Today, we are joined by Eric Fudali, who is a managing partner of the Bloom Law Firm and has also represented and continues to represent close to a dozen Epstein-Maxwell survivors. Welcome, Eric. Thank you for coming. Thanks for having me. I know this is a very busy time for you and there's a lot of different avenues to pursue, But my first question is, after the hearing with Pam Bondi and how absolutely disrespectful and deplorable she was, how did that leave the victims feeling or survivors? Yeah, I'm not even sure I could call that a hearing. To me, that was just like an extended temper tantrum by Pam Bondi. I don't know how else to describe that. It was so bizarre. And what's so strange about this is, for the past couple of months or so, I've been you know, almost giving them the Department of Justice the benefit of the doubt and saying, this is probably just pure incompetence. No way they are intending to disrespect the survivors. No way they're just intending to protect the potential co-conspirators and their potential co-abusers. But after that hearing, when Pam Bondi wouldn't even like look at them, I mean, not even, okay, not apologize. This administration is not a very apology oriented administration to the least but not even to give them the respect of looking at them in the eye acknowledging their existence acknowledging you know what they've been through just a temper tantrum i mean just yelling and pointing fingers and insulting i'm at the point where i have no other reasonable explanation that this is a cover-up there is zero disregard for the the survivors of jeffrey epstein and the only care about from this administration this department of justice is protecting themselves I mean, I don't know what other, protecting their friends. I don't know what other possible conclusion you could come to after viewing that. And for the survivors, it's the same thing. You know, what's so unfortunate about this is this is something they're used to, right? They have been wronged. They have been disrespected. They have been exploited. They have been victimized and re-victimized since the 90s. I mean, way back from the, you know, from the Maria Farmer complaint that went to nothing with the FBI to the Alex Acosta deal that I could speak hours about, how that was a travesty of injustice and allowed Epstein to continue to abuse to Jeffrey Epstein being able to kill himself while in federal custody somehow. And then of course, Ghislaine Maxwell being convicted and then being transferred to a minimum security resort after she was given a platform by Todd Blanche to just make things up. So it's nothing new for them. And it's so profound that no matter how long, how many times they're wronged, how many times they're re-victimized, how many times some of the most powerful people in the country like Pam Bondi, you know, can can disrespect them, they still continue to fight. So they're frustrated, you know, they're angry. But as you've seen, and as I think the public has seen for the last, you know, couple of years or so, the more angry and the more disrespected they get, the stronger they get, and the more they're going to continue to fight. I'm so glad to hear that because it is, it's so alarming how disrespectful she was in that hearing. And when they raised their hand, all the people who had not been contacted. And it's my understanding now that other countries, obviously the DOJ, they came out and said, we're done, hands off, we're done. You have other countries now launching investigation and asking for witnesses to come forward. Do you as an attorney for these survivors, Does that give you some optimism that justice will come? It just won't be from the United States? It certainly gives me optimism. And I don't want to lose sight of the progress that these survivors have made, even in the United States, right? We're a long way to go. And the way the DOJ has handled this is just atrocious. However, they did get these documents released. It was very clear. And I would have said maybe five, six months ago, I would have said, no way. This administration wants this story to go away. They are never going to give in. But because of the fight of the survivors they convinced congressmen they convinced almost the entirety of Congress almost unanimous unanimous they got the senate they even got trump to sign it i mean this epstein transparency act so i don want to lose sight because there has been a lot of progress from the prosecution but it's clear from the department of justice that there's going to be no real criminal liability um from the united states so yes we are optimistic that we're seeing some of the other you know other countries you know actually take this seriously actually take a pro survivor approach to this, which is in stark contrast to the way the United States has handled it. So yeah, there is some optimism. Of course, myself and my clients will absolutely be participating in any lawful investigation, any criminal investigation that transpires, whether it's in the United States or abroad. We want justice and we're not going to stop until we get it. Let me ask you, how can you put pressure on the Department of Justice moving forward? because there seems to be, like you said, because of the groundswell of support for releasing the documents, you know, 3 million approximately documents have been released, but you have a whole nother 3 million that have yet to be released. They're still covering up perpetrators' names while allowing victims' names to be unredacted. So how do you, as an attorney for the survivors, put pressure on the Department of Justice? It's a great question. You know, I think the answer is to continue doing what they did and continue doing what everyone has done to get to this point. Remember, there was a strong fight to ever release any of these documents. It took a lot of work. It took