I first learned about the Trump-Epstein Memorial Bookmobile via a national news Facebook post on the recent Republican Midterm Convention in Dallas, TX. I clicked on the associated link and saw that the bookmobile was scheduled to hit the Midwest after Texas. This coincided with my travel to that area, so I put myself on the mailing list for tickets.
Months earlier, I’d read an intriguing story about the Trump-Epstein Reading Room in New York City and had for a very few minutes considered driving down from Massachusetts, where I was staying. But I hate the MA-NYC traffic and am skeptical about media hype. What if I got all the way down there, and the Reading Room was a bust?
I opted to play it safe, and sate my curiosity about the Reading Room via internet stories, rather than in-person, figuring that online would be almost like being in-person, so why waste time, energy, gas money.
But visiting the bookmobile here in Iowa seemed like a cool idea. Because it was going to be set up in an area with lots of parking, little traffic, just a few miles from my house, I thought, “Why not?” I figured even if the trip turned out to be a big ball of nothing, I’d have wasted only an hour or so and would maybe leave with a half-decent story to tell about naivete, and lessons on caving in to internet hype.
A few days after the bookmobile left Dallas, I got an email inviting me to reserve free tickets, which were scheduled in 20-minute increments. The confirmation email was a bit sobering, because first and foremost were instructions forbidding weapons and saying that official government ID was required for entry. Until then, it hadn’t occurred to me that violence could potentially be an issue, but after reading the instructions, I did start wondering about safety. Then I saw the locale, and knew I’d likely be fine
Like NYC, Des Moines’s streets are set up on a grid. There the similarities end. Finding the bookmobile was easy because it was set up in a parking spot right in front of one of my favorite Des Moines retailers, RAYGUN, a community-oriented business – it annually donates 15-30 percent of net profits to local causes, that bills itself as “The Greatest Store in the Universe.” Need a T-shirt, mug, sticker, poster, book with a positive or snarky message on just about any subject known to humankind? RAYGUN is the place to be.
Their signature collections include: the Midwest, Feminist agenda, Snowflake agenda, Gay Agenda, Tree-hugging, Unions. They celebrate pets – “Wiscatsin” for example, NPR, The Onion, public education, immigrants, Caitlin Clark. This T-shirt is a big seller: “Iowa, the Women’s Basketball State”
At last year’s No Kings rally at the Iowa state capital, RAYGUN’s founder was one of the key speakers, and it seemed like every other protestor was dressed in RAYGUN wear. Yesterday, just feet away from the bookmobile’s location, in one of their windows hung a blue T-shirt with this message: “Dear World, Sorry our president is a bag of dicks. Sincerely, Half of USA.”
Got a little off-track there but I do so because not only do I want to give credit to and plug one of the forces behind the local bookmobile event, I wanted to make clear that there was a positive community vibe present. This was important because for me otherwise, the bookmobile experience would have been depressingly, infuriatingly overwhelming.
The bookmobile, a large van that in no way or shape was overwhelming, fit neatly into one parking spot. There were security guards present. Among a small crowd, the half-dozen of us readying to enter at our assigned time listened while our hosts, two young women in black, ran down what we could expect to find inside. We were invited to take all the pictures we wanted of the exterior and interior of the van but were asked to refrain from taking pictures of the two hosts for safety reasons. This constraint, along with the presence of the security guards, absolutely contributed to a feeling that we were less safe than we normally would be in this parking lot.
While we waited to enter, we were free to wander around the outside of the van. Plastered on one side was a huge photo of Trump and Epstein. Next to that, the rest of the van was covered in a timeline detailing not only important points in the relationship of this despicable duo, it also displayed documented alleged sexual assaults and other crimes against Trump.
For example, under 1992:
Groped at the Plaza Hotel. Jill Harth, a makeup artist and business partner of promoter George Houraney , alleged that Trump groped her under the table at a 1992 Plaza Hotel dinner. She filed a federal lawsuit against Trump in 1997. Trump denied the allegations.
Like many other folks who were adults back in the 1980s and on who kept up on current events, most of the information on the timeline wasn’t new. I read about all of this in real time, was duly horrified, then saw the facts replayed time and again when Trump ran for office, and remained horrified. But seeing it all in one place on the side of that van, in stark black and white – and knowing that half the country also saw this in real time and replayed, like me, and still put this creep in the highest office in the land not once but twice, was awful.
