Epstein Survivors Say His Assistant Lied to Congress

Multiple victims of billionaire sex offender Jeffrey Epstein are accusing his assistant of lying to Congress.

Several Epstein survivors, including four who spoke publicly and two others who did so anonymously, told CNN that Lesley Groff’s assertions last month were outright false. Groff testified before the House Oversight Committee on June 9 and claimed that she never met any of the girls and young women who gave Epstein massages and did not know anything about their backgrounds.

The victims said that was not the case, describing meeting Groff in person, telling her their ages, and being paid by Groff directly. Epstein survivor Marina Lacerda said she saw Groff regularly after first meeting Epstein in 2002, when she was not yet 14 years old.

“She’s lying,” Lacerda said. “Just me and my friends, she’s met at least three or four of us.”

Sharlene Rochard, who told CNN she was a young New York City model when she met the billionaire, said that she met Groff “multiple times in different locations.” Lara Blume McGee, who said she was abused from 2001 to 2003, described meeting Groff at Epstein’s New York townhouse at least twice.

Several of these women told CNN that Groff was well aware of their ages. Lacerda said that Groff asked detailed questions about new girls and ordered her to tell her friends to bring school IDs to sessions with Epstein because of his preference for younger girls.

“She would ask, ‘What does the girl look like? Where is she from? How old is she?’ over the phone,” Lacerda said. Rochard said that she and other girls would give Groff their passport information and identification to book flights, which plainly showed their ages. One anonymous victim said Groff helped her fill out her passport application at Epstein’s New York City office.

“I sat with her and she took all my information in person. She obviously knew my age,” the woman said. But when Democratic Representative Suhas Subramanyam directly asked Groff in June if she handled or viewed any of the girls’ or women’s passports, Groff said no.

“I may have seen a passport—a picture of a passport, but I never had anything to do with their passports,” Groff said.

Multiple women, including Lacerda, said that Groff was also directly involved in cash payments, putting $100 bills in long white envelopes and handing them to them. Groff denied paying anyone on Epstein’s behalf, telling the committee that she sometimes arranged for money to be picked up or delivered.

All of this suggests more lies out of Epstein’s inner circle, joining those from Epstein’s longtime fixer Ghislaine Maxwell. Despite new revelations from Congress and the Justice Department, though, no new charges have been filed in the U.S. against anyone involved in Epstein’s massive abuse operation.

Donald Trump is absolutely, finally, paying E. Jean Carroll.

The Second Circuit Court of Appeals denied the president’s emergency motion to temporarily suspend the court-ordered payment late Wednesday.

The decision came shortly after Judge Lewis Kaplan ordered the release of $5 million in court-held funds to the beleaguered columnist, more than three years after Trump was found civilly liable for sexually assaulting Carroll in a department store in late 1995.

The last-minute stay was a Hail Mary thrown by Trump’s legal team, who had tried to appeal the case to the Supreme Court earlier this week. But the nation’s highest judiciary ultimately rejected the request on Tuesday.

Despite the high court’s decision, Trump’s legal team wrote to Kaplan asking him not to release the funds, claiming that the president’s Supreme Court petition for a new hearing was still pending.

By Wednesday morning, the SCOTUS docket had been updated to reflect that it was anticipating a corrected petition from the president’s team. But hours later, it appeared that Kaplan had gone ahead and ordered the release of the funds to Carroll despite Trump’s pending filing, anyway.

In a six-page memorandum penned Wednesday, Kaplan noted that Trump “has been stalling this case for years.”

“It is time for him to ‘do equity’ and pay the judgment,” Kaplan ordered.

The Second Circuit Court of Appeals clearly agreed.

Carroll has a long and grim history with the president. After the 2023 civil case, Trump tried and failed to sue Carroll for defamation. Kaplan later ruled that Trump had continued to defame the advice columnist by denying the rape on the basis that she wasn’t his “type,” and by accusing her of making up the sexual assault allegations against him for the benefit of her book. A jury awarded Carroll $83.3 million in that case, though Carroll has not yet seen any proceeds from that decision, either.

Late last month, Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan (no relation to the New York–based judge) asked a judge to implement an expedited payment schedule for the sum that Trump owes Carroll, noting that by this point, the president owes Carroll interest on the original amount.

“It is time for this case to come to an end,” Carroll’s attorney wrote in a Tuesday legal filing.

ICE is making people’s worst fears a reality.

The family of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a Mexican man who was shot and killed Tuesday by immigration enforcement agents in Texas, is calling for a full investigation into his death.

Speaking at a press conference Wednesday, Ronaldo Salgado, the deceased’s son, gave an emotional account of how he learned of his father’s death.

“I saw a video posted on Facebook that he had been shot. I recognized him immediately,” Ronaldo said, his voice breaking. “Not from his appearance, but from his voice, crying for help as he lay on the street, bleeding out.”

Salgado set off for the area where his father was working construction in North Houston, and remained on the site for hours looking for answers. League of United Latin American Citizens Representative Conchita Reyes connected him to Texas Representative Sylvia Garcia to locate his father at Ben Taub Hospital.

“With all the hope in the world I drove to Ben Taub Hospital, the hospital that I was born in, my brother Lorenzo Jr. was born in, and my youngest was born in. I went to Ben Taub Hospital, demanded answers, but no one could give them to me,” Salgado said.

“I learned of my father’s passing from a news report on social media, not the hospital, not law enforcement,” he continued.

