The Real Epstein Cover-Up

The Epstein emails are damning, but hardly surprising. My reaction was something like that famous scene from “Casablanca” when Captain Renault proclaims to Rick: “I’m shocked — shocked — to find that gambling is going on in here,” seconds before he is handed his own winnings. But the emails are just a piece of the larger story: the lengths this country and the systems we’ve created — from the smallest jurisdiction to the national stage — will go to maintain the power of men at the expense of women’s bodies.

We’ve known all along that President Trump must be in the Epstein files. The president tried to make it a “Democrat” problem by demanding the Justice Department investigate Democrats with ties to Mr. Epstein. Then, perhaps sensing MAGA discontent, he announced his support for releasing the files, writing on Truth Social: “We have nothing to hide.”

Mr. Trump is right. He has nothing to hide because he stands to lose nothing. Whatever exists in those files surely will not be enough to wrest him from his perch. At least not yet. Even those who have shown some remorse — Larry Summers, for example — took years. Other men named, like Steve Bannon, Peter Thiel, Noam Chomsky and Michael Wolff, have sought to distance themselves from Mr. Epstein or have not responded to press requests.

We’ve been here before. For so many, the Epstein saga echoes a once-hopeful #MeToo movement, when it seemed possible to reform the male-dominated systems that kept women down. The movement led to a handful of convicted men, but also fed a colossal backlash that reminds us how our country has never adequately protected women. The backlash also, arguably, contributed to the second election of Mr. Trump, who has overseen an era that might be unique in its willingness to sacrifice democratic institutions and American norms to control women.

As I write, there is a White House proposal that aims to lower the Office on Violence Against Women’s stature within the D.O.J. and cut its shoestring budget by nearly 30 percent. This would devastate shelters, advocacy programs and violence prevention measures, and escalate the danger for victims of intimate partner and familial violence in all corners of the country.

At the same time, a report on violent deaths of girls and women from 2014 to 2020 noted that laws constraining abortion providers were associated with a 3.4 percent rise in the rate of homicides related to intimate partner violence. We are being killed for our own lack of choice. An estimated one in 20 women in the United States gets pregnant from rape or sexual coercion, which equates to a whopping six million women with violence-initiated pregnancies. Six million. Two-thirds of the women who became pregnant from rape were injured during their assaults.