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CNN
5 hours ago
- Politics
- CNN
Analysis: Trump's Epstein nightmare worsens amid new revelations and a GOP revolt
Donald Trump Tulsi Gabbard Fighting disinformation RussiaFacebookTweetLink Follow The Jeffrey Epstein morass surrounding President Donald Trump is deepening amid growing defiance by some Republicans and despite the administration's most inflammatory attempt yet at distraction. New reports Wednesday that Attorney General Pam Bondi told Trump in May that his name appeared in documents related to the case of Epstein, an accused sex trafficker, offered a plausible explanation for the president's growing fury over the drama. They will fuel accusations of a cover-up since the administration has refused to release the files. And although there is no evidence that Trump was involved in any wrongdoing or that he knew of Epstein's criminal activities when they ran in the same social circle decades ago, there is bound to be intense speculation about the nature of mentions about the president in the investigative files. The storm is also intensifying in Congress. A vote in the House Oversight Committee to subpoena the Department of Justice for files related to Epstein worsened Trump's political headache, since it revealed the appetite for more disclosure among some MAGA Republicans. The GOP-majority committee also voted to subpoena testimony from Epstein's accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell, who is serving a 20-year prison term. Trump responded to the ballooning crisis with the oldest trick in his political book, pushing a conspiracy theory against Barack Obama — a decade and a half after his false claims about the 44th president's birthplace electrified his coalition and political career. He enlisted the top US intelligence official, Tulsi Gabbard, who misleadingly claimed in a theatrical White House appearance that Obama's handling of Russian election meddling in 2016 amounted to a coup to destroy Trump's first presidency, a day after her boss accused his predecessor of treason. There is no evidence that Trump did anything wrong or illegal in his interactions with Epstein. But days of stalling by the White House and new disclosures drove speculation to a fever pitch over their relationship in the 1990s and early 2000s, long before the wealthy financier was charged with sex trafficking and abuse and died in prison in 2019. The frantic confluence of events Wednesday underscored Trump's failed attempts to put a lid on the Epstein drama, the most serious challenge to his authority over the MAGA base in either of his administrations. In fact, the storm is now gathering its own momentum, and it's increasingly hard to see how the president calms it. The controversy is overshadowing Trump's recent political successes, including trade deals he announced with Japan and the Philippines and recent legal victories enabling a key goal: the gutting of swaths of the federal government. And it's outracing House Speaker Mike Johnson's attempts to contain it. Among developments on Wednesday with the greatest capacity to damage Trump politically were revelations that Bondi warned him in May that his name appeared in documents related to the Epstein case. The conversation, which also included Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, was characterized by two White House officials as a 'routine briefing' that covered the scope of the Justice Department's findings. Trump's name appearing in the files, they said, was not the sole focus of the discussions. Bondi also told Trump that several other high-profile figures were mentioned. She also briefed that investigators did not find evidence of an Epstein client list or that suicide was not his cause of death — two key elements of a MAGA conspiracy. Simply being mentioned along with hundreds of others in documents does not imply wrongdoing by the president. And White House communications director Steven Cheung said in a statement to CNN that Trump had kicked Epstein out of his Mar-a-Lago club because he regarded Epstein as a 'creep.' Still, details of Bondi's briefing, first reported by the Wall Street Journal, offered new context about the political controversy that erupted over the Epstein files, since it took place three months after Bondi raised huge expectations for disclosure by telling Fox in February that she had Epstein's client list sitting on her desk. It's hardly a surprise that Trump was mentioned in the Epstein files, since his former friendship with the disgraced financier was well known. The men were pictured together on multiple occasions. And Trump's name was included in flight logs of Epstein's plane that were among documents released by Bondi earlier this year in a political stunt meant to reward conservative bloggers. But Wednesday's revelations are politically difficult for Trump since they will renew speculation that the administration's refusal to release Epstein documents, as his top aides promised on the campaign trail, is motivated by an attempt at a cover-up. Now that it is established that Trump's name is in the documents, speculation will go into overdrive on the nature of the mentions and whether they add to the public knowledge of Trump's ties to Epstein and whether