Trump Administration Live Updates: As the controversy spreads, the President instructs Bondi to ask for the release of some of the Epstein material.
On Thursday night, President Trump declared that he was giving Attorney General Pam Bondi permission to petition the federal court for the public disclosure of grand jury testimony from the case against the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, which Ms. Bondi said she would do on Friday.
Following a Justice Department investigation that revealed no basis for the conspiracy theories surrounding the sex trafficking case, Mr. Trump—under tremendous pressure from his right-wing base—posted on social media, directing Ms. Bondi to “produce any and all Grand Jury Testimony, subject to Court approval.”
“The ridiculous amount of publicity given to Jeffrey Epstein” was the reason given by the president for his directive, which does not meet the demands of some Republican members of Congress that the agency and the FBI make public all investigative documents they have gathered, not just the testimony presented in federal court.
Far-right influencers have accused Ms. Bondi, a Trump supporter, of assisting a cover-up. In response, she quickly released a message on social media that contradicted the memo the department and FBI produced this month, which stated that Mr. Epstein’s jailhouse death in 2019 was a suicide and that the case was now closed.
At his order, she immediately changed course and declared, “President Trump, we are prepared to seek the court tomorrow to unseal the grand jury transcripts.” However, it was uncertain if she would be successful since grand jury transcripts are well protected by confidentiality.
Hours after The Wall Street Journal published a 50th birthday card that Mr. Trump allegedly sent Mr. Epstein in 2003—which included a sexually explicit picture, an expression of friendship, and a mention of shared secrets—Mr. Trump made his request.
The New York Times has not confirmed the story, which the president has vigorously disputed. He threatened to file a lawsuit against Rupert Murdoch, the creator of News Corp., the newspaper’s parent firm.
In lengthy Truth Social post Mr. Trump, who was clearly enraged and referred to himself in the third person, said that Mr. Murdoch had promised to “take care of” the article but was apparently unable to override the choices made by the paper’s lead editor, Emma Tucker. He claimed that The Journal produced an article that was “false, malicious, and defamatory.”
President Trump has already defeated George Stephanopoulos/ABC 60 Minutes/CBS and others, and looks forward to suing and holding accountable the once great Wall Street Journal, he continued.
While awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges in a Manhattan federal jail, Mr. Epstein committed suicide by hanging himself in the his cell 2019. Two years after that, a federal jury found his close friend Ghislaine Maxwell guilty of five charges, including the most heinous one of sexually trafficking a minor.
The judge may not be persuaded to release the transcripts by Mr. Trump’s expressed wish to answer the “ridiculous” media coverage of the issue. Federal regulations mandate the confidentiality of grand jury transcripts in order to safeguard the victims and witnesses of crimes. They are often only made available in very specific situations.
The evidence is merely a fraction of what was gathered throughout the investigation, even if the transcripts are made available to the public, which may take months of litigation. Dozens of FBI agents and prosecutors from the Justice Department’s national security division have been reassigned from other tasks during the previous several months to go through thousands of papers and a huge amount of video evidence, including footage from video cameras in the jail.
During a cabinet meeting last week, Ms. Bondi justified her choice not to make the majority of the footage public by stating that it was primarily material related to child sexual abuse.
However, it has done little to calm demands for transparency from some Trump backers and legislators from both parties in Congress, who are looking at legislative remedies to compel the department and the F.B.I. to publish more videos and documents.
In response to pressure from Democrats and their own enraged constituents, House Republicans decided Thursday night to begin laying the groundwork for a possible vote asking the Justice Department to make information from the investigation public. The bill, which is not binding and has not yet been put to a vote, showed a growing divide between Congress and Mr. Trump on the subject.
Representative Dan Goldman, a New York Democrat who has fought for the publication of more documents, called Ms. Bondi’s action on grand jury testimony an empty gesture.
In a social media message, he said, “Nice try @AGPamBondi.” “What about images, videos, and other recordings?”
