promised

For Marina Lacerda, the upcoming publication of U.S. government files on Jeffrey Epstein represents more than an opportunity for justice.

She says she was just 14 when Epstein started sexually abusing her at his New York mansion, but she struggles to recall much of what happened because it is such a dark period in her life.

Now, she’s hoping that the files will reveal more about the trauma that distorted so much of her adolescence.

“I feel that the government and the FBI knows more than I do, and that scares me, because it’s my life, it’s my past,” she told the Associated Press.

President Trump signed legislation last week that will force the Justice Department to release documents from its voluminous files on Epstein.

“We have waited long enough. We’ve fought long enough,” Lacerda said.

It isn’t clear yet how much new information will be in the files, gathered over two decades of investigations into Epstein’s alleged sexual abuse of many girls and women.

Some of his accusers expect the files to provide a level of transparency they had hardly allowed themselves to believe would materialize, but the release of the documents will be a more complicated moment for others.

Two federal investigations cut short

The FBI and police in Palm Beach, Fla., began investigating Epstein in the mid-2000s after several underage girls said he had paid them for sex acts. He pleaded guilty in 2008 to charges including procuring a minor for prostitution, but a secret deal with the U.S. attorney in Florida — future Trump Cabinet member Alex Acosta — allowed him to avoid a federal prosecution. He served little more than a year in custody.

Jena-Lisa Jones says she was abused by Epstein in Palm Beach in 2002, when she was 14. She did not report the abuse to the police at the time, but she later became one of many accusers to sue the multimillionaire.

The Miami Herald published a series of articles about Epstein in 2018 that exposed new details about how the federal prosecution was shelved. A year later, federal prosecutors in New York, where Epstein owned a mansion, revived the case and charged him with sex trafficking.

Jones said she was interviewed during that federal investigation and was prepared to testify in court.

“It was very important for me to have my moment, for him to see my face and hear my words, and me have that control and power back,” Jones said.

But that day never came.

Epstein killed himself in a federal jail cell in New York City in August 2019.

In lieu of her day in court, Jones and others are hoping for a public reckoning with the publication of the government files on Epstein.

While the government only ever charged two people in connection with the abuse case — Epstein and his longtime confidant Ghislaine Maxwell, who is in prison for her related crimes — at least one of Epstein’s accusers has claimed she was instructed to have sex with other rich and powerful men.

Jones didn’t make similar claims, but said she believes the documents could map out a “broad scheme” involving others.

“I’m hoping they’re shaking a little bit and that they have what’s coming for them,” Jones said.

Filling in the gaps

Lacerda, now 37, is also hoping the files will clarify her own personal experience, which is muddled by the pain she said she endured at that time in her life.

“I was just a child and it’s just trauma. That’s what trauma does to your brain,” Lacerda said.

An immigrant from Brazil, Lacerda said she was working three jobs to support herself and her family the summer before 9th grade when a friend said she could make $300 if she gave Epstein massages.

The first time she massaged Epstein, he told her to remove her shirt, she said.

Lacerda said she was soon spending so much time working for Epstein that she dropped out of school. The sexual abuse persisted until she turned 17, when Epstein informed her that she was “too old,” she said.

Lacerda wondered whether the files might include videos and photographs of her and other victims at Epstein’s properties.

“I need to know — for my healing process and for the adult in me — what I did as a child,” Lacerda said. “It will be re-traumatizing, but it’s transparency — and I need it,” she said.

Accusers wonder, why now?

For Lacerda, the elation around the upcoming release of the files gave way to familiar feelings for many women who survive abuse: fear and paranoia.

“In the heat of the moment, we were like, ‘Wow, this is like, everything that we’ve been fighting for.’ And then we had to take a moment and be like, ‘Wait a minute. Why is he releasing the files all of a sudden?’ ” Lacerda said.

The abrupt change in the political momentum made her uneasy. She wondered whether the documents would be doctored or redacted to protect people connected to Epstein.

Others echoed her concerns, and wondered if the government would sufficiently protect victims who have remained anonymous, who fear scrutiny and harassment if their names were to become public.

“For the rest of my life, I will never truly trust the government because of what they’ve done to us,” Jones said.

Haley Robson, who says she was abused by Epstein when she was 16, has the same concerns.

Robson was a leading voice in advocating for the Florida legislation signed in 2024 that unsealed the grand jury transcripts from the 2006 state case against Epstein.

She said the political maneuvering in recent months about the files led to nonstop anxiety, reminiscent of how she felt when she was abused as a teenager.

“I guess it really comes from the trauma I’ve endured, because this is kind of what Jeffrey Epstein did to us. You know, he wasn’t transparent. He played these manipulation tactics,” she said. “It’s triggering for anybody who’s been in that situation.”

Still, Robson said she is trying to savor the victory while she can.

“This is the first time since 2006 where I don’t feel like the underdog,” she said.

Riddle writes for the Associated Press.