he knew anything about the offenses with which the financier was later charged. Again, this does not imply Trump himself did something wrong. But since he's the sitting president, the focus on him and his handling of the Epstein matter in government will be intense. This is especially the case since Bondi and Kash Patel, who now heads the FBI, had vehemently demanded the release of Epstein documents before finding themselves on the other side of the conspiracy theory they had puffed up when they took top jobs. Their agencies issued a joint statement earlier this month saying that there was no evidence of a client list or to support the conspiracy theory that Epstein was murdered. But the pattern of inconsistencies and denials that typically fuel Washington's scandal machine are piling up. Trump, for instance, appeared to deny this month that Bondi had told him his name was in the Epstein files, which he then claimed were made up by Obama and fired former FBI Director James Comey. Ironically, the growing clamor is a test case of why grand jury material and other documents are typically sealed. That's partly out of a need to protect the reputations of people — including witnesses, victims and blameless third parties — who are identified during an investigation but are not charged with any offenses. But the MAGA movement is obsessed with conspiracy theories and has a bedrock belief that Washington is run by a cabal of 'deep state' elites who suppress the truth. This tempted Trump, Bondi and other officials to tap into the political well and to promise the release of previously sealed information on famous cases also including the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. When the administration then refused to make public all the evidence about Epstein, top officials looked like they'd become avatars of the deep state they once decried. As anger built in the MAGA base, the Justice Department launched an effort to get court permission to unseal grand jury testimony in the case. But a federal judge in Florida on Wednesday ruled against the release of material that represents only a small portion of the thousands of documents in the Epstein case file. The DOJ move is a legal long shot, but it may still serve the purpose of building political cover for the administration as supporters demand more transparency. Trump's growing nightmare was exacerbated in a rare show of defiance by Republicans in Congress on Wednesday. A subcommittee of the House Oversight Committee voted 8-2 to subpoena the Department of Justice to release files related to Epstein. Republican Reps. Nancy Mace, Scott Perry and Brian Jack joined with Democrats in a revolt against Johnson's leadership. House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer, meanwhile, subpoenaed Maxwell, a day after Blanche, Trump's former personal lawyer, announced that he'd visit her in prison to see if she has more information on Epstein's offenses. Blanche's move raised alarms because Trump, with his pardon power, could commute her sentence or pardon her, suggesting an incentive for Maxwell to offer testimony that might help him. CNN's Kaitlan Collins, citing two people familiar with the meeting, reported that it is expected to take place on Thursday. The actions of the Oversight Committee suggested there is genuine desire for more accountability among some Republicans despite the possibility that it could inflict political damage on the president. This suggests that any hopes harbored by Trump and Johnson that the furor might abate over the summer recess will prove to be ill-founded. Johnson has accused Democrats of playing political games over Epstein, since the documents they now want released were not made public during the Biden administration. And he denied that his attempt to shut down House votes on the matter before September meant he was losing control of his conference. 'No one in Congress is blocking Epstein documents. No one in Congress is doing that,' the speaker said Wednesday. 'What we're doing here, Republicans are preventing Democrats from making a mockery of the Rules Committee process because we refuse to engage in their political charade.' But Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer taunted Johnson, accusing him of 'skedaddling out of town early.' The New York Democrat added, 'If the speaker thinks he can make the Epstein escapade disappear by sending folks home early, he's got another thing coming.' The looming political question is whether fury over the Epstein saga among prominent MAGA media figures and influencers is mirrored more broadly in Trump's base. Summer recess town halls involving GOP members could begin to answer that question. A Quinnipiac poll released on July 16 showed splits on the issue. While 40% of Republicans backed how Trump was handling the issue, 36% disapproved. But a CBS/YouGov poll Sunday showed that only 11% of Republicans said Epstein-related issues matter a lot to how they evaluate Trump's presidency. Trump has responded to the building Epstein scandal with increasingly heated attempts to distract attention and to provide alternative programing for the conservative media universe. Gabbard's appearance in the White House briefing room on Wednesday represented the most striking effort yet to weaponize elements of the federal government to advance Trump's personal political aims. The director of national intelligence declassified a highly sensitive congressional report written by Republicans in the first Trump presidency to bolster her claim that the Obama team plotted to ruin her boss's first administration with its investigations and public statements on Russian election meddling. 