John Fetterman's take on Trump's Epstein files

Daily Mail​

15 hours ago

Democrat John Fetterman is striking a different position on the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files from the rest of his party. Donald Trump's administration continues to be embroiled in controversy over the release of the secret files of former financier and convicted sexual offender. His Attorney General Pam Bondi is at the center of the drama as she's refused to put out the documents despite urging from the MAGA right and Democrats on the left.
Fetterman, the only Democrat to vote for Bondi to be confirmed as attorney general earlier this year, offered a new take on the drama. The senator exclusively told the Daily Mail last week that 'everybody thinks that' Bondi should release the files. But he says he's 'not preoccupied' with them, unlike many of his colleagues in both political parties. 'You know, we've had it for four years before, and we didn't release it,' he said about the ex-Joe Biden administration.
'So, you know, I don't, I don't, I don't really think about it much,' Fetterman added, seemingly throwing his own political party under the bus. However, Democrats are now seizing on the files as way to put Republicans on the spot heading into the midterm elections. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer called for an FBI investigation last week into whether foreign governments are trying to use the Epstein files against Trump.
Democrats have seized on Trump's reluctance to release the files as a political vulnerability heading into next year's midterm elections. Schumer's latest escalation is an attempt to elevate the scandal to having potential national security implications. At a press conference during his trip to Scotland in late July, Trump said that all of the hubbub about the files was a 'hoax.' He also noted that the 'files were run by sick, sick people' during the last administration and suggested they 'put things in the file that was a fake.'
Trump is known to have run in the same social circles as Epstein, and the two were photographed at events together in the late 1990's and early 2000s. Their friendship doesn't mean the president took part in any inappropriate activity. A Wall Street Journal Report released earlier this month reported that Trump was one of Epstein's friends who wrote him a letter for his 50th birthday in 2003, accompanied by a sketch of a naked woman, prompting president to deny that reporting and sue the paper. Another report by the paper revealed that Bondi told Trump his name was included in the files multiple times, sparking theories as to why the DOJ is refusing to release the full documents.
Bondi has been reluctant to release the files, and called last month for a grand jury to release the transcripts from the criminal cases of Epstein and his top accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell. Trump himself said that he was the one who pushed Bondi to call for the release of the transcripts. 'Based on the ridiculous amount of publicity given to Jeffrey Epstein, I have asked Attorney General Pam Bondi to produce any and all pertinent Grand Jury testimony, subject to Court approval,' Trump wrote in a July 17 post on his social media site Truth Social.
'This SCAM, perpetuated by the Democrats, should end, right now!' The Trump administration's refusal to release the full Epstein files dominated the news cycle for most of July and both the president's political allies and adversaries are growing weary. Donald Trump once said he could shoot a man on Fifth Avenue and get away with it. But the scandal is proving difficult to tamp down.
A rebel band of Republican lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives including some of MAGA's biggest stars - like Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert - have even joined forces with hundreds of Democrats to force a bombshell ballot on the Epstein files. Despite the typical partisan battle lines being drawn on most issues in Washington, D.C. these days, this matter in particular has created an unlikely set of bedfellows. Progressive Democrat Ro Khanna and libertarian-minded Republican Thomas Massie of Kentucky teamed up last week to introduce the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which would compel Attorney General Pam Bondi to publicly release all unclassified materials relating to Jeffrey Epstein.