In the fight for transparency and justice, survivors of Jeffrey Epstein’s abuse are stepping up where the Department of Justice, under Todd Blanche, has failed miserably. It’s partly why these survivors are telling Senators to vote no on his confirmation for U.S. Attorney General.
Lara Blume McGee and Sharlene Rochard, two courageous survivors, sit down with Tim Dickinson to share why Blanche should not be confirmed and how today’s attempts to meet with Senators Thom Tillis (R-NC) and John Cornyn (R-TX) went. They also discuss the Trump-Epstein reading room bookmobile and its mission to bring the fight for justice to your city.
Watch this insightful, moving, and honest discussion in full only on The Contrarian.
Lara Blume McGee is a philanthropist and founder of Team Up World and ALS in Wonderland. She is also legislative advocate, joining her fellow Epstein Survivor Sisters to demand justice for victims and survivors while holding the powerful accountable.
Sharlene Rochard is a public advocate for transparency and justice. A performer by profession, Sharlene now works on survivor-led advocacy, public education, and institutional accountability.
The following transcript has been edited for formatting purposes.
Tim Dickinson
Hi, this is Tim Dickinson for The Contrarian. We have a pair of special guests with us today who are advocates on behalf of Epstein survivors and are themselves members of that group. Lara Blume McGee and Sharlene Rochard. Welcome to the Contrarian.
Sharlene Rochard
Thank you for having us. Thank you.
Tim Dickinson
Um, could I ask you each to briefly introduce yourselves to our audience and let us know what brought you to Washington, D.C. today?
Lara Blume McGee
Sure. So my name is Lara Blume McGee. I reside in Little Rock, Arkansas, and we are here in Washington, D.C., stomping the pavement, stomping Capitol Hill to get a vote no on the confirmation of Blanche.
Sharlene Rochard
Hi. I’m Charlene. I’m an advocate, and I work also very closely with Lara and all of the survivor sisters. And we’re all legislative advocates. Um, I was in New York and in Florida and on the island with Jeffrey Epstein. And we are here today because actually, the Trump-Epstein Bookmobile was here in D.C., and today was the grand opening day. And we had a press conference. And the bookmobile is going to go around all of America and show people exactly why we are doing this. And all of the 3.5 million files are in that bookmobile. However, there are still another 3 million to be released, hopefully.
Lara Blume McGee
And once those are released, they will be in the reading room as well.
Tim Dickinson
Mhm. Now the key figure in so much of this is Todd Blanche, who is now candidate to become nominee to become head of the Justice Department, Attorney General. And he oversaw the botched redaction of the Epstein files, which not only shielded so many powerful accomplices with suspected accomplices from accountability, but also exposed survivors to a mistaken unredaction, right, that they were, uh, left exposed, doxxed and traumatized in many cases. I understand you met with Blanche as part of these, uh, the move to have him nominated. What was that conversation like? What was that interaction like?
Lara Blume McGee
Well, we met with Todd Blanche. I wouldn’t call it much of a meeting. It was a “check the box.” It was an ultimatum given by Tillis, uh, for the vote. And we left feeling that, um, we left feeling dehumanized. And the meeting did not go well. He didn’t listen. He was on the defense immediately, and we just wanted him to listen. He gave us about an hour. We did go a little bit over an hour. Um, but he told us to go to the FBI. We have all been to the FBI and we have 302s. We’ve been going to the FBI since 1996. And he basically told us that, you know, there’s nothing to see or nothing to investigate. Um, we asked him if he’s read any of the files, um, which he has, you know, possession of and can read them at any time. And he says, no, that was very telling. Um, he said there was 800 attorneys in his office that did the redactions, and they did a very poor job, obviously, um, redacted, uh, perpetrator’s names and left many of my survivor sisters’ information just out there and traumatized them again, as you were saying. Um, but their job was solely redaction not to look at the leads. Those files are, there’s leads in there, there’s crimes in there, and they need to be investigated. And that’s what we, you know, people ask us all the time, why are you guys doing this? We want people held accountable and in those files or a lot of answers, and they’re not even looking at them. And what does that say about our DOJ? What does that say about Todd Blanche?
Tim Dickinson
Is it your feeling that Todd Blanchard is covering up? Is he actively… I mean, there’s one thing to be incompetent or to not do your job well. Do you have a more nefarious interpretation of his actions?
Lara Blume McGee
Yeah, I would have to think so, because he’s a pretty accomplished guy. Right. And why wouldn’t you want to investigate the largest sex trafficking organization in our history? Why not? Why don’t you want to protect women and children?
Sharlene Rochard
This is a complete cover up.
Lara Blume McGee
Who are you protecting?
