Speaker Johnson relents on full release of Epstein files

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson is finally permitting a vote next week to force Donald Trump’s Department of Justice to release all of the infamous ‘Epstein files.’ After a discharge petition to release the files garnered 218 signatures in the U.S. House of Representatives Wednesday, Johnson told reporters on Capitol Hill that ‘we’re going to put that on the floor for a full vote when we get back next week.’ The move comes after MAGA House Republicans – including Reps. Lauren Boebert (Colo.), Marjorie Taylor Greene (Ga.), and Nancy Mace (S.C.) – went rogue against Trump and signed the petition. A mass of Republican defectors are expected to join them and vote on the Epstein file disclosure bill. The vote will be earlier than expected, as the previous estimation for a vote on the bill could have put it as far back as December.

Johnson’s decision came after emails released by Democrats on the House Oversight Committee revealed that the Epstein frequently mentioned Trump in correspondence over a 15-year period. In one letter, Epstein plotted to ‘let Donald Trump hang himself’ at the height of the 2016 presidential campaign, according to an explosive new email dump. In a December 2015 exchange, Epstein told New York Times journalist Thomas Landon Jr that he had photos of Trump with bikini-clad girls in bikinis in his kitchen. ‘Would you like photos of Donald and girls in bikinis in my kitchen?’ Epstein asked the journalist in an email. In a follow-up exchange with the reporter, Epstein claimed Trump almost walked through a glass door because he was distracted by young women. Have them ask my houseman about Donald almost walking through the door leaving his nose print on the glass as young women were swimming in the pool,’ Epstein wrote to Landon in December 2015. ‘He was so focused he walked straight into the door.’

The emails, released by Democrats on the House Oversight Committee on Wednesday, show that the late pedophile referred to Trump in correspondence with Ghislaine Maxwell and the author Michael Wolff over a period of at least eight years. Wolff recorded over a hundred hours of conversation with Epstein from roughly 2014 to 2019 and described their contact as a working relationship for several major book projects, including Fire and Fury – an account of the first Trump administration. The author emailed Epstein with the subject line ‘heads up’ on December 15, 2015 – the day of a Republican primary debate televised by CNN. ‘I hear CNN planning to ask Trump tonight about his relationship with you – either on air or in scrum afterwards,’ Wolff told the billionaire financier. Epstein asked Wolff if he should help prepare an answer for the then-presidential candidate, but the author advised the billionaire financier that he should allow Trump to answer himself because his response could yield political capital. ‘If we were able to craft an answer for him, what do you think it should be?’ Epstein asked.

Wolff responded, ‘I think you should let him hang himself. If he says he hasn’t been on the plane or to the house, then that gives you a valuable PR and political currency. ‘You can hang him in a way that potentially generates a positive benefit for you, or, if it really looks like he could win, you could save him, generating a debt. ‘Of course, it is possible that, when asked, he’ll say Jeffrey is a great guy and has gotten a raw deal and is a victim of political correctness, which is to be outlawed in a Trump regime.’ The Daily Mail has contacted Wolff for comment. In another email between Epstein and Wolff in January 2019, the convicted sexual offender refers to his expulsion from Trump’s Mar -a-Lago Club. ‘Trump said he asked me to resign,’ Epstein wrote, adding, ‘never a member ever. . of course he knew about the girls as he asked to Ghislaine to stop.’ The President revealed new details about his split from Epstein in July, saying he banned the financier from Mar-a-Lago for poaching spa employees, including Virginia Giuffre.

Speaking aboard Air Force One during a trip to Scotland, Trump said Epstein twice hired away workers despite being warned, prompting him to declare Epstein ‘persona non grata.’ In a recent interview with attorney Todd Blanche, Maxwell reiterated that Trump ‘did nothing wrong’ and was never involved in Epstein’s criminal activities. The White House remains under pressure to release Epstein-related Justice Department files. The context of the exchanges is not clear. Around three years earlier, Epstein was jailed in Florida after pleading guilty to solicitation of prostitution with a minor. A reporter asked Trump’s Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt whether the White House was trying to pressure Boebert at the meeting to not sign a petition calling for the full release of the Epstein files. ‘Doesn’t it show transparency that members of the Trump administration are willing to brief members of Congress whenever they please?’ Leavitt asked the reporter. ‘Doesn’t that show the level of transparency when we are willing to sit down with members of Congress to address their concerns?’

Leavitt refused to discuss the details of the conversations but let slip that they took place in the Situation Room, usually reserved for classified briefings. The White House press conference came after a tranche of emails was released by Democrats on the House Oversight Committee showing Epstein emailing Ghislaine Maxwell, as well as the author Michael Wolff. In an email dated April 2, 2011, Epstein wrote to Maxwell: ‘i want you to realize that that dog that hasn’t barked is trump.. virignia [sic] spent hours at my house with him, he has never once been mentioned. police chief. etc. im 75% there.’ Maxwell replied: ‘I have been thinking about that…’ The Democrats redacted the victim’s name, including in a 2011 email Epstein sent Maxwell which claimed the girl ‘ spent hours at my house with’ Trump. Giuffre has repeatedly said President Trump was not involved in any wrongdoing whatsoever and ‘couldn’t have been friendlier’ to her in their limited interactions. Leavitt called the email dump a politically motivated ‘smear’ campaign by the Democrats and repeated Giuffre’s former statements about Trump in which she absolved him of any wrongdoing.

