The US President has not had much to say since the drop of 23,000 documents by a Congressional committee – which mention him hundreds of times
Donald Trump has broken his silence over the bombshell release of thousands of Jeffrey Epstein’s emails and documents – which mention him hundreds of times.
The US President has had little to say since the publication of the files on Wednesday – abruptly ending an Oval Office event on Wednesday without taking questions on the matter, which is almost unheard of for him.
And last night he held an Executive Order signing in the East Room rather than the Oval Office, allowing him to sweep out of the room and away from shouted questions from the press corps.
But behind the scenes things have been a bit more frantic as the White House scrambled to get ahead of the story. There have been reports that Trump personally got in touch with Republican members of the House, hoping to encourage them to remove their names from an official petition and thwart moves to release even more files.
Lauren Boebert, a Colorado Republican who signed the petition to put the release of the files up for a House vote, was summoned to a meeting in the White House Situation Room – usually reserved for classified briefings and for the President to monitor military strikes. Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI director Kash Patel were also at the meeting to discuss her support for releasing the files.
Later in the day, Adelita Grijalva, the Arizona Democrat whom Republicans had stalled on swearing in for nearly two months, finally took the oath and immediately signed the petition, pushing it over the threshold for a House vote.
Today on Truth Social, Trump posted: “The Democrats are doing everything in their withering power to push the Epstein Hoax again, despite the DOJ releasing 50,000 pages of documents, in order to deflect from all of their bad policies and losses, especially the SHUTDOWN EMBARRASSMENT, where their party is in total disarray, and has no idea what to do.”
He added: “Some Weak Republicans have fallen into their clutches because they are soft and foolish. Epstein was a Democrat, and he is the Democrat’s problem, not the Republican’s problem! Ask Bill Clinton, Reid Hoffman, and Larry Summers about Epstein, they know all about him, don’t waste your time with Trump. I have a Country to run!”
Among the the vast trove of documents were emails where Epstein claimed Trump spent “hours” at his house with Andrew Windsor’s accuser, Virginia Giuffre, and that he “knew about the girls” but “never got a massage”.
Elsewhere Epstein, who describes Trump as “dirty” and “evil beyond belief”, claimed he had a photo of Trump in his kitchen with young women in bikinis. And he claimed there had been an occasion at his house where Trump was so focused on young women swimming in Epstein’s pool that he walked into a glass door and left his nose print on it.
The bill to release the Epstein files in full will most likely pass the House vote, but it then has to be approved by the Senate, which is far from a sure thing. It then has to go to the President for his signature.
Trump could choose to “veto” the bill – formally refusing to sign it. Or he could just “put it in a drawer” and kick it into the long grass. But either of those would leave him open to accusations of a cover-up, and prompt more questions over what exactly is in those files.
Trump does not have any pubic events on his schedule for today, but this evening he will travel to Mar-a-Lago.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Wednesday that Democrats had leaked select emails to “create a fake narrative to smear President Trump.”