Political brawl over Epstein files sends US House into early summer recess
The move averts a push by Democrats and some Republicans for a vote on a bipartisan resolution to require the Justice Department and FBI to release all government documents on Epstein, who died by suicide in prison in 2019.
"What we refuse to do is participate in another one of the Democrats' political games. This is a serious matter. We are not going to let them use this as a political battering ram," House Speaker Mike Johnson, of Louisiana, told reporters.
Many of President Donald Trump's supporters who embraced a slew of conspiracy theories surrounding Epstein saw their hopes raised when the administration vowed to release a slew of new documents on the case, only to backtrack and say it had concluded that there was no evidence to support the theories.
That opened a rare breach between Trump and parts of his Make America Great Again base of support. Majorities of Americans and Trump's Republicans say they believed the government is hiding details on the case, according to Reuters/Ipsos polling.
On Monday, Democrats sought to use a House Rules Committee meeting to force a vote on the Epstein resolution introduced by Republican Representative Thomas Massie and Democratic Representative Ro Khanna. The panel serves as gatekeeper for floor-bound legislation. Republicans instead suspended the hearing, preventing the panel from approving bills for floor consideration this week.
The House had been expected to hold the week's final votes on Thursday. But House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, the chamber's No. 2 Republican, told reporters there would be votes on Tuesday and Wednesday for less important legislation considered under suspension of the rules.
A subcommittee of the House Oversight Committee voted to subpoena Ghislaine Maxwell, a British socialite and Epstein's longtime girlfriend, who is serving a 20-year prison sentence after being convicted of sex trafficking in 2021.
Under mounting pressure from Trump supporters for the release of material, Attorney General Pam Bondi has asked a federal judge to unseal grand jury transcripts in the cases of both Epstein and Maxwell, who was convicted in 2021 of five federal charges related to her role in Epstein's alleged sexual abuse of underage girls.
(This story has been refiled to fix the day of the week in paragraph 1)
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Independent
24 minutes ago
- The Independent
Tulsi Gabbard says ‘further documents' to be released today proving ‘Obama coup'
U.S. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard has promised that more documents will be released on Wednesday to substantiate her allegation that former President Barack Obama 'manufactured' evidence to suggest Russia helped Donald Trump win the 2016 presidential election. Gabbard announced on Friday that she was referring Obama administration officials – including ex-FBI director James Comey, ex-CIA director John Brennan, and her own predecessor James Clapper – to the Justice Department over their roles in the alleged plot to undermine Trump's victory over Hillary Clinton. She subsequently accused the Democrat of orchestrating a 'yearslong coup' against Trump during an interview with Maria Bartiromo on Fox News 's Sunday Morning Futures. Central to her claim is a National Security Council (NSC) meeting held on December 9, 2016, at which, she alleges, the 44th president ordered a new report be compiled detailing 'the tools Moscow used and actions it took to influence the 2016 election' in the Republican's favor, overruling an earlier, less certain assessment. The report in question was duly published in January 2017. A spokesperson for Obama said on Tuesday: 'Out of respect for the office of the presidency, our office does not normally dignify the constant nonsense and misinformation flowing out of this White House with a response. But these claims are outrageous enough to merit one. 'These bizarre allegations are ridiculous and a weak attempt at distraction. Nothing in the document issued last week undercuts the widely accepted conclusion that Russia worked to influence the 2016 presidential election but did not successfully manipulate any votes. 'These findings were affirmed in a 2020 report by the bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee led by then-chairman [and now U.S. Secretary of State] Marco Rubio.' Speaking to Newsmax last night, Gabbard was confronted with Obama's rebuttal by host Rob Schmitt and responded: 'We will be releasing further documents tomorrow that will refute that statement. 'We will be pulling a whole host of statements that were made by the Obama administration, by Hillary Clinton, by senior Democrat officials, by their friends in the media that state, over and over again, after this January 2017 manufactured intelligence document was created, that repeat the narrative.' Asked what quotes she had gathered, she answered: 'John Brennan says there is strong consensus among us to support the CIA claim Russian hackers aided Donald Trump's election; Hillary Clinton said, 'I would be president if not for the Russian hackers supporting Donald Trump.' 'There is a vast body of evidence and intelligence that debunks and refutes this statement you've just read and others coming from some of the Democrat leaders in Congress today.' Gabbard also claimed that new whistleblowers had come forward since her initial announcement and added: 'The legal path forward will be up to the Department of Justice to determine. However, I will say how essential it is as an American that we hold people accountable, no matter how powerful they are, no matter what position they have held. 