to investigate when everyone's looking at a bunch of documents that clearly suggest all kinds of investigative leads, as you say. So I think, but, but that was, it's very, it's worth remembering. That was their initial instinct. And that was presumably, I mean, you don't have a, in my experience in government, you don't have a joint Justice Department, FBI memo of the White House and the President don't sign off on it. You know, so that was from the top, you know.
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C
Yeah, I mean, this is what we're seeing a lot. Right. So Allison Gill just reported on. There were training videos that they had seen within the FBI and the training videos were never released. So, you know, as Todd Blanche sits here and tells us, 3 million instead of 6 million over and over again. And then we're hearing these reports of like, well, where are the training videos? And it's like, hello, that's what we're saying. There are proper agreements that are referenced in the, in the actual files. And then you can't find the proper agreements. We're missing part of Maria Farmer's report. Like, there are so many things that, like we have a list going that we've tabulated of all the things that are missing. And so for him, for him to then sit there with us in a closed door meeting and say 3 million, it's like, what are we talking about? You know, it's like, is he for real? Is this real life? So there were a lot of moments through the two days where I was like, this can't be real life.
- [23:11]
B
Where do you stand? If I could ask now with Wilbur Tillis and Corner in particular and then other members who aren't on the committee, if that's also, if you're in touch with some of them, what do you think? Are they going to meet with you? Are they going to be serious about the, those questions that you just raised?
- [23:26]
C
Well, this is a really big week for a lot of us. Many of us are going right back to D.C. this week and we are hoping to meet with Cornyn and Tillis. You know, I really do hope that they're serious about centering survivor voices and hearing survivors. I think that that was the hope. I hope that Tillis was really hoping for a substantive meeting there. So, yeah, we have reached out through World Without Exploitation who has been so instrumental in all of this, we would not be able to do what we're doing. They get us to the Hill all the time and so, yes, it will be on the Hill. And we are hoping that through world without exploitation we will set something up with them and we can share our stories and talk to them and actually bring them leads. And so they do understand what our fight is in this and why and that we're not just out here to air out trauma from 30 years ago or 20 years ago. You know, that's never been the goal. I know we were talking about on the Republican side, they were saying like, we should just do like these, these big like. And I'm the Democrats too. Let's do shadow hearings. Let's do these hearings where survivors open arenas where survivors can just tell their stories. And it's like, do you know how hard it is to tell a story over and over and over that is based in so much abuse and so much like, it's, I always say that it's like walking into your own coma because it's all the parts the, of that you wanted to black out and now you're in there trying to remember every single detail of what you tried to black out for all that time. Right? So it's, this is not a joyride for any of us. And none of us are out there just to say, like, here, everybody listen to this, right? It, we're, we're doing it because it's so important to be able to change it for the future. So I do hope that Cornyn and Tylus will both meet with us and you know, we've done everything that we know how to do at this point. Point. And I don't know, we'll see what happens on Thursday.
- [25:15]
B
Now you've been, you guys have done everything. And of course, even if he gets the committee, there are other members who might be concerned about this. Murkowski, Collins, others. And so it's not, not automatic you get confirmed. I am struck by what you say. I mean, it's such a good point that the idea that we don't know enough, that you all need to testify more is in a way is so ludicrous, is that we know a lot. I mean, right. I mean, there are very few criminal enterprises. I mean, it took a long time and a lot was covered up, attempted to be covered up and some still much nutty things still are covered up in terms of documents not being released. Having said all that by now, not particularly thanks to the US government, but thanks to Julie Brown and others and thanks to you all, we do know a heck of a lot. And so, and subsequent reporter reporting and so forth.
