A travelling (and defiant) exhibition exposes the relationship between Epstein and Trump

WashingtonIn the Chinatown neighborhood of Washington D.C., amidst museums, restaurants – many of them by Spanish chef José Andrés – and shopping centers, an unusual space has appeared. Its visitors can only enter if they register in advance and pass through a security check with a metal detector. While queuing, they appear particularly serious, in contrast to the lively atmosphere of the rest of the street. A woman carries a sign hanging around her neck that reads: "Little children are not for being raped or murdered." At the entrance, one of the workers is crying. An assistant has just hugged her and has become emotional. There are several police cars at the door that have not moved from there all week, because some people disagree with what is being exhibited.

Inside this newly created space are the 3.5 million pages that make up the documents of the case of the convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. Almost 3,500 binders with all the documentation on the international scandal of sexual exploitation and abuse of minors, papers in which the current president of the United States, Donald Trump, appears tens of thousands of times. The files occupy the shelves that cover the walls of the entire main room, but there is much more.

On a huge wall, the space gathers the accusations of sexual abuse and rape against Trump and Epstein, as well as the most significant moments of the friendship between the two. The artworks of one of the victims, Maria Farmer, are also exhibited, and on the second floor, there are hundreds of candles that form a memorial in her honor. In one room, a handful of tables are reserved for attendees to write letters to Trump and hang them on the wall, and in others, visitors are asked to dedicate a few minutes to call the Department of Justice to request that the documentation of the case, which is still under seal, be made public.

All the people writing these notes and making these calls are women. So are those who cry upon reading what this exhibition reveals, baptized as The Reading Room in Memory of Donald J. Trump and Jeffrey Epstein. "Happy birthday, pedophile. This is to bring justice for all of Epstein's victims. Publish the documents, it's the law!", says the note written by one of them, which, when the traveling exhibition ends, will be sent to the White House.

"Finding a venue was very difficult, because many people did not want to host us... it's not like we could rent a space anywhere. A dozen landlords rejected us here in DC. And if you live here, you know there are many empty premises," explains David Garrett, the initiative's promoter, in conversation with this newspaper. Epstein was convicted of child prostitution, among other crimes, but Trump has not been criminally convicted of any of the sexual crimes of which numerous women accuse him.

"But we thought we had to do something about it. In our opinion, if you appear mentioned 38,000 times in these files, if your friends and family come out, as well as members of your administration... then you shouldn't be leading the investigation, right?", reflects the creator. "It's one of those things that are supposed to be a basic American principle, and the fact that we are allowing this corruption is, I think, corrosive to democracy." The instigator is an entrepreneur and businessman in the wine sector, and has founded the non-profit organization Institute for Primary Facts to organize this exhibition, which will soon travel to other cities in the country.

Garrett explains that during the days the exhibition has been in Washington, not only have 5,000 people visited it, but many victims have also attended, something that already happened in the first city where it was shown, New York. "There, on the first day we opened, during the first hour, a woman approached me and said: 'I am a survivor, I want to talk to you.'" These victims are also the reason why Epstein's documents can be observed at the exhibition, but not read. As published by the Department of Justice, the organizers argue, they still contain too much personal data of those affected – from names and surnames to addresses and photographs – which some people are using to harass them.

The relationships between Epstein and Trump

Although what may attract visitors to the exhibition is to learn more about Epstein, Trump plays a very prominent role. In the three enormous timelines that collect important moments of the convicted pederast's criminal life, accusations against the president also appear. On the wall, one can read that his ex-wife Ivana accused him of rape; that model Kristin Anderson accused him of touching her under her skirt, as did makeup artist Jill Harth years later and model Beatrice Keul. Extracts from press reports also appear, such as when Trump approached two girls singing in a choir in Manhattan and, when they told him they were 14 years old, he replied: "In a couple of years I'll go out with you".

The same information panel points out that Trump was found responsible for sexually abusing writer E. Jean Carroll, to whom he had to pay almost 90 million dollars, and collects the accusations of a Miss Utah, Temple Taggart, who stated that the now American president kissed her on the lips without consent on two different occasions; those of Cathy Heller, who claimed that he grabbed and kissed her without consent in front of her family, and those of Amy Dorris, who reported that Trump groped and kissed her without permission. The list continues with the accusations of many women who claim that Trump touched their breasts, buttocks, or genitals against their will, all during the same dates when Epstein attended Trump's wedding, Melania exchanged emails with Epstein's associate, Ghislaine Maxwell, or Trump congratulated the financier on his birthday with a drawing of a naked woman.

All these accusations could cause problems for the exhibition creators, but they downplay them. "We have great lawyers," says Garrett, who brings the issue back to the realm of his responsibility as a citizen. "If this were happening in another country, we would report it, but it's happening here, you know? We just had to do something about it".