Lorenzo Salgado Araujo was undocumented, but his three children are U.S. citizens. His son said his father had completed the paperwork for a legal work permit, submitted good character affidavits and fingerprints 18 months ago, and was awaiting a response.

In the hours after the shooting, the Department of Homeland Security claimed the officer had fired in self-defense after Lorenzo Salgado Araujo refused to comply with orders and “weaponized his vehicle in an attempt to run over an ICE law enforcement officer.”

But that’s a familiar refrain used by ICE agents to skirt legal issues, as the agency’s use-of-force policy bars agents from firing at a vehicle unless there is an imminent threat to their safety.

DHS made similar claims about the shooting of Marimar Martinez and the fatal shooting of Renee Good. The claims about Martinez quickly fell apart when her lawyer showed footage of immigration agents steering their vehicle into Martinez’s truck. While the investigation into Good’s death has gone nowhere, DHS’s claims are highly disputed.

His family believes that Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, who had no criminal record, would have complied with orders if he’d known that the officers pursuing him in unmarked vehicles were federal immigration authorities. The family even had a plan in place in the event that Lorenzo Salgado Araujo was picked up by ICE.

“He did not deserve to die. He did not deserve to be reduced to a headline of ‘Mexican Man Shot and Killed by ICE.’ He deserved to live a quiet life as Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a husband, a father, and a job creator for dozens of men who also wanted the American dream,” his son said.

Lorenzo Salgado Araujo’s death marks the tenth fatal shooting by federal immigration enforcement during President Donald Trump’s second term.

Graham Platner continued to deny his sexual assault allegations, lambasted “larger forces” against him, and demanded that the Maine Democratic Party allow him a say in his replacement upon announcing his withdrawal from the Senate race. The angry video went against everything his closest aides advised. 

“Accusations are supposed to be the beginning of things, not the end,” Platner said in his 11-minute video, posted Wednesday evening on X. “This was the last week to try to get me off of the ballot. That’s why this is occurring.... [The allegations] are being used by the political establishment to put structural pressure on us.... It is a system that is built structurally to make sure that movements like ours cannot flourish. That if they begin to succeed, they can be crushed.” 

“They are going to take everything away from us. Those in power who have the ability to do so are using these allegations as an excuse to take away all of the things we need to run a campaign,” Platner continued in his vertically shot video. “They would rather see Susan Collins win than have me be the next senator from Maine.”  

His indignant rhetoric was also mirrored in his claims that national Democrats were trying to choose his successor behind “closed doors” and his insistence that they choose a fellow progressive. In reality, Maine’s Democratic Party is planning to hold a nominating convention with about 600 delegates later this month.

According to Politico, several of Graham’s closest advisers begged him not to take this approach with his resignation video, urging him to center “gratitude” and to to strike a “conciliatory” tone instead. But he refused to take their advice.

Platner was accused of sexual assault by Jenny Racicot, a 41-year-old Maine resident who dated him on and off for two years, in a Politico article published on Monday. She alleged that the former Marine drunkenly entered her home uninvited five years ago and forced himself on her even as she asked him to stop. Platner continued to profusely deny these allegations in his resignation video. 

Blaming the larger political establishment for your rape allegation with an 11-minute long video does not seem particularly gracious. Now Maine’s Democratic Party has until July 27 to pick a candidate—and to try and clean up Platner’s long mess of a campaign.

FBI Director Kash Patel’s lavish spending spree and misuse of government planes has now attracted Republican ire.

Senator Chuck Grassley, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, wrote a letter to Patel asking for information about his use of FBI jets and the bureau’s purchase of BMW cars, MS NOW reports.

“For each trip where you used an FBI aircraft for personal travel, have you reimbursed the FBI as required by law? If yes, please provide the records,” Grassley wrote in his letter.

Grassley wrote that while Patel is required to use FBI planes even for personal use, Congress needs the information to make an “independent and objective review.” The senator also asked Patel to explain “why you decided to purchase BMW vehicles instead of Chevy Suburbans.”

Grassley has defended Patel in the past against accusations that he misused government resources, telling the press in April that “I’ve never had an FBI director cooperate with me as much as Kash Patel has cooperated with me on my request for information, my request for documents. In fact, most FBI directors have been an impediment to my investigations.”

Now, though, Grassley is joining Democrats, such as Representative Jamie Raskin and Senator Dick Durbin, who wrote their own letter to Patel Wednesday saying that they “appreciate Chairman Grassley raising these concerns, which mirror those raised repeatedly by House and Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats.”

Raskin and Durbin’s letter raises concerns about Patel’s travel as FBI director, referring to an incident last year where the military allowed Patel to snorkel at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii around the wreckage of the USS Arizona, which sank during Japan’s attack on the base in 1941.

“Your VIP snorkeling experience in Hawaii was not an isolated incident,” wrote Raskin and Durbin. “You frequently demand special perks on ‘official’ trips around the globe, such as a taxpayer-funded helicopter tour during your multi-country jaunt across East Asia and other recreational activities like jet skiing.”

The letter added, “Your jet-setting and the lack of justification for these trips are ‘out of control,’ and the new attaché office you established in Wellington, New Zealand, may have been opened in part to justify a sightseeing trip you took there.”

Grassley’s words may mean that Patel will now face bipartisan scrutiny for his actions on the job. In the past, he’s had support from Republicans in Congress, not to mention President Trump. But with the midterm elections approaching, Grassley and others in the GOP could be gearing up for a stronger Democratic presence in Congress that demands more oversight of Trump’s appointments, especially those that like to party on the job.