- [25:58]
C
So it's Over a thousand victims. How do we know that it's over a thousand victims? Well, we have FBI memoranda. We have three or twos. We have, like, I mean, to see the amount. And actually, we're going. We're to going. While we're in Washington, D.C. the redacted reading room is a place where you can see all of the files printed out. And just the enormity of that. It was in New York, and then it was in D.C. and now it's going on tour. So it will be coming to a variety of states across the US and there's a bookmobile, and they will literally take, you know, sections of the Epstein files and go on tour with them so that the US can see what this looks like. Because it's really important to feel the enormity of it because, you know, you can't put it into words. And when it's just online, it sort of, you know, everything online is. It's passing. But to stand there and feel the magnitude of, like, there is so much evidence here, literally open any page, pick a name, and start investigating that person. And the fact that they haven't started doing that and they hem and they haw, it just shows where the allegiance is. You know, the one true thing that I think Todd Blanche said that day was, I'm President Trump's lawyer. And you're like, yep, you are. You know, and even the guy sitting next to me was like, oh, Freudian slip there. You know, and it's just. It's a shame that it's laughable, you know, right now while he's. While he's doing this and having this sort of testimony in that arena. But at the core of it, it's really scary because he is going to be the highest position of law enforcement in our country. That is absolutely terrifying if his interests are not in the right place, which
- [27:29]
B
they're not, but I'll let you go. But do you think that, I mean, I feel embarrassed and bad that I didn't pay more attention to this 20 years ago, 10 years ago. I mean, I wasn't involved at all, obviously, but still, I just feel like, as someone with a magazine and tv, we didn't somehow assumed, okay, they got the plea deal, and maybe that was the best they could do. And then Julie Brown's reporting hit, and then they did end up. Then he went to jail and got indicted and killed himself, presumably, and Maxwell got indicted and convicted. And so I guess, yeah, I didn't really appreciate the enormity of the whole Thing, honestly, and the degree to which so many people were complicit in the not wanting to know or knowing and pretending they didn't know or some combination of all those things, obviously, and facilitating and enabling, it's really horrifying. Do you feel like the country as a whole, in a way, if you separate out the administration, if that's possible, it's better to. Now, do you feel like people have come to grips with it, or is there still a huge amount of denial and wishing?
- [28:32]
C
I think, yeah, it's such a great question. I think it's great that we're talking about all these things. I think that for so many years, and, you know, this is part of. Kind of what happened was just that we were so siloed. The girls were so siloed. Right. That I felt like I was the only one in the world that endured what I went through. And I was so full of shame because of it. And that was. Epstein had always said, you know, I know everybody, and, you know, nobody. You're not. And he had this way about him about making you feel like you're the most special person in the room and then flipping on you so fast that you didn't even know what happened. Having that whiplash and feeling like, you know, you. I mean, that is the manipulation. So I think for so many years, I. I lived in this place of, like, oh, God, I'm gonna be brought up on prostitution charges. Like, exactly what Epstein said. Because I turned 18 while I was there. Like, I lived in so much fear, and I didn't. I didn't know that there was really anybody else. I knew that another friend had been going, but we didn't discuss it. And I certainly didn't think she. You know, what was happening to her was happening to me, and vice versa, anyway, so I think something really beautiful and really amazing happened in September this year when other survivors got to meet and really have a sense of community for the first time. And that was when you started to see our understanding of the enormity of it, because we were able to say, okay, I was there. And 2004. You were there in 1991, and this person was there in 2009 while he had an ankle monitor on and was still abusing people in Florida, you know, out on work release. I mean. And then you're starting to hear more stories about, he sent me to this person in Paris. He sent me to the end. And so now you're starting to see that he had actually, like, different pots of people, right? So he had, like, the girls that he was grooming for trafficking. He had the girls that he was grooming to be recruiters. He had the girl. You know, he had these different networks of people. There's like the stolen dreams category, which is like, I think he just found joy in using ballet or using modeling or any of those things against us Anyway, all to say that I do think that there is such a huge amount of strength that comes from standing together and sharing our stories. And. And I think that that was when we decided and when we knew that it was so important that we do band together and start really fighting and really fighting back. Because these young kids today need to know that they are safe to share their stories so that it doesn't happen again. And hopefully they don't have to share a story. Right. That's the end goal, is like end demand. All of this goes away, but we can't do it without bringing the secrets out of the dark. And so I do think in some respects that even though this is the hardest experience, I do think that just talking about it and being able to get it out in the open is better for survivors. I just hope that now we know about it. So let's do something about it.
- [31:28]
B
Well said. And we'll stay in touch this week. I hope things go in the right direction. And really thank you. I so admire what you and your and your fellow survivors have done, and I just wish you well. And thank you so much for doing this. So we'll stay in touch.
- [31:41]
C
Thank you so much, Bill. Appreciate it. Thank you.
- [31:44]
B
And thank you all for joining us on Bill Work on Sunday.