a bill to be passed, like an actual bill to go through Congress, to go through the Senate, to get signed by the president, to get these files released. That was a lot of pressure, and that was an enormous feat for the survivors and for those who have advocated for the survivors. So my answer to that is to continue to do what we've been doing, but amplify it up. Continue to call your congressperson. Continue to call your representative. Continue to raise the voices of the survivors. Don't let this story go silent. The administration is going to do everything they can do to try to distract, to try to put this story to bed, as they've been trying to do for the last six months or so. Don't let it die. Continue to advocate, raise the voices of the survivors. Trust the survivors. believe women, believe these survivors, and be an advocate for them because they're trying to drown out their voices. You saw Pambani couldn't even acknowledge their existence. That's sort of a good almost microcosm for the entire way this administration has treated these victims. Don't let them push them away. Continue to advocate, continue to fight, and continue to do interviews like these. Continue to put advocates for the Epstein survivors. And for just justice and common sense justice, keep amplifying those voices. And I think Hopefully that pressure will continue, continue to mount and we'll make more change and we'll get true exposure, accountability and then ultimately closure for the survivors. Can you sue the Department of Justice for the failure to prosecute or what are what are your remedies against the Department of Justice? So we're looking into all of those remedies right now. And, you know, I've had a lot of meetings internally at my law firm with our clients and, you know, trying to explore every avenue of suing the Department of Justice for what, you know, for the catastrophe that this has been, you know, suing district attorney's office, the FBI. The problem is the federal government gets to make the laws as to how the federal government gets sued. And it's not a simple task. There's a lot of red tape. There's a lot of yellow tape. There's a lot of delays filing claims. You know, there's just there's a lot of red tape. Now, that doesn't mean we're going to stop it. It's not a deterrence to us. However, I think Congress and the people who are already in power have a quicker and better avenue for that type of thing than we do. Holding contempt hearings, filing lawsuits themselves, getting judges to oversee this. We're going to pursue every single remedy. You know, we can. But I think it needs to be a group effort with the survivors, the survivors' attorneys, and Congress. because the federal government puts a lot of red tape in the way of lay people suing the federal government for, say, failing to prosecute or using their discretion. It very difficult There a lot of immunity the government has What about civil lawsuits against perpetrators Absolutely So that obviously of course is something that we are pursuing We were of course, part of the civil lawsuits early on against Epstein, against JP Morgan. And we're continuing, as more and more information is revealed, continuing to consider and investigate certain lawsuits. Obviously, we are finding out, like I said earlier, there is some optimism here. There has been progress. We are seeing some names. You know, we are seeing names that were previously, you know, secret, revealed as possible co-conspirators, as possible, you know, financiers of Jeffrey Epstein. And, you know, we're investigating to see where those people knew, whether they should have known what they were financing. It's important to remember that despite what Alex Acosta did in 2008 or what he didn't do, he did make Jeffrey Epstein a registered sex offender. That was public. So I think anyone who after 2008 continued, continued to socialize closely with Jeffrey Epstein, continued to finance him, continued to just associate with him in a very close manner, knew or should have known that they were associating, funding, financing, socializing with a registered sex offender who was continuously surrounded by young girls. So I think those people have a lot of questions to answer. And as more and more names and more information are revealed, we are absolutely investigating, you know, very specific people and looking into potential civil lawsuits. Okay. I have a question that I've had since this whole, we're going to release the names. You know, when Pam Bondi first came in, she was going to release all of it. Then she said, oh, there is none. And then you find out they want to interview Ghislaine Maxwell, but they don't want to interview the victims. are the victims able to create a list and release a list of perpetrators publicly, like come together, like say, you know, you have a dozen clients, they put, you know, all the names on a list and release that. What are the perils for them in doing that? And is that something that you would consider? So good. Great, great question. So we'll start with the perils. The perils are that if they release names accusing them of sex trafficking or sexual abuse or anything related to that, they could very well get sued by those very powerful people. And unfortunately, so in my line of work, what I do as a career is I represent typically women against very powerful alleged sexual abusers, okay, sex traffickers. And sort of the playbook recently for powerful men has just been to sue their accuser into oblivion. Nonstop lawsuits, where the court's going to fine them $50,000, who cares for a frivolous lawsuit, they're going to continue to do it and do it and do it. And if you give them an inch, they're going to take that inch and they're going to sue. And defamation has sort of been the in trend, if you will, you know, lawsuit to file, I've been sued. On behalf of my advocacy