For hard-right lawmakers, Trump's shift on Epstein is just the latest breach

Boston Globe

2 days ago

It was the latest flash of frustration within Trump's hard-right faction on Capitol Hill. After a six-month honeymoon in which a fractious Republican Party has remained mostly united by unblinking allegiance to the president, there are now signs of a potential fraying of Trump's political coalition.
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In the past few weeks, Greene and other right-wing Republicans have criticized the administration's bellicose stance on Iran, the president's reversal on supporting Ukraine in its war against Russia and the Justice Department's pivot on the Epstein matter. They have suggested that on each issue, Trump has betrayed the voters who elected him.
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'I don't accept it, and I don't think anyone else should accept it,' Greene said of the decision not to release more information about Epstein. 'I just think that it's a punch in the gut when regular people go to jail all the time, when they mess up and do something wrong, and then it always seems the rich, powerful elites escape.'
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The president said Tuesday that he trusted Attorney General Pam Bondi's judgment and that only 'credible' information should be released. He later called the Epstein inquiry 'boring.'
It was also not the first time in recent weeks that Democrats found themselves nodding along with Republicans they revile who are indignant about positions Trump and his administration have taken.
As the Senate debated Trump's sweeping domestic policy measure, Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., over and over again expressed existential concerns about its deep cuts to Medicaid, eventually issuing an indictment of the bill that made for better campaign ad copy than Democrats could have written for themselves.
'We cannot be a working-class party if you are taking away health care for working-class people,' he said. (Hawley ultimately voted for the legislation, but on Tuesday introduced legislation to repeal the Medicaid cuts he had voted for.)
Greene and others, like Rep. Eli Crane of Arizona, have also condemned Trump's reversal on aiding Ukraine in its fight against Russia, a decision that they also said ran directly counter to campaign promises he and other Republicans made to end U.S. entanglement in foreign conflicts.
It's a recognizable dynamic in Washington, where intraparty feuds can reach a boil once a new president settles in and notches a few wins. In Trump's case, that dynamic is exacerbated by the fact that he entered office as a lame duck, while many of his allies in Congress will face voters in just 16 months.
For years, Trump and his Republican allies in Congress have promised voters that a trove of documents on the Epstein case would be released, and fed conspiracy theories about what would be found there. Much of their base consists of working-class people, many of whom are on Medicaid. Many of them want an end to American involvement in foreign wars.
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Some GOP lawmakers, after spending much of the past six months ceding power to the White House, are now trying to carve a path where they can remain loyal to Trump while distancing themselves from the major decisions he has made.
'We're about to arm people we have literally no control over,' Steve Bannon, a Trump adviser turned influential podcast host, said on his show, speaking of Trump's decision to speed weapons to Ukraine. 'This is old-fashioned, grinding war in the blood lands of Europe -- and we're being dragged into it.'
But no issue has struck a chord as elemental as the issue of the Epstein files.
Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., said in an interview that she has been bombarded by angry voters demanding more transparency from the Trump administration on the case.
'It's the only thing we've heard about for the last 100 hours,' Mace said. 'It's every social media platform, every phone call into the office. You see that interest on an issue, and you've got to respond.'
Mace said she supported the idea of appointing a special counsel to look into whether anyone destroyed evidence and who else might have been involved in trafficking girls and young women.
'If the Justice Department can be more transparent on this, it would be best for the country,' she said. 'People don't trust the government, and we haven't given them much reason to over the past few years.'
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Even House Speaker Mike Johnson, who has never let any daylight show between him and Trump, called for the release of the files.
'We should put everything out there and let the people decide,' Johnson said in an interview on 'The Benny Show.' He added: 'This isn't my lane. I haven't been involved in that. But I agree with the sentiment that we need to -- we need to put it out there.'
Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., said he was 'aggravated at Pam Bondi, claiming the list is on her desk.' referring to Bondi's decision not to release more disclosures in the Epstein case.
Burchett, unsurprisingly, stopped short of criticizing the president, who has not only backed Bondi's decision but has also encouraged his supporters to simply move on from the Epstein case and to stop asking questions.
'I haven't spoken to the president about it,' he said. 'I don't know the reasoning there.'
His comments hinted at the reality that despite the current fissures and angry talk, Republican lawmakers may fall in line with Trump, as they have always done.
Democrats on Monday were making sure Bondi did not become the easy scapegoat for GOP anger that otherwise would be directed at the president.
'This is definitely not a reason for her to resign, because it's clear that Donald Trump is the one who is calling the tune here,' said Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md. 'The Republicans seem split. On the one hand, people understand that there's a lot of popular fervor on the subject. On the other hand, they continue to follow Trump's lead, and it's clearly Trump who is saying he doesn't want this to come out.'
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Indeed, on Monday night, just one Republican on the Rules Committee, Rep. Ralph Norman of South Carolina, voted with Democrats for a proposal to force a floor vote on whether the Justice Department should release material on the Epstein case.
Democrats tried to force the issue again Tuesday; Republicans held together unanimously to block a debate on the release of the files.
But some Republicans wanted to do it their own way and lead on the issue. Later Tuesday evening, Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., said he was introducing a discharge petition to force a vote on the release of the Epstein files. He also introduced a bill with Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., to require the disclosure of all unclassified material in the case while protecting victims' identities.
A discharge petition would allow lawmakers to make an end run around their leaders and force consideration of legislation on the House floor if they collect the signatures of a majority of representatives. They rarely work, but there appeared to be bipartisan support for releasing the files.
Rep. Marc Veasey, D-Texas, who introduced a separate resolution calling for the immediate release of all unclassified documents, said that Democrats wanted to know what was in those files as much as people in Trump's MAGA movement did. 'The president makes these claims, and people want to make sure children aren't being abused,' he said.
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