Donald Trump accused of deliberately dismantling prosecution of sexual abusers and ‘abandoning survivors’

A top House Democrat, Jamie Raskin, is accusing that Donald Trump “systematically dismantled the offices and programs we rely on to combat human trafficking and prosecute sex crimes.” This news comes as the president is facing continued pressure to release investigative files related to disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, who died in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.

Raskin, the ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, laid out his argument in a memo, that The Guardian found, to Democratic members of the committee, ahead of testimony scheduled by FBI director Kash Patel. According to Raskin, “President Trump in office has repeatedly taken the side of criminal sex predators and violent abusers against their victims, and this pattern goes well beyond his strenuous efforts to bury the Epstein Files.”

He also stated, “Far from aiding victims and survivors, President Trump consistently sides with their abusers.” To be fair, that’s a pretty heavy accusation. Raskin believes that this “all-of-government policy to aid traffickers and sex criminals and abandon survivors has made American women dramatically less safe.”

Trump keeps defending the rich against the accusations of the other classes

On the other hand, White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers called the accusations “total nonsense” and then pointed the finger at former President Joe Biden’s handling of immigration. According to Rogers, “Their party’s president spent the last four years coddling and apologizing for criminals and sexual predators. Joe Biden’s wide open border allowed hundreds of thousands of innocent children to be kidnapped across the southern border by smugglers and gang members illegally residing in our communities.”

Rogers also stated that Trump had “totally secured our border to stop the trafficking of children” and “implemented tough-on-crime policies to hold these disgusting monsters accountable to the fullest extent of the law.”

The memo from Raskin’s office points to several policies that he believes have helped criminals. For starters, he mentioned the dismantling of USAID, an agency he described as one of the most effective at documenting trafficking routes and undermining forced labor. Raskin said that “Closing USAID has blinded federal law enforcement to developing threats overseas, allowing trafficking networks to strengthen in power, influence, and size, almost certainly leading to an increase in the number of women and children trafficked into the United States.”

That’s a huge claim, but the memo also says that about half of all federal law enforcement personnel who would normally be looking into criminals and terrorists are now focused on deportations as part of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown. This includes a crazy number of FBI agents, ATF, and DEA agents. According to the memo, “By diverting extraordinary amounts of money and personnel to its immigration crackdown, the Trump Administration has undermined the investigation and prosecution of nearly every other law enforcement priority, including human trafficking and child exploitation.”

The memo also alleges that the Trump administration canceled hundreds of grants to local law enforcement and non-profits that were used to help victims. This includes things like federal funding for training sexual assault nurse examiners and providing American Sign Language interpretation for survivors of domestic violence.

Apparently, the immigration crackdown has even gotten in the way of helping trafficking survivors, with one organization allegedly being told they can’t use grant money to help anyone in the country illegally, which Raskin said may violate federal law. It’s a complicated situation, that’s for sure.

The memo also brought up the case of a group that had worked with child abuse victims for over three decades, only to have its funding terminated. The funding was partially restored, but with a warning that “its affiliates to never again mention race, class, and gender diversity in it training materials.” Raskin said that these findings “reveal the Trump Administration’s structural bias in favor of human traffickers, rapists, and sexual violators and against their victims, survivors, and opponents.”