'The evidence that we have found and that we have released directly point to President Obama leading the manufacturing of this intelligence assessment,' Gabbard said. She focused in particular on the report's conclusion that an intelligence community finding that Russian President Vladimir Putin developed a preference for Trump in 2016 and wanted to help him win was based on poor sourcing. 'They knew it would promote this contrived narrative that Russia interfered in the 2016 election to help President Trump win, selling it to the American people as though it were true,' Gabbard said. While there was a debate among intelligence analysts about Putin's intent, Gabbard's presentation represented an attempt to cherry-pick evidence that is not reflected in other congressional and government assessments of Russian election meddling. The overwhelming consensus in Washington, including from a report released in 2020 by the Senate Intelligence Committee on which Secretary of State Marco Rubio served, is that Russian interfered in the 2016 election to help Trump win and to hurt Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. The documentation that Gabbard produced did not back up Trump's absurd claims of treason by Obama or her own assertion that there was an orchestrated plot to discredit Trump. Democrats accused her of jeopardizing the safety of US intelligence sources and offering valuable information to the Russians while sending a message to assets that it was not safe to report politically sensitive information. Even if Obama did something wrong, Trump's argument that he should be in prison would be undercut, ironically, by one of his own famous legal victories. Last year, the Supreme Court ruled in a case related to Trump's indictment on charges of election interference related to the 2020 election that ex-presidents enjoy substantial immunity from prosecution. The choreographed outrage in the White House briefing room, meanwhile, showed that the Russian election-meddling controversy — one of Trump's greatest obsessions — is back and is sowing yet more division and mistrust among voters. Gabbard's decision to revive it was a reminder that Putin's scheme was one of the highest-yielding, lowest-cost intelligence operations in history.
CNN
5 hours ago
- Politics
- CNN
Analysis: Trump's Epstein nightmare worsens amid new revelations and a GOP revolt
Donald Trump Tulsi Gabbard Fighting disinformation RussiaFacebookTweetLink Follow The Jeffrey Epstein morass surrounding President Donald Trump is deepening amid growing defiance by some Republicans and despite the administration's most inflammatory attempt yet at distraction. New reports Wednesday that Attorney General Pam Bondi told Trump in May that his name appeared in documents related to the case of Epstein, an accused sex trafficker, offered a plausible explanation for the president's growing fury over the drama. They will fuel accusations of a cover-up since the administration has refused to release the files. And although there is no evidence that Trump was involved in any wrongdoing or that he knew of Epstein's criminal activities when they ran in the same social circle decades ago, there is bound to be intense speculation about the nature of mentions about the president in the investigative files. The storm is also intensifying in Congress. A vote in the House Oversight Committee to subpoena the Department of Justice for files related to Epstein worsened Trump's political headache, since it revealed the appetite for more disclosure among some MAGA Republicans. The GOP-majority committee also voted to subpoena testimony from Epstein's accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell, who is serving a 20-year prison term. Trump responded to the ballooning crisis with the oldest trick in his political book, pushing a conspiracy theory against Barack Obama — a decade and a half after his false claims about the 44th president's birthplace electrified his coalition and political career. He enlisted the top US intelligence official, Tulsi Gabbard, who misleadingly claimed in a theatrical White House appearance that Obama's handling of Russian election meddling in 2016 amounted to a coup to destroy Trump's first presidency, a day after her boss accused his predecessor of treason. There is no evidence that Trump did anything wrong or illegal in his interactions with Epstein. But days of stalling by the White House and new disclosures drove speculation to a fever pitch over their relationship in the 1990s and early 2000s, long before the wealthy financier was charged with sex trafficking and abuse and died in prison in 2019. The frantic confluence of events Wednesday underscored Trump's failed attempts to put a lid on the Epstein drama, the most serious challenge to his authority over the MAGA base in either of his administrations. In fact, the storm is now