Victims of notorious sex offender Jeffrey Epstein said Wednesday they were compiling a confidential list of his associates who abused underage girls.President Donald Trump, a one-time close friend of the deceased financier, sought meanwhile to dampen the enduring political furor over the Epstein case.”This is a Democrat hoax that never ends,” Trump told reporters at the White House.”They’re trying to get people to talk about something that’s totally irrelevant to the success that we’ve had as a nation since I’ve been president,” he said.Trump’s comments came as eight of Epstein’s victims held an emotional news conference at the US Capitol, where some of them spoke publicly for the first time about the sexual abuse they suffered.Some of the women were as young as 14 when introduced to Epstein.”We were just kids,” said Marina Lacerda, who said she was paid $300 to give “an older guy” a massage at his New York mansion.”It went from a dream job to the worst nightmare,” said Lacerda, who was “Minor Victim 1″ in Epstein’s federal indictment.The women urged the Justice Department to release all of the Epstein investigation files and for Congress to pass a bill compelling their publication.”There is no hoax. The abuse was real,” said Haley Robson, who was recruited to give a massage to Epstein when she was 16 years old.”If I disobeyed him I knew something bad would happen,” Robson said.Epstein died in a New York jail cell in 2019 while awaiting trial for sex trafficking of underage girls.Many of Trump’s supporters have been obsessed with the Epstein case for years and have held as an article of faith that “deep state” elites were protecting Epstein associates in the Democratic Party and Hollywood.They were further incensed in July when the FBI and Justice Department said that Epstein had committed suicide, did not blackmail any prominent figures, and did not keep a “client list.”Lisa Phillips, another Epstein victim, said she and other women were putting together a list of their own of Epstein associates.”We know the names. Many of us were abused by them,” Phillips said. “We will confidentially compile the names we all know were regularly in the Epstein world.”We are not asking for pity. We are demanding accountability.”- ‘Your time is up’ -Robson said she and other Epstein victims “know who was involved” and condemned law enforcement for failing to act.”We know the players and we are sitting here for 20 years waiting for you to get up and do something,” she said. “Well guess what? Your time is up, and now we’re doing it.”Republican lawmaker Marjorie Taylor Greene attended the press conference and said if given a list “I will walk in the Capitol on the House floor and I’ll say every damn name that abused these women.””I’d be proud to do it,” she said.Attorney Brad Edwards, who has represented scores of Epstein’s victims, said he did not believe the well-connected hedge fund manager kept a list of “clients” he provided with girls.”I don’t think he wrote the names of those people down,” Edwards said. “There’s not a list of, ‘Hey, here’s all of the people that I sent females to.’ That’s just not how that organization worked.”Trump was once a friend of Epstein’s and, according to The Wall Street Journal, the president’s name was among hundreds found during a Justice Department review of the Epstein files, though there has been no evidence of wrongdoing.The news conference was held a day after a House of Representatives committee released 33,000 documents from the investigation into Epstein and his accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell, who is serving a 20-year prison sentence for sex trafficking.Thousands of documents related to the Epstein probe have been circulated previously and Robert Garcia, the ranking Democrat on the House committee, said most of the records released on Tuesday had already been made public.

