Vice President JD Vance held an urgent Situation Room meeting with top White House officials after a Justice Department memo denying a Jeffrey Epstein client list sparked backlash within the MAGA base. According to an upcoming book by Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, Vance appeared panicked, telling the assembled officials, "This is a huge problem." Vance proposed releasing all Epstein files immediately, arguing Congress would eventually force disclosure anyway and voluntary release would demonstrate transparency. He also suggested enlisting Tucker Carlson to interview Epstein's longtime girlfriend and co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell in prison. According to Haberman and Swan's reports, if Maxwell agreed to state President Donald Trump had no involvement in Epstein's wrongdoing, the optics could prove valuable to the president."They were going to surface regardless, and if the administration published them first, it would demonstrate good faith and take the oxygen out of the conspiracy theories," Vance reportedly said.Officials were skeptical about his arguments, though some supported holding a news conference to explain the administration's position regarding Epstein.Watch the video below. Your browser does not support the video tag.
Vice President JD Vance and President Donald Trump’s core team had deep disagreements over how to handle fallout from the Jeffrey Epstein case last year, according to a new book. Vance wanted “maximum transparency” regarding releasing a multitude of government files related to the deceased convicted sex offender when the case blew up in the […]
Former Deputy FBI Director Dan Bongino erupted during a tense Situation Room confrontation with White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles in front of shocked administration insiders last July, refusing to be scapegoated for the DOJ's catastrophic mishandling of the Epstein files, according to new reporting.According to New York Times reporting by Jonathan Swan and Maggie Haberman from their forthcoming book "Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump," Bongino was summoned to the White House along with FBI Director Kash Patel to meet with Wiles, Attorney General Pam Bondi, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, and Taylor Budowich, one of Wiles's deputies.The moment Bongino arrived in the room, Wiles accused him of leaking sensitive Epstein information to ABC News, the Times is reporting.Bongino's response was explosive. "I'll tell you what," he reportedly exclaimed. "I'll give you $100,000 cash right now. I'm not kidding. Walk out to West Exec, put that reporter on speaker and get him to admit I leaked it. A hundred thousand dollars."Wiles attempted to move past the accusation, saying, "Well, we all got ourselves into this --."Bongino cut her off immediately, the Times is reporting."No, no, no, no, no. We didn't get ourselves into anything. I warned you guys about this the whole time, and you ignored me. And exactly what I said was going to happen happened. And now you're pretending I was in on this. I was never in on this."The aggressive response to the White House chief of staff who has Trump's ear "startled" those in the room as Wiles pressed Bongino to commit to, "Going forward, we're all in. We're all going to agree to move forward. Are you in or not?""No, I'm not," Bongino shot back "This is not my plan. I'm not part of this going forward. Forget it. I'm out of here."The Times is reporting he stormed out of the Situation Room where he climbed into the back of Patel's armored SUV and ordered the driver to take him to FBI headquarters.According to the report, it was assumed that Bongino might resign on the spot, but White House advisers intervened, urgently pushing him to stay over fears that a public resignation over Epstein could severely damage Trump politically.
The internet was stunned on Wednesday after explosive reporting from two New York Times reporters revealed how the Trump administration panicked as the Justice Department released the Epstein files. In an excerpt from the upcoming book from Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, “Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump,” the reporters detailed what happened behind-the-scenes as former Attorney General Pam Bondi reportedly infuriated the Trump team over meeting with right-wing influencers about the Epstein files, while Chief of Staff Susie Wiles believed that the Jeffrey Epstein controversy would eventually pass. The reporting also revealed that Vice President JD Vance convened an urgent Situation Room meeting to address the unfolding crisis after the DOJ denied there was an Epstein client list — infuriating MAGA — and told top administration officials, "This is a huge problem."Public figures and media experts reacted to the revelations."Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan report that sheer panic over sordid facts surrounding the conduct of both Donald and Melania Trump have left the White House in a state of complete panic for over half a year. Suppressing the files and diverting attention from them led to commencement of a war," Scott Horton, Harper's Magazine contributing editor and lecturer at Columbia Law School, wrote on Bluesky."DOJ had already closed the Epstein file. No client list. Death ruled suicide. The Situation Room meeting wasn't about accountability. It was about stopping a MAGA civil war before the WSJ published a birthday letter Trump had been trying to bury. The performance of transparency. Not the thing itself," political commentator and Substack writer Mike Young, who has more than 15,000 followers, wrote on X."BIG excerpt out from new @maggieNYT and @jonathanvswan book 'Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump'...apparently WH staff were terrified about the release of a document alleging Trump had a 'predilection for nipples' and abused those of an Epstein victim," Tommy Vietor, co-host of Pod Save America and former spokesperson for President Barack Obama and the National Security Council, wrote on X. "A must read by Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan," actress and activist Mia Farrow wrote on X.