'It is essential that for the future of our nation and our democratic republic, that accountability must occur.' In a second interview with Lara Trump, the president's daughter-in-law, again on Fox, Gabbard once more refuted Obama's denial and said it was he, not her, that was engaged in 'the art of deflection.' She insisted that, in late 2016, 'the intelligence community had one assessment, that Russia did not have the intent or capability to try to impact the outcome of the U.S. election' but that verdict abruptly changed after the NSC meeting at which Clapper was ordered to issue a new version detailing 'how, not if' Moscow had meddled. Gabbard also accused Obama's intelligence officials of using 'already discredited information like the Steele dossier' to stand up their argument. Trump himself has latched onto her claims, posting about them multiple times over the weekend on social media, on one occasion circulating an AI TikTok meme imagining Obama being arrested in the Oval Office and sent to jail. However, his critics have, like Obama, argued that the whole story is just an attempt to distract from the ongoing furore over his administration's failure to release its files on Jeffrey Epstein. On Tuesday's instalment of MSNBC's Morning Joe, host Joe Scarborough presented a 14-point 'laundry list' of subjects raised in the last two weeks to distract from the Epstein case, with the Obama conspiracy appearing alongside such issues as expat comedian Rosie O'Donnell's citizenship status and the potential renaming of the Washington Commanders and Cleveland Guardians. Connecticut Democratic Rep. Jim Himes told the same network yesterday: 'When people like Tulsi Gabbard and Donald Trump accuse an ex-president of a capital crime that is punishable by death, who is going to die? Who is going to die because they've decided that they need a distraction away from the Epstein calamity.' 'Gabbard nonsense' was cooked up 'purely as a distraction from Epstein,' an opinion shared by ex-Republican congressman Denver Riggleman. Democratic National Committee delegate Kaivan Shroff went further, lashing out at the intelligence chief on Newsmax by saying that Gabbard 'has built her career as a stooge for dictators and that is why Donald Trump picked her… [The president] is embroiled in so many scandals dividing his base that he wants to distract with this.'
The Independent
24 minutes ago
- The Independent
Ghislaine Maxwell's brother thanks Donald Trump for his ‘positive statement' about his sister in 2020
Ian Maxwell, the brother of jailed Jeffrey Epstein accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell, has thanked President Donald Trump for making a 'positive statement' about his sister in 2020 and showing her 'humanity.' Appearing on Piers Morgan Uncensored on Tuesday to discuss the revived furore over Epstein after Trump's Justice Department said that no 'client list' belonging to the late billionaire pedophile existed, Ian Maxwell once more defended Ghislaine, who was jailed in 2022 for her role in the disgraced financier's sex trafficking operation. Asked by Morgan whether she had 'pulled the wool over your eyes' regarding her involvement in Epstein's crimes, Maxwell responded: 'No, I believe my sister. 'I've known her [for] 60 years, Piers. You know, I'm not going to suddenly say she started pulling the wool. I don't think so. I don't believe so. Not for a second.' Pivoting to Trump, Maxwell said: 'President Trump was asked the only time, I believe, in public – at the tail end of his presidency, so, you know, November, December 2021 [sic] – about Ghislaine and he said, 'You know, I don't know much about it, but I wish her well.' 'And I don't think that anyone else showed the slightest piece of humanity, not anybody at that time, and yet he did. He didn't need to. He's the president of the United States, the most powerful man in the world. He could've just sloughed it off. He didn't. He made a positive statement. I am very grateful to that and I know Ghislaine was too.' The comment Maxwell referred to was actually made by Trump in July 2020 when Ghislaine was arrested and charged with sex trafficking. 'I haven't really been following it too much,' the president said at the time. 'I just wish her well, frankly. I've met her numerous times over the years, especially since I lived in Palm Beach. And I guess they lived in Palm Beach. But I wish her well.' Asked about it a month later by then-Axios reporter Jonathan Swan, Trump doubled down and said: 'I wish her well, I'd wish you well, I'd wish a lot of people well. Good luck. Let them prove somebody was guilty. 'Her boyfriend died in jail and people are still trying to figure out how did it happen? Was it suicide? Was he killed? And I do wish her well. I'm not looking for anything bad for her. I'm not looking bad for anybody.' The president remains under pressure to explain his past friendship with Epstein after the Justice Department's attempt to draw a line under the case sparked an angry backlash from his own supporters, with many pointing to Attorney General Pam Bondi 's declaration earlier this year that his case file was 'sitting on my desk waiting to be reviewed' as suggesting its release was imminent. Archive photos and video indicate that Trump and Epstein knew each other socially in New York and Florida from the 1980s to the early 2000s, and the president is on record as praising the abuser as a 'terrific guy.' However, he has since distanced himself and is currently suing The Wall Street Journal for alleging that he once sent him a lewd hand-drawn birthday card. The president has tried hard to change the narrative over the last two weeks, attacking numerous old foes on social media in scattergun fashion, rebuking his own 'past' supporters for dwelling on the subject, and complaining to the press at a recent cabinet meeting: 'Are you still talking about Jeffrey Epstein? This guy's been talked about for years. Are people still talking about this guy, this creep?' Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche announced on Tuesday that, at the direction of AG Bondi, he had contacted Ghislaine's legal counsel about arranging an interview with her and declared: 'No one is above the law – and no lead is off-limits.' Trump signaled his approval of that step in the Oval Office shortly afterwards, saying it 'sounded appropriate.' Meanwhile, a panel of judges has ruled that more information is needed before they can rule on the release of grand jury testimony related to Epstein, and House Speaker Mike Johnson has declined to hold a House vote on whether to order the release of all federal files on him until after Congress's summer recess.
