Reporter Says She Was Booted From GOP Convention Alongside Epstein Survivors

Independent journalist Tara Palmeri said she was kicked out of President Donald Trump’s Republican midterm convention after interviewing a GOP congressional candidate about the Jeffrey Epstein files while accompanied by three Epstein survivors.

Palmeri explained the situation, which unfolded on Thursday night at the American Airlines Center in Dallas, Texas, on her YouTube, Substack, and X accounts on Friday.

Emphasizing that she had a “media badge,” while the three Epstein survivors had “guest passes,” Palmeri explained, “We walked in together. It was only 35 minutes that we were in there before we were ejected by security. All that we did — no signs, no protest, no nothing — was walk towards the stage area. We made a quick right and spoke to a really lovely man who is running for Congress as a Republican in Massachusetts.”

Here, she is referring to Robert Burke, who is, as Palmeri mentioned, a Republican candidate for Massachusetts’ 8th congressional district.

Joined by the three survivors, one of whom has since identified herself on X as Marijke Chartouni, Palmeri questioned Burke on Epstein, leading the candidate to stress, “We really need to know what actually happened,” later adding, “I want the information out. I don’t care who it [indicts].”

One of the survivors, whose face was blurred in the footage, thanked Burke for his “willingness to see how important this is.”

“By the time the interview was over,” the reporter continued in her synopsis, “security showed up, and they removed us.”

Read a transcript of that conversation below:

PALMERI: We at no point had Epstein survivor signs.

SECURITY: I’m not gonna be interviewed here. This isn’t even where media sits.

PALMERI: We’re allowed to talk to guests! We’re allowed to talk to people. That’s why we’re here. We’re media.

SECURITY: Great. I’m asking a super simple question.

PALMERI: We don’t have signs! We have clear bags. No signs.

SECURITY: I think that we’re making this more difficult than it has to be.

PALMERI: Okay. Okay. Yeah, let’s go.

“They wanna check our credentials,” Palmeri then told her camera, after walking out of the main floor of the arena with security. “I don’t know why. They thought we had signs?… I feel like this is kind of unfair. We should be able to ask questions. [Burke] was totally fine with asking the questions, and security bumped in, and it was really aggressive, like look at these guys with all their tats.”

The camera then cut as the “guys with all their tats” seemed ready to decide whether the group would be allowed to stay.

The next clip, though, was outside the stadium altogether, and featured Palmeri and the survivors hearing from a security guard, “If you re-enter, I’m gonna go to the police, and I’m gonna ask them to trespass you, okay?”

“I’ve been a reporter for 18 years. I’ve never experienced anything like this before,” the journalist said, concluding her summary of the ordeal. “We obviously hit the third rail — Epstein at an event for President Trump.”

Watch above on YouTube.

New: The Mediaite One-Sheet "Newsletter of Newsletters"
Your daily summary and analysis of what the many, many media newsletters are saying and reporting. Subscribe now!