A number of Republican lawmakers want more details about the Trump administration’s handling of the investigation into disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein as President Donald Trump and the GOP grapple with MAGA’s fury over the findings.
Why It Matters
The Department of Justice (DOJ) and the FBI drew blowback from Trump’s base after putting out a memo last week concluding that Epstein died by suicide in his Manhattan jail cell in 2019 and that the government was not in possession of a list of Epstein’s clients.
The memo confirmed previous findings by local and federal investigations and threw cold water on years of conspiracy theories and public statements from Trump’s base and high-ranking Trump administration officials who said they would release Epstein’s “client list.”
Trump rallied to the defense of Attorney General Pam Bondi after she faced calls to resign over the memo. He also told his supporters to move on from Epstein, even though people in his orbit—including Bondi, FBI director Kash Patel and Vice President JD Vance—had spent years clamoring for the release of the Epstein files and accusing the Biden administration of a cover-up.
What To Know
The vast majority of congressional Republicans have backed the president and the DOJ in their calls for the MAGA base to move on.
But several GOP lawmakers, including some who previously pushed unfounded claims about Epstein’s death and the government possessing a client list, have indicated they aren’t satisfied with the memo.
Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, a longtime Trump loyalist, told NBC News she wants all the documents released to the public.
“I’d like to see all the information come out,” Greene said. She told The New York Times: “It’s definitely a full reversal on what was all said beforehand, and people are just not willing to accept it.”
Representative Eric Burlison, who has in the past expressed faith that the Trump administration would release all the Epstein files, vented his frustration in an X post on July 7, the day the DOJ put out its memo.
“You’re telling me that the FBI can’t find any communications or connections to others involved?!” the Missouri congressman wrote. “There is something rotten here.”
“Jeffrey Epstein didn’t traffic himself. The DOJ just closed the case and no client list, no accountability, and now a missing minute of surveillance footage,” Burlison wrote in a subsequent X post, referring to an apparent gap in video footage the DOJ said proves Epstein died by suicide.
Bondi has said the missing minute is the result of an outdated recording system that resets nightly.
“The American people aren’t stupid,” Burlison wrote in his X post. “The victims deserve justice. Not another cover-up.”
He reiterated his concerns to Axios, telling the outlet: “I don’t think the American people are gonna move on that quickly, so I don’t understand why they’re hiding what they’re hiding…This is a priority.”
Republican Representative Michael Cloud of Texas told Axios: “I think the American people think there’s more to the story than what we’re being told…that there’s just some things that don’t pass the sniff test.”
Other GOP lawmakers stayed away from criticizing Trump directly but trained their sights on Bondi.
“If the attorney general has knowledge of people who committed sex crimes with the minors, she should be prosecuting them,” Republican Representative Scott DesJarlais told NBC News.
The outlet also reported that Louisiana Senator John Kennedy, one of Trump’s staunchest supporters in the Senate, said he expects more accountability from the president, given the nature of Epstein’s crimes.
“I think it’s perfectly understandable that the American people would like to know who he trafficked those women to and why they weren’t prosecuted,” Kennedy told NBC. “I think the Justice Department is going to have to go back to the drawing board in answering those questions.”
Democrats, for their part, have seized on Republican fissures over the Epstein files, with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries suggesting this week that the Trump administration is “hiding” something by not releasing the full trove of documents.
“The American people deserve to know the truth,” the top House Democrat told reporters. “What, if anything, is the Trump administration and the Department of Justice hiding?”
Republicans on the House Rules Committee on Monday evening put the kibosh on a Democratic amendment calling for Congress to vote on whether the Epstein files should be made public. All but two Republicans—Representative Ralph Norman of South Carolina and Representative Chip Roy of Texas—voted down the amendment.
Roy did not vote, while Norman joined Democrats in supporting the amendment.
“The public’s been asking for it, I think there are files,” Norman told Axios. “All of a sudden to not have files is a bit strange.” But the South Carolina Republican added that he trusts the president will do the right thing.
What Happens Next
Trump, facing increasing pressure from his MAGA base, told reporters on Tuesday that Bondi should release “whatever she thinks is credible” about Epstein. Bondi was asked about the president’s comments at a press conference about the fentanyl crisis. The attorney general responded by saying she was “not talking about” Epstein.
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