President Donald Trump and his top officials spent Wednesday scrambling to defend him against damaging emails from the estate of financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and head off efforts in the House to push for the release of additional files from Epstein’s prosecution.
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Early on Wednesday, House Democrats released emails from Epstein that alleged Trump spent time with one of Epstein’s victims. The bombshell messages came hours before House Speaker Mike Johnson was set to swear in Rep.-elect Adelita Grijalva of Arizona, who is poised to be the needed 218th vote on a discharge petition forcing a House vote on the Epstein files. The petition has already been signed by most House Democrats and a small group of Republicans including Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado and Rep. Nancy Mace of North Carolina.
By midday Wednesday, Trump officials had met in the White House Situation Room with Boebert who has demanded Trump open up the Epstein files.
The meeting inside the underground Situation Room was to talk to Boebert about her concerns around the Epstein files, said White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt. “Doesn’t that show the level of transparency when we are willing to sit down with members of Congress and address their concerns?” Leavitt said Wednesday. Leavitt refused to give more details about what officials told Boebert, or why the meeting was held in the Situation Room, which is typically used for secret national security planning. “I’m not going to detail conversations that took place in the Situation Room,” Leavitt said.
Trump, who was previously a friend of Epstein’s, told reporters on Air Force One in July that Epstein “stole” female workers away from Mar-a-Lago and “we threw him out.” Leavitt said that the emails made public on Wednesday back up Trump’s claims. “These emails prove absolutely nothing other than the fact that President Trump did nothing wrong,” she said.
The emails made Epstein a major topic of conversation as House Republicans were preparing to vote on a bill that would end the government shutdown. Trump described the release of the emails as a ploy by Democrats to distract from the economic damage they caused by holding up government funding over extending federal health insurance subsidies. Trump said House Republicans should not vote to release more files. “There should be no deflections to Epstein or anything else, and any Republicans involved should be focused only on opening up our Country, and fixing the massive damage caused by the Democrats!” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
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