The Independent
24 minutes ago
- The Independent
The US decision to leave UNESCO again puts a spotlight on what the agency does and why it matters
With the support of international partners and the mobilization of $115 million, the U.N. cultural agency UNESCO recently helped rebuild the Iraqi city of Mosul after it was devastated by the Islamic State group. The restoration of the historic city's iconic Al-Nouri Mosque and Al-Hadba Minaret was just one of many programs run by the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, which is in the spotlight because the United States is leaving it once again. The decision to pull U.S. funding and participation from UNESCO will deal a blow to its work preserving cultural heritage around the world. President Donald Trump exited the agency during his first term, accusing it of promoting anti-Israel speech. The Biden administration had rejoined UNESCO in 2023 after citing concerns that China was filling the gap left by the U.S. in UNESCO policymaking. Beyond the diplomatic disputes, here's a look at the work that UNESCO does: World Heritage Sites UNESCO names World Heritage sites, including landmarks like the Great Wall of China, the Egyptian pyramids, the Taj Mahal and the Statue of Liberty, and gives them special protection under its World Heritage Sites program. Its World Heritage Committee each year designates sites considered 'of outstanding value to humanity' and intervenes when sites are in danger of destruction or damage. The program provides countries with technical assistance and professional training to preserve the sites. It now also includes 'intangible' heritage such as folk songs and traditional dances, crafts and cooking in its lists. A World Heritage site designation is coveted and seen as a boost to tourism. Holocaust Education Like the rest of the U.N., UNESCO was created in response to the horrors of World War II, and particularly Nazi crimes. Amid concerns that the agency's Arab members have used UNESCO to pass anti-Israel resolutions, UNESCO has worked in recent years on Holocaust awareness projects. That includes educational materials and organizing visits to former Nazi concentration camps. Empowering Girls UNESCO works to improve literacy, with a special focus on girls in countries hit by war or disasters who get little or no schooling though programs such as the Malala Fund for Girls' Right to Education. In Tanzania, for instance, over 2,500 girls benefited from the creation of safe spaces in 40 secondary schools, The agency provides teacher training and materials and encourages programs for girls to pursue careers in science. Climate Change One of the agency's goals is coordinating climate knowledge and improving international education about how global warming occurs and affects people around the world. Over 30 UNESCO programs are designed to help its members adapt to climate change and favor sustainable development. Ethics of Artificial Intelligence UNESCO adopted in 2021 what it calls 'the first and only global standard-setting instrument on the ethics of artificial intelligence.' Applying to all 194 member states, the recommendation emphasizes the protection of human rights and dignity, grounded in principles like transparency, fairness, and human oversight of AI systems. Operating without the U.S. UNESCO director general Audrey Azoulay said the U.S. decision to leave was expected and that the agency has prepared for it. While the U.S. had previously provided a notable share of the agency's budget, UNESCO has diversified its funding sources. 'Thanks to the efforts made by the organization since 2018, the decreasing trend in the financial contribution of the US has been offset, so that it now represents 8% of the organization's total budget compared with 40% for some United Nations entities,' Azoulay said. She added that the agency's overall budget has increased and that it has the steady support of "a large number of member states and private contributors.'
