Jeffrey Epstein assistant Lesley Groff set to testify before House panel
Center Left
Groff worked for Epstein for nearly 20 years, starting in 2001, in which her job was to ‘organize one man’s life’Lesley Groff, Jeffrey Epstein’s longtime executive assistant, is testifying on Tuesday before the House oversight and reform committee as lawmakers on the panel continue their investigation into the late convicted sex offender. Groff worked for Epstein for almost 20 years, beginning in 2001 and ending in July 2019 when he was arrested. Notes from a 2021 FBI interview with Groff, which was included in the millions of documents related to Epstein released by the Department of Justice earlier this year, state that she told agents that she began working for Epstein after she was contacted by a headhunter, who found her resume and told her that there “was a job to organize one man’s life”. Continue reading...
A Democratic lawmaker hurled a major allegation at Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche on Tuesday, one they said amounted to “witness tampering” in the federal investigation into Jeffrey Epstein.Blanche was nominated by President Donald Trump on Monday to serve as permanent attorney general, and during an appearance on CNN, Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-MA) was asked whether Blanche’s handling of the Justice Department’s (DOJ) release of Epstein-related files would help or hurt his chances at being confirmed by the Senate.Lynch poured cold water on Blanche’s chances – calling him “unqualified and untrustworthy” – while also leveling the allegation that Blanche had “interfered” with the criminal probe into Epstein’s potential co-conspirators.Last year, Blanche – then deputy attorney general – conducted an interview with Epstein accomplice and convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell, during which the two spoke “for a few minutes” before the conversation was recorded. Not long after, Maxwell was quietly transferred from her maximum-security prison in Florida to a minimum-security prison in Texas, a move that ran afoul of DOJ policy as it relates to sex offenders.“Todd Blanche's involvement with the Epstein case is disastrous. He actually went and met with Ghislaine Maxwell, took her out of a heavy security prison, gave her a sweetheart deal,” Lynch told CNN’s John Berman.“She never agreed to cooperate. [Blanche] put her in a much more permissive environment [that] has given her extensive privileges. I believe that is witness tampering on his part – he interfered with the investigation! She is less likely to talk to us now since Todd Blanche got involved with this case.”Maxwell has enjoyed extensive privileges at the detention facility she was transferred to in Texas, privileges reportedly not afforded to other inmates that include access to computers, a "security risk not typically allowed,” CNN previously reported. Maxwell has since gushed about her experience at the prison, claiming to be “much happier” there and calling her privileges “fantastic.”Regarding the federal investigation into Epstein, @RepStephenLynch accuses Acting AG @DAGToddBlanche of "witness tampering" and of having "interfered with the investigation.""He's clearly unqualified and untrustworthy" pic.twitter.com/v0MiJXFcxq— Alexander Willis (@ReporterWillis) June 9, 2026
House Republican leaders were uncertain Monday whether they had enough votes to pass a Senate-approved immigration enforcement bill, as the GOP simultaneously began laying groundwork for another budget reconciliation measure ahead of the 2026 midterms.GOP leaders could not confirm they had secured the votes needed to advance the immigration bill, which requires a procedural vote before reaching the House floor, but some Republicans remain undecided and want more enduring changes baked into the bill, a demand that could tank everything, reported Politico."We're literally bending over backwards just to get back to the status quo and to remove people that are just going to come back in four years under the next administration, because we're not codifying anything," said one of the holdouts, Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX).Rep. Kevin Kiley (R-CA) also indicated he would oppose the bill, saying he would not support it without enacted reforms. Leadership's whip operation kept other members on a watchlist as well, with attendance an added concern due to primary elections Tuesday in four states.Despite the uncertainty, House Republicans moved forward with preliminary planning for what some members are calling "Reconciliation 3.0." The Republican Study Committee held a Monday evening briefing with nonpartisan legislative scoring officials to examine the fiscal parameters of assembling another party-line bill.RSC Chair Rep. August Pfluger (R-TX) described the session as an early effort to get ahead of the process and ensure accurate data.In a separate meeting in Speaker Mike Johnson's office, Rep. Andy Harris (R-MD), who chairs the House Freedom Caucus, floated incorporating partisan elements of the regular appropriations process into the bill — a suggestion that drew concern from some Republican appropriators.Johnson acknowledged the idea had come up but said he was not committing to anything. Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA) struck a similar note, saying the party remained "far from agreement on 3.0."