Sharlene Rochard
Yeah. In my opinion. I mean, he said in his hearing that he misspoke and said, you know, I’m the lawyer of Donald Trump, basically. And that tells us how he still thinks to this day. You don’t screw those things up. And that’s what he said. He. It was also known that he told Donald Trump that he loves him. And honestly, to me, that is not what America needs. America needs somebody who is for survivors, who listens to survivors, and not just survivors, to everybody. Every American, if something goes wrong and you go to the FBI and you go to the police, you expect them to do something you don’t expect. Expect them to bury something for literally 30 years and just say, oh, well, there’s nothing to see here. Oh, there’s nothing to see here. And it’s just so dehumanizing. And it’s just an awful feeling to know that you go to somebody and they do absolutely nothing. And we really want something done. There’s been five administrations we’ve gone through and it’s time that something is done, and Todd Blanche is not the person to do it if he hasn’t even read the files, that says a lot.
Tim Dickinson
Now, I have gone through a number of the files, and I have sort of cataloged different people who have faced accountability in Europe and across academia and in the public sector. And yet, Todd Blanche seems to think that there’s no crimes to investigate beyond Maxwell and Epstein himself. But what does that say to you?
Lara Blume McGee
Oh, well, what does it say? So there’s over 1200 known victims, right, that we know of. There’s probably more. And do you think that a sex trafficking, oh, there’s only one person is dead and one person is in prison. The other person is a woman. That’s the only person that’s in prison now. It wasn’t done with. Which is two people there. Many coconspirators. It was a large operation.
Sharlene Rochard
Including banks and institutions and, you know, schools. There’s so much to this. and basically he just hasn’t read it himself. And I would urge him to just actually read the files. Then maybe he would change his mind. But that again goes towards the fact that he’s not willing to read the files. So we do feel that it is an absolute cover up.
Lara Blume McGee
Mhm mhm.
Tim Dickinson
Um, the survivors have been placed in a sort of “political football” role in the Blanche hearings, Tillis and Cornyn both expressing reservations about Blanche and using the survivors and Blanche’s having not met with survivors is some sort of, uh, stumbling block and then organize this meeting. I understand you wrote a letter to the senators. Have you been able to follow up with them personally about your experience and your feelings about Blanche’s qualifications?
Lara Blume McGee
Yeah, well, we met with Cornyn’s office today. We had a very good meeting. Um, expressed our concerns, and we, you know, we felt heard today. That was really important. Um. Tillis’s office. Uh, we will be meeting with him soon. Hopefully. Hopefully before the vote. Um, but we have not had the opportunity to meet with him yet.
Tim Dickinson
Some of some of the financial shenanigans regarding the IRS and this, uh, slush fund for Trump’s, uh, uh, cronies essentially has become sort of the key stumbling block. Is that, has that been, I could imagine that would be aggravating to see something of that scale. Uh, the we can’t have a guy who did that versus the guy who went and met with Maxwell, and then she was subsequently transferred to a lower security prison.
Lara Blume McGee
Yeah. Yeah. I you know, I understand that they’re trying to redline, uh, many things on the slush fund that, um, Cornyn and Tillis are not happy with. And I agree with them. Why should the Trump family um, not, uh, be, um, convicted or charged with anything for tax fraud? That’s absolutely insane. Never heard of. And we shouldn’t even be discussing, this shouldn’t even be a discussion. But it is. And I understand their platform. But, um, you know, if, if that’s why they’re going to vote no, then we are okay with that. We just want to get to a no tomorrow. If we do vote tomorrow. Well, we shall see.
Sharlene Rochard
But it also tells you where the government and where Trump’s head is at. And Todd Blanche also, you know, if they want this slush fund to go through, Tillis and Cornyn need to realize that this is how they’re thinking, this is how they’re treating that situation. That’s how they’ve treated Epstein survivors as well. If you put them both together. He’s been incompetent with everything he’s done so far. This man is completely unqualified to be the highest form of government, the highest law enforcement officer of America. It’s clear that he does things for only one person and doesn’t do anything for all of America.
Lara Blume McGee
Yeah, his priorities are in the wrong place. Um, loyal to one person and not to the American people.
Tim Dickinson
Um, you guys have been instrumental in creating as much transparency as there has been. Um, where do you where do you, and you’re obviously taking these files on the road and putting them in front of people so that they can start to see some of the information and also some of the redactions. Um, what is your, what are your hopes going forward for greater transparency? And is that the goal of transparency? Do you feel that that’s going to create the change, really, that you want?
Lara Blume McGee
You know, I think that it’s you know, what I love about the reading room and the bookmobile is that if something tangible that people can see can’t touch them signs not to touch the the binding books. But I think that it’s important for America to see because they’re hearing about the files. Okay. Um, but your average American, you know, they don’t know what’s in the files, and they really know.
