Victims of sexual abuse with NDAs would be able to speak freely under new bill from GOP committee leader

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Survivors of sexual abuse would be free to speak about their experiences even if they sign a nondisclosure agreement under a new bill put forward by the House Republican leading the Jeffrey Epstein investigation in Congress.

Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer said the push to protect survivors’ rights arose in part from incidents involving nondisclosure agreements, or NDAs, during the probe — and vowed that the bill would help protect survivors and hold abusers accountable.

“During our investigation, we’ve learned how powerful men weaponized nondisclosure agreements to silence survivors of sexual abuse,” he said in a statement to CNN’s Jake Tapper. “The Survivor’s Voice Protection Act ensures individuals with information about sexual abuse and survivors can speak freely about these crimes, despite any nondisclosure agreements.”

The bill would make any clause of an NDA void and unenforceable if it would prevent any individual, including victims, from providing information about sexual abuse — and would apply to existing agreements.

It’s not yet clear what fate the bill will face in the House, but there is widespread bipartisan support for accountability measures in response to what investigators have learned during the Epstein probe, though there are very different ideas on how to achieve that aim.

The proposal comes amid a standoff between House investigators and one of the witnesses in the Epstein probe, billionaire investor Leon Black, who refused to appear before the committee on September 3. Instead, he sued the panel to try to block it from obtaining his testimony and NDAs. Black’s attorneys have argued that the NDAs the panel was seeking were too broad, had no connection to Epstein and disregarded the privacy interests of third parties.

The House Oversight Committee moved unanimously Tuesday to hold Black in contempt of Congress for refusing to turn over the NDAs and to appear for a deposition.

Black is one of many influential and wealthy individuals whose past relationships with Epstein have come under further scrutiny since the Justice Department’s release of millions of Epstein files. In a voluntary closed-door June interview, Black told members of Congress that he did not know the extent of Epstein’s crimes — and that he himself never abused women or had sexual relations with minors.

The new bill would also define grooming in federal law for the first time and establishes a requirement to report grooming of a minor to law enforcement.

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根据众议院共和党议员提出的一项新法案，性虐待幸存者即使签署了保密协议，也可以自由地谈论他们的经历。该议员领导着国会中对杰弗里·爱泼斯坦的调查。

监督委员会主席詹姆斯·科默表示，保护幸存者权利的推动部分源于调查期间涉及保密协议（NDA）的事件——他誓言该法案将有助于保护幸存者并追究施虐者的责任。

“在我们的调查过程中，我们发现一些有权势的人利用保密协议来压制性虐待幸存者的声音，”他在给CNN记者杰克·塔珀的一份声明中说。“《幸存者之声保护法》确保掌握性虐待信息的人和幸存者可以自由地谈论这些罪行，不受任何保密协议的限制。”

该法案规定，如果保密协议中的任何条款阻止任何个人（包括受害者）提供有关性虐待的信息，则该条款无效且不具强制执行力——并且该法案适用于现有的协议。

目前还不清楚该法案在众议院的命运如何，但两党普遍支持采取问责措施，以回应调查人员在爱泼斯坦调查中发现的情况，尽管对于如何实现这一目标存在很大不同的想法。

这项提议出台之际，正值众议院调查人员与爱泼斯坦案证人之一、亿万富翁投资者莱昂·布莱克陷入僵局。布莱克拒绝于9月3日出席委员会听证会，反而起诉委员会，试图阻止其获取证词和保密协议。布莱克的律师辩称，委员会寻求的保密协议范围过广，与爱泼斯坦案无关，并且无视了第三方的隐私权。

周二，众议院监督委员会一致决定，因布莱克拒绝交出保密协议并拒绝出席作证，而对其处以藐视国会的罪名。

自司法部公布数百万份爱泼斯坦档案以来，布莱克是众多与爱泼斯坦有过往关系的有影响力且富有的人士之一，这些人与爱泼斯坦的过往关系因此受到更严格的审查。在6月份的一次自愿闭门面谈中，布莱克告诉国会议员，他并不了解爱泼斯坦犯罪的程度，而且他本人从未虐待过女性，也从未与未成年人发生过性关系。

新法案还将首次在联邦法律中对“诱骗未成年人”进行定义，并规定必须向执法部门报告诱骗未成年人的行为。