John Kennedy

WASHINGTON — Based largely on his tough cross-examinations of FBI Director Kash Patel last year, Jeffrey Epstein’s “Minor Victim No. 1” is pressing U.S. Sen. John Kennedy to oppose the confirmation of Todd Blanche, President Donald Trump’s nominee for attorney general.

“I feel like he’s somewhat, you know, starting to feel like that there’s something much bigger going on here. And I think he wants to find out,” Marina Lacerda said of Kennedy, R-Madisonville, in an interview.

Palm Beach Police began investigating Epstein after hearing stories about his sexually exploiting and trafficking underage girls. Epstein pleaded guilty in 2008 to state charges of soliciting a minor for prostitution. He served 13 months under a controversial deal offered by then U.S. Attorney Alexander Acosta, of Miami, that gave Epstein immunity from federal charges.

In 2019, after several of the now-adult women went public with their allegations, federal prosecutors arrested and charged Epstein with sex trafficking minors out his New York City mansion as well as his estates in Florida, New Mexico and a Caribbean island. Epstein killed himself while in detention.

Lacerda is one of 20 Epstein survivors working to block Blanche’s confirmation as the nation’s leading law enforcement official.

Blanche has been acting attorney general since former Attorney General Pam Bondi stepped down April 2.

Both Kennedy and Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-Baton Rouge, in March 2025 backed Blanche’s appointment as second-in-command of the Department of Justice.

As deputy attorney general, Blanche oversaw the organization and release of nearly 3 million files gathered by law enforcement looking into allegations the wealthy financier recruited more than a thousand young girls for sex.

Blanche has said repeatedly that no evidence that adult men had sex with girls was found in the interviews, transcripts, notes, and other materials gathered during the investigations into Epstein’s conduct, even though at least one accuser claimed she was sent to have sex with men in Epstein’s circle.

“We can’t allow for this man to come in and gaslight in saying that there's nothing here to look at,” Lacerda said. “There are things to look at.”

Lobbying to kill the nomination

Lacerda and 19 other survivors wrote in a letter that they were concerned that Blanche was among senior administration figures who adopted a strategy of minimizing the Epstein files instead of choosing to pursue “investigative leads and try to figure out what actually happened. These revelations confirm our worst fears about the administration prioritizing political expediency over justice for survivors and truth for the American people.”

The survivors need one Republican senator on their side to kill Blanche’s nomination in the Senate Judiciary Committee, which will hear from the nominee on Wednesday and Thursday. Kennedy is a member of that committee.

Survivors have focused their efforts on two GOP incumbents whose reelections Trump opposed: Sen. Thom Tillis, R-North Carolina, and Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas.

Kennedy, who has a good relationship with Trump, was added to the list after survivors reviewed his questioning of Patel over several committee hearings late last year.

In particular, Lacerda said, Kennedy challenged Patel, who said despite the legal issues raised by the 2008 federal nonprosecution agreement, “all credible information” had been released and that nothing had been found to warrant further prosecutions.

“This issue is not going to go away. I think the essential question for the American people is this: They know that Epstein trafficked young women for sex to himself. They want to know who, if anyone else, he trafficked these young women to. And that’s a very fair question. I want to know that answer. And I think you’re going to have to do more to satisfy the American people’s understandable curiosity in that regard,” Kennedy said.

Patel responded, “I agree.”

Neither Blanche nor Kennedy responded to requests for comment.

‘I was stunned’

Born in Brazil, Lacerda moved to New York City at the age of 8. Her immigrant family jammed into a small apartment and survived on instant Ramen noodles. Lacerda took on small jobs to help out. A friend mentioned “a kind, older man” would pay $300 for young girls to massage him without wearing a top, she said.

Lacerda was 14 in 2002 when she first arrived at Epstein’s Manhattan mansion.

“The moment I walked into his house, I was stunned,” Lacerda said. “Luxury furniture, framed photographs on the walls of famous people, most of them I didn’t recognize but Bill Clinton was there, (and) Donald Trump.”

The housekeeper led Lacerda to the third-floor massage room that was decorated with painted clouds and drawings of nude women, she said.

For the next three years, until Lacerda was deemed “too old” at 17, Epstein paid to sexually abuse her, she said. She dropped out of school to work for Epstein.

Lacerda, now 38, filed an anonymous complaint and prosecutors lined her up to testify in 2008, before the trial was averted by the plea bargain, and then again in 2019 before Epstein took his own life.

Lacerda said the release of investigation materials has been sloppy at best.

Blanche’s team struck out the names of wealthy and influential men associated with Epstein but left her name and her address in Florida exposed in at least 46 instances, she said, adding that she and other survivors have since received death threats.

Blanche testified on May 19 that the errors made while blacking out names were inevitable because of the strict timeline required. The Justice Department was careful not to make public uncorroborated information to avoid tarring innocents, he added.

Frustration over investigations

Lacerda says she and her fellow survivors are frustrated that only two people have been prosecuted by U.S. authorities — Epstein in 2008 and his longtime girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell in 2022. Maxwell is serving a 20-year sentence at a minimum security Texas prison camp that usually doesn’t house sex offenders. Blanche interviewed her, then facilitated the move in August 2025 from a Florida penitentiary, where security is not as relaxed.

Consequences have been greater for Epstein associates in other countries. In the United Kingdom, former Prince Andrew lost his position as a British royal and was forced to move out of a palace owned by his family.

Survivors also question why investigators aren’t following up on the information found in the files and revealed through sworn testimony at the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

“We’re forgetting about the people that we have just questioned,” Lacerda said.

For instance, Lesley Groff, Epstein’s assistant for 18 years, told the panel in June that she did not know of his sexual predilections and had never met any of the underage masseuses.

“She’s lying. I have met her in the office plenty of times,” Lacerda said. “I was paid by Leslie. Fresh hundred bills that came in envelopes.”

Additionally, Groff’s desk was just outside the room that monitored activity throughout his New York City mansion.

“We were being watched 24/7,” Lacerda said. “We are wondering, as well, where are those videotapes?”

In late June, Blanche was scolded by a federal district judge overseeing a lawsuit claiming the Justice Department violated the law Congress passed in November that required the public release of the Epstein records.

Senior U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan, of Washington, said Blanche essentially admitted to the violations by failing to address the lawsuit’s allegations that a 13-year-old’s claims against Trump was withheld.

About 16,000 of the agency’s 40,000 employees have left since Trump’s second term began.

Some Democrats and Republicans also fret that Blanche will act more as the president’s representative than the nation’s top lawyer. He represented Trump when, in March 2023, he was indicted in New York on 34 felony counts for falsifying business records to hide “hush money” paid to porn star Stormy Daniels, a Baton Rouge native whose real name is Stephanie Clifford. He was convicted on all 34 counts on May 30, 2024.

“This is not about Trump. We just want those files to be released and people to be investigated,” Lacerda said.