Want to know what our end game is? What do we want? You know, and it really is simple. We want accountability. If this happened to your daughter, your sister, your even, even your son, if it happened to a loved one, how would you want justice? And we want justice. And we waited a very long time for it.
Sharlene Rochard
And I think another important thing about the bookmobile, is that when you look at how many files there actually are, it just weighs on you. And this is the largest sex trafficking ring in history and the fact that there are all these files that, you know, we have and nothing has been done, nobody has been held accountable. It puts transparency into the hands of Americans, because we can start to connect the dots like this person did this, or this person did that. This institution harmed this person. And when you connect all the dots, you can prevent this from happening again. And so we can potentially save the next generation from going through what we went through as opposed to what happened to us. So by the bookmobile going from city to city to city, these are our stories. This is our life in these books. It really humanizes everything and makes this not political because we are not political at all. This is not left or right. This is a human issue. Sex, human trafficking is $1 billion industry, and it has a lot of problems. And hopefully we can bring some of those to light.
Tim Dickinson
Um, you’ve spoken a couple of times of the sisterhood, and I wonder if you can talk about, uh, the bravery that you find in solidarity and what that connection with other survivors has meant for you.
Lara Blume McGee
Yeah. I, um, I went public in November of ‘25, and Sharlene did as well. Um, my abuse happened between 2000 and 2003, in New York City. And so I did not speak, um, about my abuse to anyone more, more so the entire world. So when I went public, um, part of me wanting to bring change was when I saw some of my survivor sisters speaking at a press conference earlier in September, and I could not afford to stay silent anymore. I had to speak up. Um. And the bond that we share is amazing. The work that we do is tireless. It’s exhausting. I could not do it without them. We share an incredible bond, and it’s. It’s beautiful, you know, doing. We couldn’t do this by ourselves. Doing this together. We’re stronger. We’re so much stronger together. And it’s so beautiful. So if anything good came out of this is the friendship and the bond that we share.
Sharlene Rochard
And there’s something to be said about somebody going through the same abuse that you went through. And there’s just no questions. It’s not like meeting somebody and they ask you, what happened to you. Whatever. We just kind of already know. We don’t have to ask each other those questions and the love and support that we have for each other. It’s undeniable. But it’s also so strong and it’s unlike anything I’ve ever experienced literally in my life. Um, going through so much abuse and then finally finding an outlet of people that you can talk to about what happened to you, and especially with the national, um, like everybody looking at this case with such eyes on it. We have become quite close.
Tim Dickinson
Um, are there any other thoughts that you have? I mean, if you were to have, uh, Thom Tillis right here in the room today, what? What would you tell him? Uh, about the Blanche nomination.
Sharlene Rochard
Vote no. Vote no on Todd Blanche, please.
Lara Blume McGee
You know, this is a human like, again, it’s like, do you want to be on the right side of history or the wrong side of history? And that’s really where we are. Why? Sometimes I’m like, why is this even a discussion? But that’s where we are in America right now. This is about right and wrong and women and children were abused and it’s debatable. We shouldn’t be there. It should be an automatic no that it was not that he’s not investigating, that he’s not doing anything, he’s not doing his job.
Tim Dickinson
Or that he sees his job as defending a man who is also named in these files.
Lara Blume McGee
Yeah. He’s protecting. Yes. I have to agree with you.
Tim Dickinson
Um, well, listen, are there any final thoughts that you want to leave with our audience? I really want to thank you for your time and your bravery and your candor.
Sharlene Rochard
I just want to let all the Americans know that we are doing this for you. Because, you know, the Epstein Files Transparency Act, that’s a law that has been passed, but everybody can use it. And all the we work for all kinds of other laws to be passed, like we just passed a law where 14, 15, 16 year olds, um, no, 15, 16, 17 year olds are treated as not just a candy bar. It was a misdemeanor, and so we work tirelessly on more than lots of different kinds of laws. And so we just really want you to know that we care about everybody. And that is really what’s at the core of this.
Lara Blume McGee
Yes. This is bigger than Epstein. And what happened to us. We are doing this for all the survivors, and we hope we get messages all the time on our website. Survivorsisters.org. We have a lot of support and we love seeing those. And that keeps us going because we’ve had women say, you know, I’ve I’ve been afraid to speak up.
I’m in an abusive situation, I have an abusive husband. And if we can give them a glimpse of hope, you know, to speak up or try to get help, that, I mean, we’re doing our job and that keeps us going.
Tim Dickinson
Well, thank you so much for your time and appreciate you joining me today.
Lara Blume McGee
Thank you for having us.
Sharlene Rochard
Thank you.
Lara Blume McGee
Goodbye.