The wider set of documents released by the committee included a 2018 email exchange between Epstein and former Obama White House lawyer Kathryn Ruemmler. Ruemeler had sent Epstein a link to a New York Times op-ed about Michael Cohen, Trump’s former lawyer, who had recently pleaded guilty to violating campaign finance laws related to hush money paid to adult star Stormy Daniels. In response, the financier wrote: ‘You see, I know how dirty donald is. My guess is that non lawyers ny biz people have no idea. What it means to have your fixer flip.’ In the Democrats’ original email dump the name Virginia was replaced with ‘VICTIM.’ Top Trump officials met in the White House Situation Room amid bipartisan efforts in the House to force the vote. The meeting included Attorney General Pam Bondi, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, FBI Director Kash Patel and Republican Colorado Representative Lauren Boebert , according to sources. Boebert is one of the leading MAGA lawmakers in Congress pushing the Justice Department to publish their trove of Epstein files. Leavitt appeared to confirm the meeting took place during a Wednesday briefing.

Giuffre, who committed [self-murder] earlier this year, was recruited by Maxwell while employed as a spa attendant at the Mar-a-Lago Club in 2000. She was 16 years old. The communications were released after the House Oversight Committee subpoenaed Epstein’s estate earlier this year. Trump did not send or receive any of the emails, and he has not been charged with any crime in relation to Epstein or Maxwell. In a court deposition, Giuffre said under oath that she didn’t believe Trump had any knowledge of Epstein’s misconduct with underage girls. And in her recently released memoir, she described meeting Trump only once, when she worked as a spa attendant at his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida, and did not accuse him of wrongdoing. Giuffre wrote that she was introduced to Trump by her father, who also worked at the club. She described Trump as friendly and said he offered to help her get babysitting jobs with parents at the club. Lawyers for Maxwell, a British socialite, have argued that she never should have been tried or convicted for her role in luring teenage girls to be sexually abused by Epstein. She is serving a 20-year prison term, though she was moved from a low-security federal prison in Florida to a minimum-security prison camp in Texas after the Blanche interview.

The scheduled vote comes as Arizona Democrat Adelita Grijalva was sworn in to the U.S. House of Representatives by Republican Speaker Mike Johnson on Wednesday afternoon, seven weeks after being elected to replace the seat previously held by her now deceased father. Her swearing-in, which occurred 50 days after her election , faced delays due to the House of Representatives being out of session during the government shutdown that has been ongoing for the past 43 days. However, if you ask some House Democrats, including Grijalva, the real reason for the delay was much more nefarious. Grijalva became the final signature on a petition to release government files related to Jeffrey Epstein as a few of his victims looked on from the House gallery, delivering on a key campaign promise minutes after she was sworn in as a member of Congress. In a Tuesday interview with MSNBC’s The Weeknight, Grivalva noted that ‘nobody, no member-elect should ever be in the situation again where 813,000 people are silenced because one person wants to play politics with their swearing-in.’ Grijalva also told MSNBC that she believed her swearing-in was delayed ‘to give Speaker Johnson more time in order to try to convince one of those four Republicans to take their name off’ the discharge petition to release the Epstein files.

The petition, put forth by California Democrat Ro Khanna and Kentucky Republican Thomas Massie, is currently backed by every Democrat in the House, as well as three female Republicans, Marjorie Taylor-Greene of Georgia, Nancy Mace of South Carolina, and Lauren Boebert of Colorado. Trump was known to have associated with Epstein in the early 2000s. The president expelled Epstein from his club around October 2007 ‘for being a creep to his female employees, including Giuffre,’ Leavitt said. Democrats on the House Oversight Committee unleashed on Wednesday emails subpoenaed from the Epstein estate, which include mentions of President Trump by name. Meanwhile, Republicans on the House Oversight committee called the release by their Democrat colleagues ‘cherry-picked’ to generate clickbait.

Speaking to reporters in Kentucky the day after Grejalva’s election, Massie noted that ‘last night, there was a special election in Arizona. I have 217 signatures. I need 218 signatures to force a vote on releasing the Epstein files in the House. And last night, I both of the candidates on the ballot promised to sign my discharge petition, and one of them won, obviously, and so now we’re going to have 218 signatures, and we’re going to force a vote on releasing those files.’ Grijalva, 55, was elected in September to replace her late father, former Representative Raul Grijalva who died in March at the age of 77. The elder Grijalva served in Congress for over 20 years before his death, and was formerly a member of the Pima County Board of Supervisors, an office also occupied by his daughter before she was elected to Congress in September. The House is expected to pass a package to fund the government in the next few hours.