A vote on the release of the Epstein documents is being teased by House Republicans.
In response to pressure from Democrats and their own enraged constituents, House Republicans decided on Thursday night to lay the groundwork for a possible vote urging the Justice Department to make public information from its probe of the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, defying President Trump’s call for supporters to accept his administration’s handling of the matter and go on.
There are no plans for a vote on the proposal, which is a non-binding resolution. Given the significant division within the Republican party over the Trump administration’s handling of the case of Mr. Epstein, who committed suicide in federal detention while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges, it is unknown if Republicans would ever bring it up or if it would have the support to pass.
However, following Democratic threats to demand more votes on the Epstein disclosures, which might have put Republican members of the powerful House Rules Committee in a difficult position with their constituents who are clamoring for further details, the committee voted to move it forward. The battle delayed the vote to late Thursday night, delaying the legislation’s conclusion to retrieve $9 billion in congressionally authorized expenditures.
Despite the panel’s approval of the Epstein measure, Mr. Trump, who has endured days of criticism from his loyal followers over the Justice Department’s decision to end its investigation without providing further details, stated that he will give Attorney General Pam Bondi the authority to seek the release of grand jury testimony in the case.
“The effect of this resolution is much stronger than any of you had expected,” Representative Virginia Foxx of North Carolina, the Republican chairwoman of the Rules Committee, said, seemingly implying that it had persuaded Mr. Trump to let Ms. Bondi publish the testimony.
However, the fact that the Rules Committee—a body that is mostly made up of Republicans and typically firmly under the speaker’s direction—approved the resolution showed that the growing rift between Mr. Trump, his supporters, and Congress over the Epstein case had reached a breaking point.
The Justice Department is required by the legislation to provide “documents, records, and communications” pertaining to the probe into Mr. Epstein, his death, and his associate, Ghislaine Maxwell, within 30 days.
Mr. Trump, who has long spread conspiracy theories and used them to create his political movement, has advised his supporters to trust his administration’s findings and has, in effect, attempted to exclude from his political base those who still have doubts about Mr. Epstein.
However, members of Congress, including Speaker Mike Johnson, have continued to demand the release of the Justice Department’s files on Mr. Epstein. Moreover, several hard-right legislators, whose political positions often coincide with Mr. Trump’s, stated this week that their conservative supporters had abandoned the president and were inundating their offices with requests for more transparency.
In part, by pushing votes on bills that would release Epstein-related materials, the Democrats have attempted to capitalize on the division inside the G.O.P. To force a floor vote on the subject, which had gained the backing of at least eight additional Republicans, Republican Representative Thomas Massie of Kentucky, who is known for frequently criticizing Trump, made a procedural gamble.
Due to its broader scope than the resolution that was adopted Thursday, Mr. Massie’s proposal lacks the backing of Republican leaders and will probably need significant Democratic backing in order to pass.
In a social media post, Mr. Massie slammed the resolution passed Thursday night, calling it an ineffective move that would not result in any additional disclosures.
“He [sic] Congress thinks you’re stupid,” he wrote. “The rules committee passed a NON-BINDING Epstein resolution, hoping folks will accept it as real.”
Mr. Johnson and Republican members of the rules committee spoke before the legislation was introduced on Thursday.
The committee’s Republicans were shocked that Democrats intended to push a vote on the Epstein disclosures when they convened on Thursday to ratify the discussion rules for the rescissions bill. With the exception of one, they all voted against a similar Democratic effort at a meeting earlier this week, which sparked outrage from their conservative backers. Later, Republicans united against the bill on the House floor.
In the Senate, the Epstein probe has so far been less divisive. However, earlier on Thursday, Republicans in that chamber defeated an effort by Sen. Ruben Gallego, a Democrat from Arizona, to get a bill approved unanimously that would have urged the Justice Department to publish documents pertaining to the Epstein probe.
Republican Sen. Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma, a Trump supporter, opposed the measure, claiming that the Democrats were turning the Epstein incident into a “political football.”
