Vice President J.D. Vance is hosting a strategy meeting with top Trump officials to coordinate a plan to deal with the ongoing firestorm over the Epstein files.
In an extraordinary intervention, Vance is expected to meet on Wednesday night with White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, Attorney General Pam Bondi, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche and FBI director Kash Patel as they weigh up how to respond to the fallout surrounding the deceased sex offender.
One of the issues the administration is grappling with is whether to publish an audio recording and transcript of Blanche’s recent conversation with Ghislaine Maxwell, who was convicted to 20 years for her role in recruiting and abusing young girls as Epstein’s accomplice.
Officials will also reportedly discuss the prospect of Blanche, who was previously Trump’s personal attorney, holding a press conference or conducting a high-profile interview to give the increasingly skeptical public more information about the case.
The meeting comes one month after Bondi’s Justice Department and the FBI put out a memo concluding that no further disclosures were needed regarding Epstein’s crimes and networks.
After weeks of trying to kill the story and branding it a Democratic hoax, some administration officials are now acknowledging they need to take a more proactive approach as the public demands answers.
But the issue is highly sensitive for the administration, given that, since the Watergate scandal of Richard Nixon, the DOJ has traditionally operated at arm’s length from the White House in criminal investigation matters to avoid the perception of political interference.
Conservatives were outraged, for instance, when former president Bill Clinton and then attorney general Loretta Lynch met on the tarmac in Phoenix in 2016 while Hillary Clinton was being investigated for using a private email server as Secretary of State.
Amid the politics, Epstein’s victims and their families are also demanding to be heard. Among them are the siblings of Virginia Giuffre, who Maxwell recruited for Epstein from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort when she was a teenage spa worker.
In a statement, Giuffre’s family said: “We understand that Vice President JD Vance will hold a strategy session this evening at his residence with administration officials. Missing from this group is, of course, any survivor of the vicious crimes of convicted perjurer and sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein.”
The meeting at Vance’s Observatory Circle residence in Northwest Washington is emblematic of the ongoing headache Trump faces after promising – and then failing to deliver – transparency on the Epstein files.
The issue has been red meat for Trump’s MAGA base for years, underpinned by the theory that “Deep State” elites were trying to cover up the crimes of rich and powerful people who may have been part of Epstein’s networks.
Last October, weeks before election day, Vance himself appeared on Theo Von’s popular podcast and told listeners: “Seriously, we need to release the Epstein list. That is an important thing.”
Yeah what changed? https://t.co/PeBSPbPiKs
— Theo Von (@TheoVon) July 16, 2025
Now, some fear that the administration is complicit in the cover-up, and many, including Trump’s traditional allies, are demanding more disclosures.
“Yeah, what changed?” Von asked on X last month, with a clip of his interview with Vance.
Epstein died in a Manhattan jail in 2019 as he was awaiting trial on federal sex trafficking charges involving underage girls.
Maxwell was sentenced in 2022 on federal charges of sex trafficking and conspiracy.
However, since meeting with Blanche last month, the 63-year-old has been given a sweetheart deal to move from her Florida prison to a lower security jail near her family in Texas.
The president has also refused to rule out giving her a pardon or commutation in exchange for her help, something that could further inflame his base, given her role in abusing young girls.
Amid ongoing fears of a cover-up, Trump has remained tight-lipped about Blanche’s meeting with Maxwell last month, in which the Deputy Attorney General quizzed her about 100 people connected to Epstein, according to her lawyer.
Trump told reporters on Tuesday night: “I didn’t talk to him about it, but will tell you whatever he asked would be totally appropriate.”
“I think he probably wants to make sure that, you know, people that should not be involved or aren’t involved are not hurt by something that would be very, very unfortunate and very unfair for a lot of people,” he added.
The White House declined to comment on the strategy meeting, and the Justice Department has yet to answer questions from the Daily Beast about it.
The post Vance Interferes Directly with DOJ in Trump’s Epstein Crisis appeared first on The Daily Beast.