gathering its own momentum, and it's increasingly hard to see how the president calms it. The controversy is overshadowing Trump's recent political successes, including trade deals he announced with Japan and the Philippines and recent legal victories enabling a key goal: the gutting of swaths of the federal government. And it's outracing House Speaker Mike Johnson's attempts to contain it. Among developments on Wednesday with the greatest capacity to damage Trump politically were revelations that Bondi warned him in May that his name appeared in documents related to the Epstein case. The conversation, which also included Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, was characterized by two White House officials as a 'routine briefing' that covered the scope of the Justice Department's findings. Trump's name appearing in the files, they said, was not the sole focus of the discussions. Bondi also told Trump that several other high-profile figures were mentioned. She also briefed that investigators did not find evidence of an Epstein client list or that suicide was not his cause of death — two key elements of a MAGA conspiracy. Simply being mentioned along with hundreds of others in documents does not imply wrongdoing by the president. And White House communications director Steven Cheung said in a statement to CNN that Trump had kicked Epstein out of his Mar-a-Lago club because he regarded Epstein as a 'creep.' Still, details of Bondi's briefing, first reported by the Wall Street Journal, offered new context about the political controversy that erupted over the Epstein files, since it took place three months after Bondi raised huge expectations for disclosure by telling Fox in February that she had Epstein's client list sitting on her desk. It's hardly a surprise that Trump was mentioned in the Epstein files, since his former friendship with the disgraced financier was well known. The men were pictured together on multiple occasions. And Trump's name was included in flight logs of Epstein's plane that were among documents released by Bondi earlier this year in a political stunt meant to reward conservative bloggers. But Wednesday's revelations are politically difficult for Trump since they will renew speculation that the administration's refusal to release Epstein documents, as his top aides promised on the campaign trail, is motivated by an attempt at a cover-up. Now that it is established that Trump's name is in the documents, speculation will go into overdrive on the nature of the mentions and whether they add to the public knowledge of Trump's ties to Epstein and whether he knew anything about the offenses with which the financier was later charged. Again, this does not imply Trump himself did something wrong. But since he's the sitting president, the focus on him and his handling of the Epstein matter in government will be intense. This is especially the case since Bondi and Kash Patel, who now heads the FBI, had vehemently demanded the release of Epstein documents before finding themselves on the other side of the conspiracy theory they had puffed up when they took top jobs. Their agencies issued a joint statement earlier this month saying that there was no evidence of a client list or to support the conspiracy theory that Epstein was murdered. But the pattern of inconsistencies and denials that typically fuel Washington's scandal machine are piling up. Trump, for instance, appeared to deny this month that Bondi had told him his name was in the Epstein files, which he then claimed were made up by Obama and fired former FBI Director James Comey. Ironically, the growing clamor is a test case of why grand jury material and other documents are typically sealed. That's partly out of a need to protect the reputations of people — including witnesses, victims and blameless third parties — who are identified during an investigation but are not charged with any offenses. But the MAGA movement is obsessed with conspiracy theories and has a bedrock belief that Washington is run by a cabal of 'deep state' elites who suppress the truth. This tempted Trump, Bondi and other officials to tap into the political well and to promise the release of previously sealed information on famous cases also including the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. When the administration then refused to make public all the evidence about Epstein, top officials looked like they'd become avatars of the deep state they once decried. As anger built in the MAGA base, the Justice Department launched an effort to get court permission to unseal grand jury testimony in the case. But a federal judge in Florida on Wednesday ruled against the release of material that represents only a small portion of the thousands of documents in the Epstein case file. The DOJ move is a legal long shot, but it may still serve the purpose of building political cover for the administration as supporters demand more transparency. Trump's growing nightmare was exacerbated in a rare show of defiance by Republicans in Congress on Wednesday. A subcommittee of the House Oversight Committee voted 8-2 to subpoena the Department of Justice to release files related to Epstein. Republican Reps. Nancy Mace, Scott Perry and Brian Jack joined with Democrats in