We entered the van via a metal set of temporary stairs. There was little moving around room once the six of us were inside. On one wall were several original artworks by the first documented Epstein accuser, survivor Maria Farmer. She accused Epstein of sexual assault in 1996, the same year one of our two bookmobile hosts was born.
Farmer’s art is her sexual assault testimony in graphic form, giant swaths of black, orange red, yellow, depicting rage, fear. Nothing else needed to be in that van. Her art more than created a picture of what she survived.
Yet there was more. Against the opposite wall were shelves filled with white binders containing every page of the released Epstein files. The binders say, “The Partially Redacted Epstein Files Travel Edition.” The first binder is volume 1-9. The print is too tiny to read because each page represented nine pages worth of files. The binders on the shelves at the middle of the wall are red and contain all the files that mention Trump. The typeface is readable. It is astounding to witness the hefty proportion of red binders to white ones. There are 53 volumes, standard type size, in the “Trump Collection.”
Here is a sample of what you'll find in the Trump Collection.
Original Bates Range: EFTA00211168-EFTA00211180
Original Document Length: 13 pages
Pages Included Here: all 13 pages (entire document)
Archive Location: Volume 264, page 430-442
Curator’s note:
2016 federal civil complaint Jane Doe v. Donald J. Trump and Jeffrey E. Epstein plus supporting declarations; entire short document is directly about Trump.
Case 1:16cv-04642 Document 1 Filed 06/20/16 Page 4 of 9
Trump had known Defendant Epstein for seven years (New York, 10/28/02) and knew that Plaintiff was then just 13 years old. Exhs. A and B.
10. Defendant Trump initialed sexual contact with Plaintiff at four different parties. On the fourth and final sexual encounter with Defendant Trump, Defendant Trump tied Plaintiff to a bed, exposed himself to Plaintiff, and then proceeded to forcibly rape Plaintiff. During the course of this savage sexual attack, Plaintiff loudly pleaded with Defendant Trump to stop but with no effect. Defendant Trump responded to Plaintiff’s pleas by violently striking Plaintiff in the face with his open hand and screaming that he would do whatever he wanted. Exhs. A and B.
11. Immediately following this Rape, Defendant Trump threatened Plaintiff that, were she ever to reveal any of the details of the sexual and physical abuse of her by Defendant Trump, Plaintiff and her family would be physically harmed if not killed. Exhs. A and B.
I spent a total of maybe ten minutes inside the van. After reading the above excerpt, I had to get out of there. The walls started closing in and I felt like I was suffocating.
Outside RAYGUN, the organizers had set up a table with markers, index cards, magnets. Like the other visitors there that day, I wrote a message to survivors on one index card, then attached it to the side of the van being used as a bulletin board of sorts. I was in one of the first groups that day and already it was hard to find an open spot to leave my card.
Here are some of the messages I saw:
How can so many Congressmen love their jobs more than children?
Money and influence should never outweigh the truth.
America, wake up.
How??? Why do we allow women to be continuously silenced?
At this point I was dazed and dizzy. My car was only a few blocks away, but I knew I was in no condition to drive. I needed to recenter. I stopped into RAYGUN and walked up and down the aisles, reading funny messages on T-shirts and stickers. I took pictures and browsed through some books. When I felt calmer and was breathing normally, I walked back to my car.
It’s dangerous going to rallies, keeping yourself informed, and being present amidst all this evil. You get angry, frustrated. You feel everything. But complacency is complicity. I’d rather know than not know. I was inside the van for no more than ten minutes. I couldn't handle any more than that. These survivors were subject to abuse -- that I could barely stomach spending minutes reading about -- for years. Being there in person really brought home for me the horror those victims faced and continue to face as our government ignores their pleas for justice.
If you have the opportunity, please consider visiting the bookmobile in person. It's a vastly different experience than accessing this info remotely via computer screen. A traveling version of the Reading Room is also now making its way across the United States. I recommend that too.
Sign up link: Trumpepsteinreadingroom.com
Here’s RAYGUN’s link if you’d like to support a community-focused retailer that’s walking the walk: raygunsite.com
Forward.
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