In a development that surprises absolutely no one who has ever witnessed basic human decency, a traveling exhibition of Jeffrey Epstein's investigative files has become a magnet for heartfelt messages - and a target for the Department of Justice's disdain. The Donald J Trump and Jeffrey Epstein Memorial Reading Room, which first appeared in a New York City gallery this May, was designed to spotlight Epstein's crimes and law enforcement's decades-long failure to act. The former financier, arrested in 2019 for sexual abuse of teen girls, killed himself in jail. Ghislaine Maxwell was later found guilty of luring teen girls into his orbit, but documents reveal officials knew of their crimes decades prior.
Survivor Danielle Bensky initially worried the exhibit might exploit survivors. "What happens if I walk in and survivors' names are just plastered everywhere?" she wondered. Instead, she found it "so beautifully done." Then David Garrett, founder of event organizer the Institute for Primary Facts, had a last-minute idea: a cork board in the final room where visitors could leave notes. "I was like, 'Oh, that's such a great idea,'" Bensky said. "That'll be so cool to see." A week after opening, she returned to find "at least six or seven corkboards that were full and overflowing with notes" - some with drawings, some with abject sadness, "sometimes, it was pure rage." Notes addressed survivors directly, or themselves, or family members. "It was just a really beautiful display of our democracy," Bensky said.
The notes - "We're here with you, we stand with you, and we believe you" - have given her hope amid years of institutional failures. "Being seen in this process has been pretty remarkable," she said. "There have been days where I felt like I couldn't really do much. I felt really debilitated," Bensky admitted. "The reading room can be a lot when you're walking through your trauma all day... But so many of us will just go and sit in the room with all the notes and read the notes, and it's like, 'Wow, what an extraordinary thing to actually be seen and be believed by so many people at this point.'"
Fellow survivor Liz Stein echoed that sentiment. "It started out with one bulletin board, and I will never forget seeing that one initial bulletin board and just really feeling like, 'Oh my goodness, people are really reacting to that,'" she said. When the first installation ended, the notes "took up the better part of the downstairs of the exhibit." Stein added: "The love that people show us is overwhelming, and every time we do these events... people hug us, they tell us what we mean to them, and a lot of times they'll say, 'But it doesn't matter. I'm just someone you don't know from somewhere you don't live.' And it's like, no, we might not know your individual names, but we feel the love." She called the wall of note cards "a really tangible visual representation of how much support we have, and that fuels us in a way that I don't think people quite understand."
Garrett's initial plan was modest: a two-foot by three-foot corkboard with information about the national suicide prevention hotline and resources for gender-based violence, plus some extra notecards and pens. "We just put them out and said, 'if you want to write a note to the survivors, you can do that,'" he told the Guardian. "We didn't think that we would need more than that." By the end of the first day, the board was full and notes were taped all around it - about 300 cards. For the next 10 days, the producer bought more corkboards daily, ending up with 30 by the time the initial exhibition closed. "Every surface on that basement downstairs was full of cork boards and full of cards."
The reading room traveled to seven stops - New York City; Washington DC; Des Moines, Iowa; Columbus, Ohio; Detroit, Michigan; Dallas, Texas; and Fort Lauderdale, Florida - plus a bookmobile making about two dozen stops. In total, visitors left approximately 12,500 to 13,000 notes, according to Garrett. The exhibition coincided with highly contentious midterm elections that dealt Republicans numerous blows, which some commentators attributed to voters rejecting Trump. The president and MAGA Republicans have been dogged by his administration's handling of the files since he took office.
The White House rejected criticism of Trump's handling of the files. "Just as President Trump has said, he's been totally exonerated on anything relating to Epstein," spokeswoman Lauren Bis said. "And by releasing thousands of pages of documents, cooperating with the House oversight committee's subpoena request, signing the Epstein Files Transparency Act, and calling for more investigations into Epstein's Democrat friends, President Trump has done more for Epstein's victims than anyone before him." The DoJ, meanwhile, condemned the reading room: "This sham tour is traveling to politically competitive areas and shamefully using victims as political pawns," a spokesperson said. "The non-profit's fundraising ploy, which often hosts candidates for office, is a disgrace. It's thanks to this Department of Justice that they even have those files, released in compliance with the Epstein Files Transparency Act under the most transparent administration to date."
Despite institutional roadblocks, the notes have fueled survivors' resolve. Stein's favorite messages included "Your courage is louder than the people who tried to silence you" and "One of these girls could have been me or my friends." Another: "Money and power should not dictate justice." Bensky recalled one particularly powerful note - simple and direct: "It wasn't your fault."