US President Donald Trump’s deadly strike on an alleged drug-smuggling boat from Venezuela marks a significant escalation from law enforcement to military action against cartels that his administration has branded as terror groups.Video footage posted by Trump on social media Tuesday showed a multi-engine speedboat with several people aboard bouncing across the waves — but rather than being stopped and boarded, the vessel is suddenly engulfed in an inferno.The US president said 11 members of the Tren de Aragua gang were killed in the strike, which should “serve as notice to anybody even thinking about bringing drugs into the United States of America.”Ryan Berg, director of the Americas Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the strike “demonstrates a change in the rules of engagement.””There is no longer US Coast Guard boarding of vessels; there is an approach far more similar to how the United States deals with pirates in the Gulf region, or terrorists in the Sahel,” he said.The United States — which has a long history of carrying out strikes against suspected militants without due process — designated Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua, Mexico’s Sinaloa Cartel and several other drug trafficking organizations as terror groups earlier this year.The strike on the boat comes at a time of soaring tensions between the United States and Venezuela over the deployment of American warships in the region that the Washington says are to combat trafficking but which Caracas views as a threat.- ‘Highly dissuasive effect’ -The United States alleges that leftist Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro heads a cocaine trafficking cartel and recently doubled its bounty to $50 million in exchange for his capture to face drug charges.Maduro has meanwhile accused Trump of attempting to effect regime change and launched a drive to sign up thousands of militia members.Asked about the potential for escalation with Venezuela as a result of the strike, Berg said that “Maduro is unlikely to say much, given that doing so would essentially confirm the administration’s assertion that he is a narcotrafficker and the head of a cartel.”Gustavo Flores-Macias, dean of the University of Maryland School of Public Policy, noted that the United States has a history of military interventions in Latin America, but said this one was the first under Trump’s policy of designating cartels as terror groups.”With the turn toward military strikes instead of traditional law enforcement in addressing drug trafficking in the region, the White House is looking to send a strong message,” Flores-Macias said.That message is aimed “not only to deter drug traffickers but also as a show of force to put the government of Nicolas Maduro on notice that the US is considering military action in Venezuela,” he said.It remains to be seen how effective Trump’s policy will be at curbing trafficking in the Caribbean, but Berg said the US Navy’s multi-ship deployment “could disrupt Southern Caribbean trafficking routes for some time, with its generational scale and size.””In the short term, (the strike) is likely to have a highly dissuasive effect,” he said. “Few will risk being in a ‘go fast’ boat anytime soon.”

US President Donald Trump offered Friday to send more troops to Poland as he welcomed the country’s new nationalist president Karol Nawrocki to the White House with a military flyover.Trump also hinted at taking stronger action against Russia if it fails to end its war with Ukraine, which has put NATO ally Poland on edge since Moscow’s invasion in 2022.Nawrocki, a conservative historian and fervent Trump supporter, visited the White House during Poland’s election campaign and is now making his first foreign trip as president.Trump gave him a warm welcome — including an offer to boost the US military footprint in Poland, where around 8,000 US troops are currently reinforcing NATO’s eastern flank, according to US media.”We’ll put more there if they want,” Trump, 79, said after shaking hands with Nawrocki, 42, in the Oval Office. “We’re with Poland all the way and we’ll help Poland protect itself.”Trump added that the flyover by F-16 and F-35 jets during Nawrocki’s arrival was “very much in honor” of a Polish F-16 jet pilot killed last week while preparing for an air show.”He was a legend in Poland,” Trump said of the pilot, Major Maciej “Slab” Krakowian, 37.- ‘Very proud’ -Nawrocki then praised the US troop presence and said it was “the first time in history” that Poland had been happy to host foreign troops.He also stressed that Warsaw aims to keep increasing its own military spending within the NATO alliance to meet Trump’s demands — despite already being the top spender based on the proportion of GDP.Trump meanwhile prided himself on having backed political novice Nawrocki in Polish elections, the latest in a series of right-wing leaders in Europe supported by Trump.Trump welcomed Nawrocki to the Oval Office in June before the Polish election, with the White House posting a picture of the pair grinning and giving the thumbs-up sign.”I don’t endorse too many people, but I endorsed him, and I was very proud of the job he’s done,” Trump said on Wednesday.The eastern European nation is deeply polarized, with the nationalist Nawrocki clashing with the pro-EU government led by Prime Minister Donald Tusk, a former European Council chief. During the election campaign, Nawrocki highlighted the importance of ties with the United States and his close relationship with Trump. His “Poland First, Poles First” echoed Trump’s “America First” slogan.- Strong Ukraine support -The talks were set to be dominated by the war in Poland’s neighbor Ukraine.While Trump and Nawrocki see eye-to-eye politically, Poland is closely watching the US leader’s peace efforts in Ukraine, which Warsaw has largely been frozen out of.Poland has been a strong supporter of Ukraine since Russia’s 2022 invasion and is a vital transit country for military and humanitarian supplies.Trump said that “you’ll see things happen” if he’s dissatisfied with President Vladimir Putin’s response, hinting at fresh sanctions or tariffs against Moscow.”I have no message to President Putin, he knows where I stand, and he’ll make a decision one way or the other,” Trump told reporters.Trump will speak with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Thursday, a White House official told AFP. He is also set to speak to European leaders, the French presidency said.Ukraine is proving divisive in Poland too.Nawrocki recently blocked a law extending Ukrainian refugees’ rights proposed by Tusk’s government. Nawrocki has also, like Trump, opposed Ukraine’s desire for NATO membership.