The US lawyer on her fearsome reputation, the criticism she faced for advising Harvey Weinstein, and how 40 years of legal experience did not prepare her for the Epstein files

Bloom, the California-based lawyer who has specialised in representing victims of sexual misconduct cases for 40 years, is acting for 11 of Epstein’s victims. In December, she launched new proceedings against the FBI on behalf of eight of her clients, which argue that the organisation failed to investigate credible reports of Epstein’s sexual misconduct involving minors going back as far as 1996. Had the FBI acted with due diligence, the complaint argues, hundreds more women could have been protected from abuse.

Instead, the lawsuit claims, an FBI official hung up the telephone on one of the first women to try to report Epstein. “Despite being the most elite and prestigious law enforcement agency in the United States and perhaps the world … the FBI never called back or followed up … in any manner,” the legal argument notes.

Bloom remains one of the most important figures in the fight to secure some form of justice for Epstein’s victims, and she is a sharp observer of the political infighting over the release of millions of pages of government files relating to his case. When we spoke, only a tiny fraction of the total (estimated at just 1%) was in the public domain. On Friday, 3m new pages were released.

“The more Epstein documents get released, the more we see how he had so many powerful friends, and that’s ultimately what helped him. That’s not the way the justice system is supposed to work. Everyone is supposed to be equal in the eyes of the law, but what we have seen here is that if someone is rich and powerful they often get a pass,” she says.

The settlements she has secured for the Epstein victims she represents have helped them rebuild their lives. “One of them was able to hire an attorney in a custody case and get custody of her child; she was also able to move to a safer neighbourhood to raise her child. One of them went back to school and is getting a master’s degree in a field that is important to her. This is very typical of what women do when they get money. I’m a big believer in taking money from the hands of bad guys and putting it in the hands of women. The money means a lot – it means that they can go to therapy, they can change careers, they can go back to school, they can support their children. Is that complete justice? Of course not, but it’s really helpful.”

Her firm is readying for the next chapter of its campaign to secure compensation for those affected. “I know that the FBI is going to fight back and come up with every legal argument they can and so we’re prepared for that fight,” she says. She has first-hand experience of the bureau recoiling from investigating Epstein related issues. When she told staff there that she was acting for a witness who claimed to have seen the then Prince Andrew dancing at the London nightclub Tramp on the night Giuffre said he assaulted her (which he denies, saying he was at the Woking branch of Pizza Express that evening), the FBI declined to take her statement. “They were not interested in talking to her,” she says. “I believe that the justice department did not want to prosecute a British royal.”

She hopes that some of Epstein’s most powerful friends will eventually have to explain their involvement. “In my dream world, there would be a congressional investigation into Donald Trump’s role with Epstein, and that he, like any other US citizen, would be called to answer questions.”