for my clients all the time, my clients have been sued, you know, it's very ugly. Now we take it. But it's ugly. And I think there's a fear when these women do not have the resources of, say, these very, very, and now we can see how powerful, powerful men, it can be intimidating. Now, of course, truth is a defense to defamation, but that doesn't mean you don't have to hire a lawyer. That doesn't mean you have to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on legal fees, and it's not pleasant to be sued. So that's one of the deterrents. The other not say deterrent is, it's a fair question, of course, because the women likely do have this information, but i think the pressure on them to have you know the burden on the women to be the ones yeah absolutely it's just so unfair when the doj is in is in possession of these names you know it's not as if it's just the survivors her no clearly there's names redacted and very suspicious very salacious emails we know the doj has basically admitted that they have redacted names of potential co-conspirators we've seen the names redacted uh so you know it's it's it's the burden of the Department of Justice. It's the Department of Justice, right? This is not the Department of Defending Trump. This is not the Department of Keeping Jeffrey Epstein Files secret. This is the Department of Justice. They should be the ones who are advocating for the survivors. They should be the ones who are policing these names. They should be the ones pursuing justice, not the ones depriving the survivors of justice No I completely agree It such an It just another huge burden to put on these survivors Okay One last thing Glaine Maxwell she has that long interview with Todd Blanche transferred to CUSHE Country Club Fed, and then goes into Congress to the oversight committee and takes the fifth and says she will only release information with clemency if she has granted clemency. What was your reaction to that? You know, I am sick of hearing from Glenn Maxwell. I think that Todd Blanche quote unquote interview was a re-victimization of the survivors. Giving someone who's been accused of perjury, giving someone who is a convicted child sex trafficker, one of the most heinous crimes we have here in the United States, convicted child sex trafficker, convicted of tricking 14-year-old girls to get into Jeffrey Epstein's orbit because she knew that he was going to rape them ultimately. So she is a despicable person and she did not deserve a platform. She does not even really deserve to be spoken about. I was appalled by that whole thing. And what's even more appalling is that Donald Trump has not ruled it out. You would think any common sense with Donald Trump would be asked, are you considering a clemency or pardon? Any reasonable human being would say, of course not. She's a convicted trial sex trafficker. What kind of insane person would consider a pardon for that? So that's even, you know, even more appalling that it hasn't been ruled out. There is even hope that she felt confident enough that she could even request that. Yeah. So I guess, you know, short answer, long answer to your question is, you know, really just sort of appalled by anything that has to do with Ghislaine Maxwell these days. In my opinion, she deserves to be rotting behind bars in a maximum security prison where convicted child sex traffickers belong. Well, and wasn't she also convicted of perjury? She was accused of perjury. And then I believe those were dropped because they ended up pursuing the other charges, the more serious charges of child sex trafficking. So they chose not to pursue the perjury charges as well after they convicted her of child sex trafficking. But she has been accused in a court of law of perjury. Okay. Final question. As you move forward with these victims, what would justice look like for them? Right. So it's really three things, I think. And I think, I guess it's a lot, but you can narrow it down to three things. The first is exposure. The number one thing they've been advocating for is exposure of not just Jeffrey Epstein, not a bunch of redacted names, certainly not their own names, because that's basically what the Department of Justice did. But exposure of everyone who facilitated, who enabled, who turned a blind eye, or at worst, co-abuse with Jeffrey Epstein. Full exposure. Second comes accountability. Now, accountability can take a lot of forms. Of course, there's criminal accountability. That would be ideal. Civil accountability, or even you see some societal accountability. You have seen people lose their jobs, people resign, people sell their companies. There's been some real, what I'd call societal accountability. But they're really after criminal and civil liability. Then the third is closure. They'd really like to move on with their lives, you know, as much as they advocate and as much they've been fighting, and they're going to continue to fight to keep this topic, you know, in the news and keep it relevant to keep more pressure. They would like closure. They'd like to move on for this. They would like to be able to turn on their phones or their TVs and not see Jeffrey Epstein's face or name every single time and not that have to be their full identity anymore. They'd like closure, but you can't, they cannot have closure without accountability and justice, and they can't have the accountability justice without exposure. So it needs to be all three and it needs to be in that order, exposure, accountability, and closure. And I think that sums up really what this fight is all about for the survivors. I agree. And thank you for sharing that. Please share our support with your clients. And as we move forward, obviously, we'd love to have you back as more things come to light. And best of luck to you in this mission. Thanks for being on. Thanks so much for having me. I appreciate It....