a revolt against Johnson's leadership. House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer, meanwhile, subpoenaed Maxwell, a day after Blanche, Trump's former personal lawyer, announced that he'd visit her in prison to see if she has more information on Epstein's offenses. Blanche's move raised alarms because Trump, with his pardon power, could commute her sentence or pardon her, suggesting an incentive for Maxwell to offer testimony that might help him. CNN's Kaitlan Collins, citing two people familiar with the meeting, reported that it is expected to take place on Thursday. The actions of the Oversight Committee suggested there is genuine desire for more accountability among some Republicans despite the possibility that it could inflict political damage on the president. This suggests that any hopes harbored by Trump and Johnson that the furor might abate over the summer recess will prove to be ill-founded. Johnson has accused Democrats of playing political games over Epstein, since the documents they now want released were not made public during the Biden administration. And he denied that his attempt to shut down House votes on the matter before September meant he was losing control of his conference. 'No one in Congress is blocking Epstein documents. No one in Congress is doing that,' the speaker said Wednesday. 'What we're doing here, Republicans are preventing Democrats from making a mockery of the Rules Committee process because we refuse to engage in their political charade.' But Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer taunted Johnson, accusing him of 'skedaddling out of town early.' The New York Democrat added, 'If the speaker thinks he can make the Epstein escapade disappear by sending folks home early, he's got another thing coming.' The looming political question is whether fury over the Epstein saga among prominent MAGA media figures and influencers is mirrored more broadly in Trump's base. Summer recess town halls involving GOP members could begin to answer that question. A Quinnipiac poll released on July 16 showed splits on the issue. While 40% of Republicans backed how Trump was handling the issue, 36% disapproved. But a CBS/YouGov poll Sunday showed that only 11% of Republicans said Epstein-related issues matter a lot to how they evaluate Trump's presidency. Trump has responded to the building Epstein scandal with increasingly heated attempts to distract attention and to provide alternative programing for the conservative media universe. Gabbard's appearance in the White House briefing room on Wednesday represented the most striking effort yet to weaponize elements of the federal government to advance Trump's personal political aims. The director of national intelligence declassified a highly sensitive congressional report written by Republicans in the first Trump presidency to bolster her claim that the Obama team plotted to ruin her boss's first administration with its investigations and public statements on Russian election meddling. 'The evidence that we have found and that we have released directly point to President Obama leading the manufacturing of this intelligence assessment,' Gabbard said. She focused in particular on the report's conclusion that an intelligence community finding that Russian President Vladimir Putin developed a preference for Trump in 2016 and wanted to help him win was based on poor sourcing. 'They knew it would promote this contrived narrative that Russia interfered in the 2016 election to help President Trump win, selling it to the American people as though it were true,' Gabbard said. While there was a debate among intelligence analysts about Putin's intent, Gabbard's presentation represented an attempt to cherry-pick evidence that is not reflected in other congressional and government assessments of Russian election meddling. The overwhelming consensus in Washington, including from a report released in 2020 by the Senate Intelligence Committee on which Secretary of State Marco Rubio served, is that Russian interfered in the 2016 election to help Trump win and to hurt Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. The documentation that Gabbard produced did not back up Trump's absurd claims of treason by Obama or her own assertion that there was an orchestrated plot to discredit Trump. Democrats accused her of jeopardizing the safety of US intelligence sources and offering valuable information to the Russians while sending a message to assets that it was not safe to report politically sensitive information. Even if Obama did something wrong, Trump's argument that he should be in prison would be undercut, ironically, by one of his own famous legal victories. Last year, the Supreme Court ruled in a case related to Trump's indictment on charges of election interference related to the 2020 election that ex-presidents enjoy substantial immunity from prosecution. The choreographed outrage in the White House briefing room, meanwhile, showed that the Russian election-meddling controversy — one of Trump's greatest obsessions — is back and is sowing yet more division and mistrust among voters. Gabbard's decision to revive it was a reminder that Putin's scheme was one of the highest-yielding, lowest-cost intelligence operations in history.