A Trump megadonor got demolished on live television Monday night after demanding the country trust his voter fraud claims — then refusing to cite a single source to back them up.Hal Lambert, a Republican megadonor and regular on CNN's "NewsNight," clashed with CNN commentator Charles Blow and anchor Abby Phillip over President Donald Trump's long-debunked claims that the 2020 election was stolen.Lambert insisted there were "problems" in Georgia and Arizona. As he fumbled for specifics, Blow had heard enough."Oh my god!" Blow exclaimed."What were they, Hal? It's been six years," Phillip pressed.Lambert never answered. He pivoted to fraud in Medicare, Medicaid, and H-1B visas instead. Blow wasn't buying it."The more that you lie, the more we're going to push back on the fact that you are lying," Blow fired back. "You don't have a single source in your whole body."Blow then wielded the conservative Heritage Foundation's own Election Fraud Database against Lambert. A Brookings Institution analysis of Heritage's data found that in Pennsylvania, the group had to reach back 30 years — spanning 32 elections and more than 100 million ballots — to scrape together just 39 fraud cases. None changed the outcome."In 30 years, they've tracked 32 elections, 100 million votes. They have found 39 total cases of voter fraud," Blow said. "So you think the Heritage Foundation is absurd?"Lambert's response: "That's absurd! That's absurd! That's absurd!"The Brennan Center for Justice has found the Heritage cases represent a "molecular fraction" of total votes cast nationwide. Just 10 cases of in-person voter impersonation appear across the entire database.Phillip finally called it."To be honest, Hal, you're not saying anything of substance," she said.Lambert's exit line: "We'll see what the viewers think."
The White House vehemently denied a report last Friday about a heightened counterintelligence threat, but on Monday night, Vice President JD Vance appeared to undercut that denial with a blatant but indirect admission.On Friday, NBC News reported that the Pentagon had raised its counterintelligence threat level on Israel to “critical” – its “highest level” – amid concerns that the Middle East nation was “ramping up its spying on the U.S.” The White House dismissed the report as entirely “false,” and claimed the source of the information – two U.S. officials and one former official – did not “have any knowledge of what’s going on.”And yet, when asked by Fox News’ Jesse Waters “how concerned” he was about “Israel spying on the United States,” Vance did not push back on the claim, and instead stressed that the United States and Israel had diverging interests.“Well look, obviously the Israelis and I – excuse me, the Israelis and the United States have a lot of shared interests, but we also have some situations where our interests diverge,” Vance told Waters. “The president has been very clear that while Israel obviously has some objectives that it has, the United States’ main objective in Iran does not have a nuclear weapon, and we’ve actually created the space necessary where the president believes that we can get the long-term settlement to Iran’s nuclear deal.”In 2021, Israeli military intelligence officers “were caught planting listening devices at [the Defense Intelligence Agency] headquarters,” according to The New York Times, and in 2025, were caught attempting to “plant a listening device in a Secret Service vehicle.” Last year also saw U.S. Lt. Gen. Patrick Frank summoning an Israeli official for a meeting after discovering recording devices allegedly planted in a U.S. military base, per The Guardian.Vance continued, “Now, Israel may like that, they may not like that, but fundamentally we think this is in the best interest of the United States, so we’re going to keep on pursuing it.”🚨 MUST WATCH: ISRAEL WAS JUST CAUGHT SPYING ON THE PENTAGON AND TRUMP’S TOP NEGOTIATOR… VICE PRESIDENT JD VANCE REACTS 🚨“Israel may like that, they may not like that… this is in the BEST INTEREST of the United States of America” 🇺🇸🔥 pic.twitter.com/JkNc0rDjqE— Jesse Watters (@JesseBWatters) June 9, 2026
The juvenile delinquents who have been put in charge of the White House website and social media have officially gone full Nazi by creating an “Enemies List” of “Leftist Influencers” on WhiteHouse.gov The list is fairly short for now, but the fact that it exists at all is proof that the Trump-controlled government is continuing to follow a propaganda playbook that was originally written in German in the 1930s. It was then later translated into Russian before finally reaching our shores and becoming a hybrid of their most horrifically successful tactics, with just enough of The Handmaid’s Tale for good measure added in over the last few years.All of which has been boosted by MAGA-dominated social media for more than a decade. Trump’s attacks on the press began almost exactly 11 years ago, when he first