Civil rights attorney Nancy Erika Smith tore into President Donald Trump and his Justice Department on Wednesday evening, blasting them for their mistreatment of the survivors who came forward in the Jeffrey Epstein sex trafficking case.
As Trump has found himself in a mounting political crisis over his lack of transparency about the case files he promised to release, he has dismissed the case and the survivors' testimony as "irrelevant."
This is a horrific way to treat them, Smith told MSNBC's Ari Melber.
"I'm struck by the cruelty of him," said Smith. "A normal president would have had some empathy after those women spoke out about their child abuse. And a normal DOJ would have said, 'Don't be afraid, we're going to keep you safe. You're safe speaking out in the United States of America.' But they are correct, they're not."
Trump set a terrible tone from the start, she added, because "his personal lawyer interviewed [Ghislaine Maxwell]," Epstein's convicted co-conspirator, and gave her an improper transfer to a low-security prison camp that sex offenders generally aren't eligible for.
"It's a corrupt DOJ, and it's a corrupt administration," said Smith. "And these women are not safe and they're not going to protect them. So their bravery really strikes me. And banding together, I think, with their attorneys, is going to keep them safer. The press is going to keep them safer. Speaking out is actually making them safer, I think."
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