This article is not an attempt to regurgitate the good and thorough work done by bloggers, published authors and journalists regarding Donald Trump, Trump Model Management and Sex Trafficking. This is about why that coverage stopped after the election, what became of those “reporters” (generally and specifically) and why this subject disappeared from headlines in November, 2016.

Some of the writers on this topic are Child Sex Abuse (CSA) Survivors themselves. As CSA Survivors they were brave to write about a topic that must surely bring up painful memories of their own experiences. Some of them are uniquely qualified to report about the prevalence of models-as-sex-slaves because they experienced it, and were understandably worried about an accused rapist becoming President. They tried to warn people in their research and writing, only to abruptly stop writing immediately before or after the election. I write in their honor and to shine a light on the fact that I believe they did not stop writing willingly.

One such writer is Rebecca Mesle (aka @SwedishJewFish) Rebecca’s work on Daily Kos is in-depth, detailed, thorough and well-researched. Her longest and most referenced article, “We All Knew About the Trafficking” was to be the first installment in a series. This story, while tragic for its content, is also tragic because Ms. Mesle never got to “Part 2”. She stopped writing articles on her Daily Kos blog on November 10, 2016; last post was about CSA survivors’ thoughts of suicide after the election.

“Last night I posted a diary providing a space for those of us who were suicidal in the wake of the horrific election results, and its implications for our most vulnerable. I have recieved [sic] several requests for another one, as this is persisting. And amid reports that as many as 8 transgender children have taken their lives after last night’s results...”

This compelled me to look for @SwedJewFish, as she has been known on Twitter, to find out why she never posted “Part 2”. So I looked, but I could not find any other public writing by @SwedishJewFish or Rebecca Mesle since her last entry on Daily Kos, and her last Tweet was November 16, 2016.

It is jarring and heartbreaking to read Rebecca’s last two diaries and the comments attached thereto, especially if you know — as you do now — that she and others went “radio silent" shortly after Trump was elected.

Hopefully Rebecca, other writers and other CSA Survivors have heard The recent news that EuroPol (The European Union’s law enforcement agency), is investigating model agencies that have/are used as fronts for sex trafficking rings. In connection with the Europol investigation, the New York Attorney General, Eric Schneiderman, is investigating Trump Model Management (TMM) for allegedly violating immigration laws, among other things.

Before she lef the Senate, then-Senator Barbara Boxer called for an investigation into TMM and other “modeling-agencies” that pimped their models out to rich and powerful men. The status of her request for a probe is, as of this writing, unknown, but I am researching it.

There have been many accusations and investigations levied against Trump & TMM. Links to articles and television shoes reporting on this are below. I will continue to add more as I find more (please do get in touch if you find things I have missed).

Probably the most prolific writing and thorough coverage of this issue has been done by Michael Gross. His last Daily Beast publication, Inside Donald Trump’s One-Stop Parties: Attendees Recall Cocaine and Very Young Models states, among other things:

I also wrote a book about the modeling industry and heard stories about Trump but didn’t write them because he wasn’t important in it, just another rich guy buying a date farm, perhaps for his friends, perhaps for himself. This wasn’t pejorative, just how things were. (Leonardo DiCaprio, at the height of his “Pussy Posse” fame, thanked Trump for offering “one-stop date-shopping.”) - Daily Beast 10/24/2016

As I continued to search for Rebecca, my endeavor lead me to other writers, who either disappeared from public view around October/November 2016 or changed their writing focus away from this topic, and did so rather abruptly. As I followed these threads, I was surprised to see so many published authors and journalists who covered the story and seemed committed to following the story, just stop writing and reporting on it in the fall of 2016.

It begs the question, “Why did these writers stop writing?”. I speculate that, just like Trump’s alleged victims of CSA, writers were pressured — or even threatened — into silence. After publishing his book, FOCUS, even Michael Gross seems to have grown weary of the subject too . . . or stopped writing about it for some other reason. Here Michael Gross refers to his writing about Donald Trump as “jumping the fence into the political arena with @SwedishJewFish” due to her “We All Knew About the Trafficking" publication Part 1 (of which there is no “Part 2”). In her second-to-last submission, “A Space for Heartbroken Democrats,” she writes,

In reality I don’t know what the hell I’m going to do. I have been pushed to the brink of my sanity by this election to begin with. I’ve been destroyed by the things I’ve researched and written about Trump. And bear in mind there are so many things I couldn’t even publish because of the backlash, the threats, the harassment, stalking and abuse I got in response to my second diary.

If writers, journalists and victims were influenced, encouraged or threatened to stop writing on the topic of Trump, Trump Model Management and Sex Abuse, their disappearance from blogs, media, publishing and social media regarding this topic — and the work they did around the time Trump was elected — is a story unto itself and I avow to investigate it. I have requested interviews with writers and journalists and will report their feedback in subsequent issues.

Stay tuned for updates (and if I don’t post any, you’ll know why).

If you are in crises, need help or just want someone to talk regarding CSA, rape or despondency, please contact The National Rape, Abuse, Incest National Network (RAINN) centers.rainn.org at 1-800-656-4673 or The Suicide Prevention Line 1-800-273-8255 suicidepreventionlifeline.org

READING, WATCHING & REFERENCE LIST:

12/10/2015, The View, “Donald Trump appears on the March 6, 2006 episode of The View and very nearly casually marks remark about incest with daughter Ivanka”

1/29/2016, Vice News, “The Salacious Ammo Even Donald Trump Won't Use in a Fight Against Hillary Clinton”, Ken Silverstein

6/20/2016, Gothemist, Lawsuit Accuses Donald Trump Of Raping Teenage Girl In 1994”, Emma Whitford

7/19/2016, Michael Gross Gripebox, “Donald, Melania & the Art of Model Humping: A Sex-and-Money Story

8/30/2016, New York Daily News, “Models for Donald Trump's 'crooked' modeling agency say they worked in U.S. illegally under conditions that resembled 'modern-day slavery'”, Adam Edelman

9/07/2016, Politico, “Sen. Boxer calls for probe into Trump Model Management”, Louis Nelson

9/30/2016, Huffington Post, “Trump Admits He Found 12-Year-Old Paris Hilton Attractive. Gross.”, Alana Horowitz Satlin

10/6/2016, Daily Kos, “We All Knew About the Trafficking”, @swedishjewfish

10/11/2016, Daily Dose of Donald, Michael Gross

10/11/2016, CNN, “Donald Trump has raised eyebrows for comments he's made and how he has acted towards his daughter Ivanka”, Deborah Feyerick

10/13/2016, Merry Jane, “Every Icky Thing We Know About Trump Model Management”, Clalire Downs

11/7/2016, Mother Jones, “Star Model: I Spent 4 Years Working for Trump Without a Visa in the US”, James Westnov

4/5/2017 , Mother Jones, “Donald Trump’s Modeling Agency on the Verge of Collapse”, James West

4/10/2017, Mother Jones, “Leaked Email...Trump’s Modeling Agency is Shutting Down, James West

4/11/2017, People Magazine, “Trump Model Management Will Shutter As Models, Senior Staff Quit Amidst Presidential Controversy”, Colleen Kratofil

On-Going, Google Docs, “Trump the Prostitutes, Russian and US Mob, Money Laundering”, @MarcusC22973194