descended the tacky gold escalator in his tacky gold tower to fling his loaded diaper all over our political norms. It was then that he began poisoning the vernacular with the term “fake news media,” which is now so common that it’s used by Republican members of Congress who allowed themselves to be compromised thanks to blackmail (Russian Tactics 101, for those of you who are new to the subject). Those who once spoke out against Trump are now fully owned by him, as is the right-wing media, which helps boost his lies instead of exposing them. CBS News has already fallen to him, but that’s not enough. Hitler had his Lügenpresse; Trump has “Fake News Media.” Which is full-on projection language, considering he’s been abetted by Fox, Newsmax, and OAN, along with “MAGA journalists” like Nick Shirley, who are on the White House payroll to create distractions from the Epstein Files. THIS is what the real Fake News Media looks like.Why yes, that’s my tweet from October 2025, when these kids with cameras in their phones were calling themselves “journalists” because it would continue to delegitimize the work done by actual, real journalists who were exposing the truth about the Trump administration.Like everything else Trump does, that move came with a body count in Minneapolis. I’ve written here before about his specific attacks on women in the media, which happened yet again this week when he attacked CNN’s Kaitlan Collins during a press briefing in the Oval Office--before she had even said a word.Trump’s attacks on the media have escalated drastically over the last few months as both his mental and physical health have been rapidly declining in front of the entire world. Interestingly, the “Leftist Influencers” who are being targeted have all reported on Trump’s health. David Pakman, Ed Krassenstein, and Brian Tyler Cohen are all on the WHITE HOUSE WEBSITE, each of them being made out to be enemies of the State. They’re all essentially being doxxed by Donald Trump, all for daring to always tell the truth about him. A quick word about Ed Krassenstein and his brother, Brian. They’ve had a bad rep for being opportunistic grifters for as long as I can remember. They claim to be Democrats, but have tweeted support for Trump in the past, and have even justified buying a Cybertruck. These aren’t all of the things about them, but this is my way of saying that they are not universally beloved by liberals, and that would include me. Also, not all liberals are Leftists, just to be clear. Anyway, any controversies connected to the Krassensteins are besides the point; neither of them deserves to be targeted by the White House as a distraction from the Epstein Files. Freedom of the Press is guaranteed by the Constitution, as is Freedom of Speech. Any attack on any member of the press is an attack on all of our First Amendment rights. Those of us who’ve also been writing the truth about Trump for a long time are wondering when we’ll be added to that list. It’s not as if we don’t have digital footprints like those I’ve mentioned; some of us have larger platforms than others. And a few of us are blocked by Trump on Twitter. I’ve been blocked since August 2015, which is why I’m probably not on the list yet.But it’s not just those “influencers” being targeted for talking about Trump on their podcasts. The White House is now also threatening people for simply posting on social media about Trump, Jeffrey Epstein, and Melania. Writer Anthony Andrews tweeted on Saturday that he had received a “cease and desist” order for his Twitter posts and shared screenshots from the order. I don’t care if you voted for Trump three times; that should make you furious. MAGA tweets far worse things than that about Democrats all day, every day. I’m especially rolling my eyes at the “GOVERN YOURSELF ACCORDINGLY” part, considering that Andrews was doing exactly that. He was exercising his Constitutional right to free speech, which includes being able to openly criticize any member of the United States government. He was sharing knowledge about the Epstein Files.
President Trump late Monday said two crew members who were aboard a U.S. attack helicopter when they crashed near the Strait of Hormuz are “fine.” The AH-64 Apache helicopter was patrolling regional waters when it crashed near the Oman coast, U.S. Central Command reported. Traveling back to Washington from New York City after watching Game 3 of the…
As acting attorney general, Todd Blanche has shown a willingness to execute the president’s maximalist demands. Whether the Senate will confirm him remains unclear.
Former state Attorney General Xavier Becerra (D) and former Fox News host Steve Hilton, a Republican, are projected to advance to the general election for governor of California, according to Decision Desk HQ. Hilton had coalesced GOP support with the help of President Trump’s endorsement, while the Democratic field remained divided over a crowded field…
