Jeffrey Epstein's most powerful ally was silence Gretchen Carlson and Julie Roginsky

[Uncle Joe]

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The most revealing document in the entire Epstein saga is one of the first to come to light: the non-prosecution agreement the Department of Justice quietly signed in 2007, shielding Epstein from federal charges and insulating unnamed “co-conspirators”. The girls he had abused – minors the government was legally obligated to inform – were kept in the dark. The message was unmistakable: protecting powerful men mattered more than honoring the voices of the girls they harmed.

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We know this pattern because we have seen it ourselves. Nearly a decade ago, we came forward to allege sexual harassment and retaliation against the former Fox News chairman and chief executive Roger Ailes and the network he ran, respectively. We each had to jump through hoops for our cases to be public, battling silencing mechanisms to bring our claims to light. And yet, long after Ailes’s death in 2017, we are still bound by NDAs that prevent us from sharing our stories. The priority, time and again, is to sweep accountability under the rug, even if it comes at the expense of the truth.

What the Epstein case and many like it expose is the architecture that protects predators long before the public ever hears their names. It is built from familiar materials: forced arbitration clauses, airtight NDAs, closed-door settlements, and a culture of retaliation that make speaking out dangerous. These tools do not simply resolve disputes – they suppress them. And that suppression creates the conditions in which serial abuse becomes not just possible, but predictable.

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In 2022, we helped to pass two federal laws that cracked the closet door open. The Ending Forced Arbitration for Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment Act ensures that survivors can bring their claims to court rather than being sent into the secret chamber of forced arbitration. The Speak Out Act limits the use of NDAs that silence survivors before misconduct even occurs. These reforms chip away at the secrecy that has long shielded predators. They also send a signal: institutions can no longer count on silence as a default outcome.

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https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/dec/08/jeffrey-epstein-silence