I don't watch "The Megyn Kelly Show," and I don't typically give two flying figs about what the former Fox News host says or feels.

But I've been thinking about Kelly's comments about convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein's victims. Because I do care that sexual abuse victims are harmed, because so many others in our society say and believe the same destructive things.

On her Nov. 12 episode, Kelly said she was led to believe that Epstein wasn't an actual pedophile because he was into the "barely legal" types: i.e., 15-year-old girls who "could pass for even younger than they were, but would look legal to a passerby."

Many of those victims pushed for the U.S. House of Representatives to vote to release the Epstein files.

Representatives voted 427-1 on on Nov. 18 to compel the Department of Justice to release as much information as legally possible about the federal government's investigations into the late disgraced financier and accused sex trafficker.

Later that Tuesday, the Senate unanimously approved the bill, and President Donald Trump signed it Wednesday night, Nov. 19.

U.S. Rep. Clay Higgins, R-Louisiana, was the only "no" vote. In a statement, Higgins explained, "This bill reveals and injures thousands of innocent people ‒ witnesses, people who provided alibis, family members, etc."

Some Americans, as displayed in Kelly's comments, are fine with injuring thousands of innocent people.

The rape of a child is the rape of a child whether a child is 5 or 17. I don't know who needs to hear that other than Kelly.

A child rapist, pedophile and indicted sex trafficker is what Epstein was, in my view.

Kelly's 'distinction' sure sounds like victim blaming to me

It wasn't until she learned about a "kiddy porn" allegation that Kelly said she changed her opinion.

"I don’t know what’s true about him, but we have yet to see anybody come forward and say, ‘I was 8, I was under 10, I was under 14, when I first came within his purview,’" Kelly said on her show. "You can say that’s a distinction without a difference. I think there is a difference. There’s a difference between a 15-year-old and a 5-year-old, you know.”

The distinction she tried to make is a smoke screen that leaves the door open for victim blaming and shaming.

I've heard it time and time again from people who should know better about well-known cases and those that fly under the radar:

It was a "shame" that a 14-year-old in my childhood neighborhood got pregnant by a grown man, but everybody knows she was fast.

It was wrong that R. Kelly had sex with underage teenagers, but their parents knew what they were getting into.

What Jeffrey Epstein, convicted child sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell and perhaps other powerful men and women hiding among us did was wrong, but they didn't do it to 8-year-old kids.

'But' gives pedophiles and predators cover

RAINN, the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network, estimates that someone is sexually abused every 74 seconds. Every 9 minutes, that person is a child.

"But" justifies horrific behavior that often leaves victims with lifelong agony. The pain is real, no matter the victim's age when the attack first happened.

The differences and distinctions made by Kelly and others give pedophiles and other predators permission to hunt the vulnerable:

Yes, they are technically children, but are they really children?

This person is bad, but is he or she really that bad? They didn't hurt an actual "all the way" victim.

Society should reject the actions of this accused abuser, but not really. Boys will be boys. Men will be men.

There are only the nasty facts

There has been a lot of conjecture about how and why Megyn Kelly may have come up with her stance on Epstein.

Maybe she was planting a bug in our collective ear that would lead to victims being dismissed and shamed for crimes committed by Epstein and perhaps others. Maybe Kelly just thought, and said, something dumb.

Epstein was first arrested in 2006 after a grand jury indicted him on a single count of soliciting prostitution.

In 2007, he was reportedly banned from Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida after he behaved inappropriately toward a club member’s teenage daughter.

In 2008, Epstein pleaded guilty to procuring and soliciting a minor for prostitution.

Facing serious sex trafficking charges, the 66-year-old was found hanged to death in his jail cell on Aug. 10, 2019.

What Epstein and Maxwell did to their victims was horrible. There are no "buts," "distinctions" or "differences." There are only the nasty facts. Child abusers are child abusers, no matter the age of their victims.

We can't sugarcoat their victims' experiences. That only justifies the attack.

Amelia Robinson is the opinion and community engagement editor for The Columbus Dispatch, where this column originally appeared.

This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Call Megyn Kelly's 'barely legal' Epstein comments what they are: Victim blaming | Opinion

Reporting by Amelia Robinson, Columbus Dispatch / The Columbus Dispatch

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