President Donald Trump’s latest show of military pageantry collided with a solemn moment on Wednesday, when U.S. fighter jets thundered over the Capitol and drowned out survivors of Jeffrey Epstein as they demanded Congress release thousands of pages of long-hidden records.
The flyover, staged at 11:27 a.m., featured four F-35s and four F-16s performing a missing man formation. The White House said the maneuver honored a Polish pilot killed during an airshow rehearsal last month and was arranged to coincide with President Trump’s bilateral meeting with newly elected Polish President Karol Nawrocki.
But the interruption didn’t come soon enough to drown out survivor Chauntae Davies naming Donald Trump as Epstein’s “biggest brag,” according to video of the speech circulating on social media.
At the 11:20 mark in a live feed from NBC News, Davies said, “Epstein surrounded himself with the most powerful leaders of our country and the world. He abused not only me but countless others and everyone seem to look away. The truth is Epstein had a free pass. He bragged about his powerful friends including our current President Donald Trump.”
Minutes later and now during the actual flyover, she doubled down on Trump’s connection to Epstein. She said Epstein kept an “eight by 10” photo of Trump on his desk and that “Jeffrey and Ghislaine were always very boastful about their friends, their famous and powerful friends, and his biggest brag, forever, was that he was very good friends with Donald Trump. They were very close.”
In the same exchange, she name-dropped Bill Clinton alongside Trump when talking about Epstein’s circle of “powerful friends.”
The timing left survivors and supporters stunned.
Anouska De Georgiou was forced to halt her remarks as the roar overhead silenced her voice. Other women shook their heads in disbelief.
Amber Woods, who attended the event, wrote on X: “It’s difficult to overstate how disrespectful this flyover was, given this press conference was known about by the admin. My heart broke standing next to these brave women, some who were already in tears, or shaking.”
Critics online accused the White House of deliberately trying to drown out the voices of Epstein’s victims. “Make note of the time 11:27 AM… what a piece of shit!” one user posted on Threads.
One user exclaimed with glee that the clip signaled a turning point not in Trump’s favor, “Ooopppppsss! Donnie, Donnie, Donnie! You’re cooked!”
Former counterterrorism official Malcolm Nance asked: “Who authorized fighter jets to fly by the capitol at that very moment?!”
The U.S. Capitol Police had issued an alert that morning, warning of an authorized flight that would be “noticeable to personnel on the ground.” The White House later described the flyover as a “spectacular” tribute meant to “honor the memory of a brave Polish fighter pilot whose life was tragically taken too soon and capture the special relationship between our two countries.”
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Inside the White House, Trump dismissed the press conference and calls to release the Epstein records as a partisan attack.
“I think we should talk about the greatness of our country and the success that we’re having. That’s what we should be talking about, not the Epstein hoax,” he told reporters during a media availability with Nawrocki. He called the issue “a Democrat hoax that never ends,” comparing it to lingering demands for unreleased Kennedy assassination records.
“From what I understand, thousands of pages of documents have been given. But it’s really a Democrat hoax, because 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,” Trump said. “I understand that we were subpoenaed to give files, and I understand we’ve given thousands of pages of files, and I know that no matter what you do, it’s going to keep going.”
Back at the press conference, Haley Robson called Trump out by name.
“Mr. President Donald J Trump, I am a registered Republican — not that that matters, because this is not political. However, I cordially invite you to the Capitol to meet me in person so you can understand this is not a hoax.”
Robson, who was 16 when she was recruited into Epstein’s network, also scolded politicians for politicizing their trauma. “Shame on you for using our trauma to weaponize this moment,” she said.
Later, the White House released video of Trump and Nawrocki gazing upward as the jets performed their formation. That same footage drew fury online. “Trump spends oodles of $$ for an absurd military flyover to silence victims of Epstein’s and Maxwell’s awful crimes as he protects the perpetrators of those crimes,” Rep. Daniel Goldman (D-N.Y.) wrote on X.
Survivors gathered at the Capitol were undeterred, pressing for Congress to release Epstein’s full case files. “We are not asking for pity, we are demanding accountability,” said Lisa Phillips. “Congress must choose: Will you continue to protect predators, or will you finally protect survivors? Transparency is justice.”
Davies said Epstein had “gotten a free pass” from his crimes and “what she endured will haunt her forever.”
Survivors also emphasized accountability and transparency, saying they had waited 20 years for justice and were tired of politicians using their trauma for partisan battles.
Epstein, who died in jail in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges, was long connected to powerful figures including Trump and Bill Clinton. His long-shielded records are at the center of a growing bipartisan push for transparency.
Reps. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), and Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) joined survivors at the Capitol this week to demand a vote on releasing the files, filing a discharge petition to bypass Republican leadership.
But since returning to the White House, Trump has resisted calls for more disclosure despite campaign promises. A July Justice Department memo insisted no “client list” exists and declared no more information would be released, fueling bipartisan anger. “Likely … biggest cover-up in the history of the United States,” Sky Roberts, brother of late victim Virginia Giuffre, told The Independent.
Maxwell, Epstein’s longtime associate, is serving a 20-year sentence for sex trafficking. She was moved to a minimum-security prison in Texas after Trump administration officials interviewed her in July. Survivors demanded she serve her full term “without special treatment.”