WASHINGTON — Now that the government shutdown is over, House and Senate Republicans say they will negotiate with Democrats on whether to extend COVID-era tax credits that help tens of millions of Americans afford their healthcare premiums. But finding bipartisan agreement could be difficult, if not impossible, before the subsidies expire at the end of the year.

The shutdown ended this week after a small group of Democrats made a deal with Republicans senators who promised a vote by mid-December on extending the Affordable Care Act subsidies. But there is no guaranteed outcome, and many Republicans have made clear they want the credits to expire.

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) called the subsidies a “boondoggle” immediately after the House voted Wednesday to end the shutdown, and President Trump said the Obama-era healthcare overhaul was “disaster” as he signed the reopening bill into law.

It is far from the outcome that Democrats had hoped for as they kept the government closed for 43 days, demanding that Republicans negotiate with them on an extension before premiums sharply increase. But they say they will try again as the expiration date approaches.

“It remains to be seen if they are serious,” said House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York. But he said Democrats “are just getting started.”

Republicans have been meeting privately to discuss the issue. Some want to extend the subsidies, with changes, to avoid the widespread increases in premiums. Others, like Johnson and Trump, want to start a new conversation about overhauling “Obamacare” entirely — a redo after a similar effort in 2017 failed.

Democrats push for extension

Healthcare has long been one of the most difficult issues on Capitol Hill, marked by deep ideological and political divides. Partisan disagreement over the 2010 law has persisted for more than a decade, and relationships are already strained from weeks of partisan tensions over the shutdown.

Connecticut Rep. Rosa DeLauro, the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, said that while Republicans have promised negotiations and a Senate vote, Democrats are wary. She noted that Johnson has not committed to anything in the House.

“Do I trust any of them? Hell no,” DeLauro said.

If the two sides cannot agree, as many as 24 million people who get their healthcare from the exchanges created by the law could see their premiums go up Jan. 1. New Hampshire Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, one of the Democrats who struck a deal with Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) to reopen the government, said she thinks an agreement on the tax credits is possible.

During the talks that led to the shutdown’s end, Shaheen said she and other moderate Democrats sat across from Thune and “looked him eye to eye” as he committed to a serious effort.

“We’re going to have a chance to vote on a bill that we will write by mid-December, in a way that gives us a chance to build — hopefully build — bipartisan support to get that through,” Shaheen said.

While Democrats would like to see a permanent extension of the tax credits, most realize that is unlikely. Just before the shutdown ended, Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York proposed a one-year extension and a bipartisan committee to address Republican demands for changes to the Affordable Care Act. But Thune said that was a “nonstarter” as the government remained shut down.

In the House, Democrats have proposed a three-year extension.

What Republicans want

While Republicans have long sought to scrap Obamacare, they have had challenges over the years in figuring out what would replace it. That problem plagued the 2017 effort, when then-Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) cast the deciding vote to kill a bill on the Senate floor that was short on detail.

Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, chairman of the Senate Health Education Labor and Pensions Committee, and Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) have proposed overhauling the law to create accounts that would direct the money to individuals instead of insurance companies. Those are ideas that Trump echoed as he signed the funding bill Wednesday evening.

“I want the money to go directly to you, the people,” Trump said.

It is unclear exactly how that would work, and scrapping the law in its current form would take months, if not years, to negotiate, even if Republicans could find the votes to do it.

Slow start to negotiations

Some moderate Republicans in the House have said they want to work with Democrats to extend the subsidies before the deadline, which is only weeks away. In a letter to Thune and Schumer on Wednesday, Pennsylvania Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, the Republican co-chair of the Bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus, encouraged negotiations.

“Our sense of urgency cannot be greater,” Fitzpatrick wrote. “Our willingness to cooperate has no limits.”

So far, though, Senate Republicans have been meeting on their own to figure out their own differences.

“Right now, it’s just getting consensus among ourselves,” Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) said Monday after GOP members of the Senate Finance Committee met to discuss possible ways forward.

Tillis is supportive of extending the tax credits, but said lawmakers also need to find a way to reduce costs. If the two sides cannot eventually agree, Tillis said, Republicans may have to try to figure out a way to do it on their own, potentially using budget maneuvers that enabled them to pass Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” this summer without any Democratic votes.

“We should have that in our back pocket too,” Tillis said.

Another shutdown?

Some House Democrats have raised the possibility that there could be another shutdown if they are unable to win concessions on healthcare. The bill signed by Trump will fully fund some parts of the government, but others run out of money again at the end of January if Congress does not act.

“I think it depends on the vulnerable House Republicans who are not going to be able to go back to their constituents without telling them that they’ve done something on healthcare,” said Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.).

“We’ll just have to see” if there could be another shutdown, said Rep. Mark Takano (D-Riverside).

Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) said he is “not going to vote to endorse their cruelty” if Republicans do not extend the subsidies.

DeLauro said that Republicans have wanted to repeal the ACA since it was first enacted. “That’s where they’re trying to go,” she said.

“When it comes to Jan. 30 we’ll see what progress has been made,” she said.

Jalonick writes for the Associated Press.