Cody Godwin

Pam Bondi is out as Attorney General.

Millions of Epstein-related documents are now public, and the names of the powerful people in his orbit are finally out in the open.

You might think the reckoning is over.

You'd be wrong.

Hello and welcome to USA Today's The Excerpt.

I'm Cody Godwin in for Dana Taylor.

Today is Friday, April 10th, 2026.

My next guest read through the Epstein files seeking an answer to the question of accountability.

What she found instead was a disturbing pattern of repeated attempts to discredit the victims while letting the rich and powerful off the hook for enabling Epstein's behavior to continue for so long unimpeded.

Why?

Joining me to share her insights on this is Claire Wilmont, a visiting fellow at the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Claire, it's great to have you on the excerpt.

Thanks so much for having me.

In an op-ed you recently published in The New York Times, you wrote about a phenomenon you saw over and over again in the Epstein files.

You called it, quote, the mechanics of doubt, end quote.

What did you mean here?

For the record, are false reports of rape at all common?

As you said, false allegations are statistically rare, but they still seem to carry outsized cultural weight.

Why do you think that narrative is so powerful?

Many of the associates whose names were released in the Epstein files have claimed innocence and that they didn't know about his earlier conviction, that they never witnessed any sexual abuse, and a lot of people have chosen to believe them.