Fox News
8 hours ago
- Politics
- Fox News
Tulsi Gabbard warns of 'deep state actors' who don't want this info to 'see the light of day'
National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard describes the alleged cover-up of 'Russiagate' on 'Jesse Watters Primetime.'
Forbes
8 hours ago
- Politics
- Forbes
Musk Trolls Trump On Epstein Files—Here's What He's Said
Elon Musk, President Donald Trump's former 'first buddy,' has blasted the president for his handling of the Epstein files this week, pressing Trump over a month after he first alleged the 'real reason' the files have not been made public was because Trump was named in them. Musk alleged Trump was in the files in a since-deleted tweet from June. (Photo by Kevin ...) Getty Images Musk took interest Wednesday in the Trump administration's attempt to unseal grand jury testimony from Jeffrey Epstein's indictment—a move blasted by critics who have said the documents will not bring revelatory information, assuming they clear the several legal hurdles needed for release. Musk reacted Tuesday to the news of House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., shutting down a House voting session before Democrats could again force a vote on the release of the Epstein files, saying there is 'only one reason' to avoid the vote, likely insinuating Trump's alleged appearance in the files. The tech billionaire tweeted several times in mid-July about the files, asking X's AI chatbot, Grok, various questions about Epstein and potential co-conspirators of the late sex offender. Musk on July 16 called the Trump administration's actions around the files a 'cover up (obviously),' saying in a separate post 'many powerful people want that list suppressed.' Musk also targeted the administration this month through a meme, pointing out its conflicting information about the existence of an 'Epstein list' after the Justice Department claimed Epstein did not have a client list— despite Attorney General Pam Bondi telling Fox News months earlier she had a list 'on her desk.' Musk's continued criticism of Trump comes amid multiple bombshell reports linking the president to Epstein, including one from The Wall Street Journal alleging the DOJ told Trump in May he was named in the Epstein files. Get Forbes Breaking News Text Alerts : We're launching text message alerts so you'll always know the biggest stories shaping the day's headlines. Text 'Alerts' to (201) 335-0739 or sign up here . Likely to jab at the president as a public fallout between the two over Trump's spending bill boiled over. Musk had called the bill a 'disgusting abomination' of legislation, and in response, Trump threatened to pull government subsidies and contracts provided to Musk's many companies. Less than an hour later, Musk accused the government of not releasing the full Epstein files because Trump was allegedly implicated in them. Musk deleted the tweet days later, taking a reconciliatory tone with Trump for a few weeks, though disputes between them sparked once again at the start of July (see a timeline of their feud here). Musk has also implicated former Trump strategist and convicted felon Steve Bannon in the files. Bannon said in July he is "totally and completely focused on' Musk's destruction, prompting Musk to accuse him of being in the Epstein files and that he should go back to prison after serving a four-month sentence last year. Bannon has suggested Musk should be deported. Tangent The Wall Street Journal report alleging Trump was informed of his name being in the Epstein files noted the president was also told the files contained what senior officials believed to be unverified hearsay about people including Trump. The briefing with the president did not focus on the appearance of his name in the files, which does not explicitly mean he committed any wrongdoing. Officials described the briefing to the Journal as routine. Key Background Trump, who was friends with Epstein before the late financier's first arrest, said last year he would declassify the Epstein files in an interview with Fox News. By this month, Trump was telling his supporters to "not waste Time and Energy on Jeffrey Epstein, somebody that nobody cares about.' Trump was shielding Bondi from a wave of backlash over her claim she had the Epstein client list on her desk, while she faced immense blowback over a DOJ memo announcing no further information in the Epstein investigation would be released. Bondi has also received scrutiny from providing right-wing commentators with 'phase 1' of the Epstein files, even though the binders given to the commentators had largely redacted