Trump asks Congress to release Epstein files that he can release on his own

WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump has dropped his tough lobbying and threats to block legislation requiring the release of investigative material about his former friend and child sex ring operator Jeffrey Epstein, but he has not explained why he won’t simply release those files, as he has the ability to do.

“They can do whatever they want. I’ll give them everything,” he told reporters in the Oval Office on Monday when asked if he would sign the Epstein files bill if it passes both chambers of Congress.

However, in that meeting he was not asked why he does not open all the files on his own, and he did not volunteer an explanation.

“All you have to do is say [Attorney General] Pam Bondi to release the files,” said Glenn Kirschner, a former longtime federal prosecutor, who added that Trump changed the House legislation only after it became clear it would likely pass with a huge bipartisan majority. “That’s to cover his political ass.”

“Trump’s most recent change of heart regarding the Epstein files is his surrender to the fact that he was about to be humiliated by an overwhelming vote in Congress and an effort to turn into a victory what was going to be a mass repudiation of his extreme efforts to conceal the files,” said Ty Cobb, a former federal prosecutor and lawyer in Trump’s White House Counsel’s Office during the first term. “He is the clear loser in that battle, no matter how many uniforms he puts on to pretend to be on the winning side now that he has lost.”

Photography by Davidoff Studios via Getty Images

Instead of ordering the release of the files, however, Trump on Monday simply repeated his now-familiar lies that he had no real contact with Epstein, despite voluminous photos, videos and documents proving otherwise.

“It’s just a Russia, Russia, Russia hoax when it comes to Republicans,” Trump said, falsely claiming that Epstein only associated with Democrats like former President Bill Clinton and donor Reid Hoffman. “Now, I think a lot of the people that we, some of the people that we mentioned, are being looked at very seriously for their relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. But they were with him the whole time. I’m not, I wasn’t at all.”

Just a few days ago, Trump dragged a Republican member of the House of Representatives into the most secure room in the White House, traditionally reserved for national security discussions, to force her to block a resolution that would make those files public.

That effort failed, however, and a newly sworn-in Democratic member of Congress provided the 218th signature on a petition forcing a floor vote on the bill that House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana, a Trump ally, had been blocking on his behalf.

As this U-turn unfolded, Trump also ordered Bondi, who quickly and publicly complied, to investigate the involvement of Democrats, and only Democrats, with Epstein, providing further evidence of his transformation of the Justice Department into his personal prosecution team.

“Donald Trump’s abuse of the Justice Department is unlike anything we’ve seen before. His order last week to Attorney General Pam Bondi to investigate Democrats named in Epstein’s files, even though his Justice Department previously said there was no basis to prosecute anyone based on its investigation, shows how he has destroyed the rule of law,” said Norm Eisen, a lawyer who worked in President Barack Obama’s White House.

Trump and his supporters, who now hold senior administration positions, promised during their campaign to release the FBI’s investigative files on Epstein. Epstein himself died in an apparent suicide in 2019 in the custody of Trump’s Justice Department during his first term, just a month after his arrest on federal charges that followed a series of Miami Herald articles about his treatment in 2007 that allowed him to plead guilty to a single state prostitution charge.

Epstein’s associate and fellow child sex trafficker, Ghislaine Maxwell, was tried by the Department of Justice during Joe Biden’s presidency, convicted and sentenced to 20 years in federal prison. However, after Trump’s return to the White House, Maxwell was transferred to a minimum-security “Club Fed” prison camp, in violation of Bureau of Prisons guidelines. This came shortly after meeting with Todd Blanche, the Justice Department’s second-in-command after working as one of Trump’s criminal defense attorneys.

According to a transcript of those sessions released by the administration, Maxwell said Trump and Epstein “were not close” and that he never saw Trump at Epstein’s home, a claim contradicted by recently released emails by the House Oversight Committee obtained under subpoena from Epstein’s estate.

“Blanche’s extortion of Ghislaine Maxwell’s benign and patently false statement in exchange for her favorable treatment and possible commutation are all atrocities that will forever stain the Department of Justice and the FBI,” Cobb said.