Charlie Kirk was increasingly at odds with the president in the final months of his life.Donald Trump had strong words for the GOP’s youth connection last July, two months before Kirk was shockingly assassinated at a Turning Point USA event at Utah Valley University. At the time, Trump reportedly berated Kirk for allowing one of his college rallies to turn into a grieving session over the Epstein files, according to details of an upcoming book by Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan published in The New York Times magazine Wednesday.“Trump had called Kirk and scolded him” for providing a venue for young people to slam former Attorney General Pam Bondi and the larger Trump administration for failing to release the files, reported the Times.Kirk, by virtue of his position leading the youth Republican movement, could see that the Epstein files had become a divisive issue for young voters. He urged the White House to change course on the matter, but they would not relent.Trump was not shy in expressing his frustration with his aides. He reportedly told them that he was “very unhappy” with his famed supporters, raging against the likes of Kirk as well as former Fox News hosts Tucker Carlson and Megyn Kelly, all of whom had demanded the admin “come clean” about Jeffrey Epstein.Eventually Donald Trump Jr. and Vice President JD Vance joined the choir, urging the White House to change its position and pressure the Justice Department to release more files, reported the Times.The Epstein Files Transparency Act was signed into law on November 19, legally requiring the unmitigated release of all documentation related to the child sex trafficking investigation. It has been nearly seven months since then, and the federal government still has not released everything it has on Epstein. No one has been arrested in connection to the crimes, either—beyond Epstein’s longtime criminal associate Ghislaine Maxwell, who was arrested in 2020.
House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY) is working with the Department of Justice to bring in acting Attorney General Todd Blanche for an interview on his handling of the Epstein files release. Comer told reporters Wednesday that he is in “communication” with the Justice Department, as he entered a closed-door interview with Bill Gates […]
Maine Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner, who has been recently dealing with concerns around his past behavior toward women, said in a new ad that the political establishment has a “love of Jeffrey Epstein and a hatred of me.” “Some of the most powerful Democrats and Republicans in the country were on Epstein Island. It…
Add to the number of missteps Donald Trump’s White House has made with regard to the “explosive” Jeffrey Epstein files, Trump Chief of Staff Susie Wiles believed that the controversy would blow over after the FBI released a memo on their findings.She could not have been more wrong and she had been warned, according to the New York Times’ Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan.According to their forthcoming book "Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump," Haberman and Swan wrote that a small group of White House and Justice Department officials drafted a memo designed to explain why the department would not release further information about Epstein. But the process of composing it was reportedly chaotic, with officials refusing to put their names on it and deep concerns emanating from FBI leadership.FBI Director Kash Patel and Deputy Director Dan Bongino had grown increasingly infuriated as they realized the scale of the crisis they were being blamed for managing. They repeatedly raised internal alarms that the Epstein controversy was gaining dangerous momentum with Trump's supporters.Bongino pushed hard for immediate release of surveillance footage from the federal facility where Epstein was found dead in his cell—a definitive gesture meant to satisfy the MAGA base's demand for transparency. But the Justice Department's "nothing-to-see-here" memo was being prepared for public release instead, the report notes.Bongino objected strenuously. He told Patel the memo would undermine their promises of transparency and he refused to put the FBI seal on the letterhead -- but he was overruled.Inside the White House, Trump had no interest in releasing anything, according to the upcoming book. Senior officials including Wiles and Deputy Chief of Staff James Blair were initially dismissive about the scope of the Epstein crisis and reportedly told colleagues Republican voters "didn't care," citing early polling data from Trump's chief pollster Tony Fabrizio. The Epstein controversy, in their view, was driven by "fringe conspiracy theorists" and amplified by noisy online influencers—not a meaningful voting bloc. Engaging with it, they argued, would only amplify the story and lend it official legitimacy.Wiles, Blair, and Trump's inner circle had watched him weather countless scandals over years and they believed this wasn't "a storm," but instead "passing clouds."Bongino disagreed vehemently. "It's not an online story," he reportedly told White House advisers bluntly. "You don't understand."He was proven right almost immediately with Swan and Haberman writing, "The memo was an earthquake, and it was received by a part of the MAGA base as an outright betrayal.Instead of closing the Epstein file, the Justice Department's carefully worded document landed like a bomb in the MAGA base. A significant faction of Trump's most ardent supporters received it not as reassurance but "as outright betrayal" —an abrupt disavowal of the sinister conspiracy theories that Trump's closest confidants had hyped during the Biden presidency and promised to expose once Trump returned to power.
Epstein’s former attorney told NewsNation, “First I am hearing it,” and stated he has not received a formal letter to speak before the Committee.