Republicans play coy about Trump-Epstein news: ‘I don’t know anything about it’
The story from The Wall Street Journal that President Donald Trump reportedly sent a birthday card with a picture of a naked woman to Jeffrey Epstein rocked the House of Representatives late on Thursday evening.
The House had gone into overdrive to pass a bill that would claw back appropriated money for foreign aid and public broadcasting, including NPR and PBS, that the president demanded from Congress.
But the news that Trump had reportedly sent the card to the disgraced financier and convicted sex offender created another headache for Republicans, many of whom have pushed for the declassification of files related to Epstein’s trafficking of underage girls.
“I don’t know anything about it,” House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) told The Independent as he headed onto the floor before the vote.
Trump vehemently denied the story, saying on Truth Social that he would sue The Wall Street Journal, NewsCorps, and Rupert Murdoch “shortly.” In addition, Trump said that he would instruct Attorney General Pam Bondi to release certain files related to Epstein and grand jury testimony “subject to court approval.”
Prior to the vote on the floor, the House Rules Committee held a markup to prepare the legislation for final passage. Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon (D-PA) asked for The Wall Street Journal report to be added to the record of the markup.
However, Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC), a member of the hardline Freedom Caucus, pushed back.
“The president is saying it’s artificial intelligence,” he said. “That will be proven in due time.”
The news is just the latest wrinkle in the saga surrounding Republican fixation about Epstein’s trafficking and death in custody. Earlier this month, the Justice Department released a two-page memo saying that Epstein had no “client list” and that he died by suicide. This came despite the fact that Bondi had pledged on Fox News that she had files related to Epstein “sitting on my desk right now to review.”
The Republican majority on the committee voted down an amendment by Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA), the top Democrat on Rules, to declassify memos related to Epstein. Instead, the committee’s Republicans passed a non-binding resolution calling on the Department of Justice to release information related to Epstein.
McGovern dismissed the efforts as “such a pathetic attempt at ass-covering.”
“I mean, they don’t even have a date to bring it up,” he told The Independent. “They’re gonna find out that voters are paying attention, and they’re not easily bulls***ted.”
When asked why Republicans voted down the amendment in committee, Rules Committee Chairwoman Virginia Foxx (R-NC) pushed back.
“Because we had our own,” she told The Independent. “We had our own need… we didn’t need that.”
