PRAGMATIC ISSUES

Congress Has One Last Chance to Prove It Isn’t Still the Same Cowardly Institution That Betrayed Us in the 80s

I grew up in the eighties when adults pretended child abuse was a misunderstanding or a family matter or something kids “misinterpreted.” It was the decade where schools covered it churches hid it police departments minimized it and families looked the other way because reputation mattered more than a child’s life. I survived that world. I survived the grown men who believed their status protected them and the women who whispered “don’t start trouble” instead of “I believe you.”

So excuse me if I don’t have patience for the sudden moral panic washing through Congress as the Epstein files come up for release. Excuse me if I don’t believe a single politician claiming they care about survivors. Excuse me if I laugh when they pretend they’re terrified of predators being exposed.

Because Congress knew.

Governments knew.

Agencies knew.

Men in suits knew.

Men with badges knew.

And for decades they decided kids like me were acceptable collateral.

Now they’re clutching their pearls because their favorite donors and party stars might show up in the paperwork.

Spare me.

Let me be brutally clear

There is not one public sexual predator who deserves protection

not a billionaire

not a judge

not a senator

not an actor

not a pastor

not a royal

not a CEO

not a president past or present

no one

If you raped kids

If you trafficked kids

If you purchased kids

If you enabled it

If you knew and stayed silent

If you protected the powerful

You deserve the full sunlight of exposure

You deserve to lose everything you built on children’s suffering

You deserve the shame you forced onto others for decades

And if your name is in those files then the world deserves to know it without redaction without delay without negotiation.

But here’s the part I know Congress hates hearing

We cannot trust a single thing they release when the political pendulum swings this hard in either direction.

When one party controls the narrative they scrub out their own

When the other gains power they weaponize the truth selectively

And neither side has ever shown survivors the basic decency of transparency

We watched the same disgustingly predictable cycle during the Catholic Church scandal

During the Boy Scouts cover up

During the gymnastics abuse crisis

During every institution-wide failure involving children

First deny

Then minimize

Then blame victims

Then delay

Then negotiate

Then release the truth in carefully sanitized chunks that protect the right people

Congress is right on schedule.

And here’s what infuriates me as someone who lived through the era when silence was standard policy

The same institutions that ignored us then are asking us to trust them now.

Trust them to decide what the public sees

Trust them to decide who is protected

Trust them to decide the “national security implications”

Trust them to decide which predators the country is “ready” to handle

No. Absolutely not.

If the truth makes Democrats look bad release it

If it makes Republicans look bad release it

If it embarrasses the donor class release it

If it exposes billionaires release it

If it implicates foreign allies release it

If it shows that entire institutions knew release it

If it shatters reputations built on exploitation release it

If it destroys the careers of men who used children as currency release it twice

Survivors have lived with the consequences for decades

The public deserves to know exactly who was buying access to trafficked kids while writing laws for the rest of us

And let’s be honest

Some of the loudest voices right now the ones screaming for redactions the ones warning about chaos the ones clutching their pearls about “false accusations”

Those are the same voices who would have told 1980s kids like me to sit down shut up and stop ruining powerful men’s lives with “stories.”

They do not get to decide what justice looks like now

Not after everything they allowed then

Not after everything they ignored

Not after everything survivors endured while they looked away

So here is my message to Congress

Do your job or get out of the way

Release the files without editing them to spare your colleagues

Release every name every flight manifest every email every photograph every connection every favor every exchange

Release it all because survivors already know the truth

The world already suspects it

And the only thing being protected now is the fragile ego of a political class terrified that accountability might finally arrive

If this country wants to claim it has evolved past the cruelty of the eighties

If lawmakers want to pretend they care about victims

If Congress wants even a shred of legitimacy

Then prove it

Today

Right now

With full unfiltered unredacted transparency

No more protecting predators

No more protecting power

No more protecting the rich

No more protecting political allies

No more protecting the system that sacrificed children for decades

Survivors didn’t survive hell just to watch Congress bury the truth again

You owe us more than apologies

You owe us more than speeches

You owe us the truth

The whole truth

And nothing but the truth

And if that truth burns half of Washington to the ground

Good

Let it burn