pages already made available to the public. Democrats have attempted to force a vote in the House on the release of the Epstein files. Johnson, who has called for 'transparency' around the files, blocked Democrats from forcing the vote Tuesday and has said he will shut down further votes next week. However, Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., and Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., have pushed a bipartisan discharge petition that could force a floor vote when the House returns from recess. Further Reading The Musk Vs. Trump Feud Latest: Richest Man Trolls President Over 'Epstein List'—Again (Forbes) Trump And Bondi Promised Epstein Grand Jury Docs—But It Doesn't Mean Anything Will Be Released Today Or Ever (Forbes)
Fox News
14 hours ago
- Politics
- Fox News
Johnson erupts over 'dangerous' Biden 'cover-up' as Democrats push Epstein disclosure
Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., accused Democrats of orchestrating a "cover-up" of President Joe Biden's signs of mental decline in a set of remarks to reporters on Wednesday. The leader of the House of Representatives criticized left-wing lawmakers for their public pressure campaign regarding Jeffrey Epstein's case, dismissing their calls for transparency as a hypocritical political ploy. "We will not be lectured on transparency by the same party that orchestrated one of the most shameless, dangerous political cover-ups in the history of the United States – and that was President Biden's obvious mental decline," Johnson told reporters. "House Republicans stand for maximum transparency and truth. We always have, and we always will." It comes as the House Oversight Committee continues to investigate allegations that the former president's top White House aides obscured signs of mental and physical decline in the octogenarian leader from the public and others in the administration. Biden told The New York Times earlier this month that he was fully aware of every decision he made in a story regarding his use of autopen for clemency orders. Johnson and other Republican lawmakers have dealt with a barrage of media scrutiny on Epstein's case over the last two weeks. It's a side effect of the fallout over a recent Department of Justice (DOJ) memo effectively declaring the matter closed. Figures on the far-right have hammered Trump officials like Attorney General Pam Bondi, accusing them of going back on earlier vows of transparency. At Trump's direction, the DOJ is moving to have grand jury files related to Epstein's case unsealed. Bondi is looking into whether imprisoned former Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell will speak with federal authorities as well. Democrats seized on the discord by forcing Republicans on a key panel – the House Rules Committee – to take multiple votes on whether to make files related to Epstein's case public. GOP lawmakers' frustration at being put into a tough political situation forced House Republicans' agenda to partially grind to a halt this week, forcing leaders to send the House into August recess a day earlier than initially planned. Some Republicans are frustrated with the Trump administration's handling of the issue, while others are angry at fellow GOP lawmakers joining Democrats in public calls for transparency. Many, like Johnson, have accused Democrats of operating on a double-standard. "The way Democrats have tried to weaponize this issue is absolutely shameless. And I just want to say this – Democrats said nothing and did nothing, absolutely nothing, about bringing transparency for the entire four years of the Biden presidency," the speaker said. But now, all of a sudden, they want the American people to believe that they actually care." When reached for comment, a spokesperson for House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., pointed Fox News Digital to his remarks on Epstein earlier this week, questioning what Republicans were "hiding." "Jeffrey Epstein committed suicide during the Trump administration. Trump administration officials have said, prior to arriving in Washington in positions of prominence, including at the FBI and the Department of Justice, that they were going to release the Epstein files. Trump administration officials are now in a position to release the Epstein files," Jeffries said. "Does any of that, in your view, have anything to do with President Joe Biden? Why do we think President Joe Biden or President Barack Obama's names are being invoked?" Fox News Digital also reached out to the office of former President Joe Biden for comment but did not immediately hear back.
