Photos: Epstein survivors speak in Cedar Rapids as bookmobile of released files tours Midwest

The rolling “Donald J. Trump and Jeffrey Epstein Memorial Reading Room” stopped in Des Moines, Iowa City and Cedar Rapids last week. On Sunday, Raygun hosted the bookmobile at its CR retail store, as well as a reading by survivors of Epstein’s abuse. It marked the first time Epstein survivors have made an appearance with the Reading Room, which began its national tour on Sept. 8. The sister and brother-in-law of Virginia Giuffre, the late author, advocate and prominent accuser of Epstein and Prince Andrew, were also in attendance.

The Reading Room is the flagship project of the Institute for Primary Facts, a nonpartisan 501(c)(3) nonprofit focused on building “immersive, in-person experiences that put the primary record directly in front of the public” to support critical thinking and government accountability.

During the bookmobile’s hourlong stop in Cedar Rapids’ Czech Village/New Bohemia district on Sunday, Democrat Lindsay James, running for Congress in Iowa’s 2nd District, joined roughly 100 members of the public — some local, some who drove as long as 30 minutes for the event — to view a timeline of Trump and Epstein’s relationship, browse printed and bound versions of the publicly available Epstein files inside the van, meet survivors Dani Bensky and Sharlene Rochard, and leave messages on index cards, many of which called out President Trump.

Speaking to reporters, James called out her Republican opponent in the November election, Joe Mitchell, for accepting campaign donations from John Paulson, a billionaire hedge fund manager and major Trump donor whose name allegedly appears in Epstein’s “black book.”

Many visitors to the bookmobile stayed for a reading by Bensky and Rochard from Giuffre’s memoir Nobody’s Girl, on the second floor of Raygun. The book was published last fall in the months after Giuffre’s death.

Nicole Yeager contributed reporting for this article.