(The Center Square) – The Department of Justice’s Jeffrey Epstein investigation continued to roil Washington on Tuesday, as the department pivoted—reaching out to jailed Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell—and the House of Representatives was dismissed early for its summer recess.
President Donald Trump directed the DOJ Thursday to request that grand jury transcripts from the federal case against Epstein be unsealed, and Tuesday morning, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche announced that he had reached out to the counsel for Ghislaine Maxwell. Maxwell is a former Epstein associate who helped the disgraced financier traffic minor women.
“I anticipate meeting with Ms. Maxwell in the coming days. Until now, no administration on behalf of the Department had inquired about her willingness to meet with the government,” Blanche wrote on X. “That changes now.”
While Blanche indicated it might be possible Maxwell could provide information on other guilty parties, he stood by his department’s early July memo that has proved controversial. The memo concluded that releasing more Epstein files wouldn’t be “appropriate or warranted,” seemingly contradicting previous statements by Attorney General Pam Bondi and sparking accusations of a cover-up by the administration. Trump had a friendship with Epstein for years but reportedly fell out with him in the early 2000s, years before Epstein was convicted for sex trafficking in a Florida court.
“The joint statement by @TheJusticeDept and @FBI of July 6 remains as accurate today as it was when it was written. Namely, that in the recent thorough review of the files maintained by the FBI in the Epstein case, no evidence was uncovered that could predicate an investigation against uncharged third parties,” Blanche wrote.
Meanwhile, more Republicans have joined Democrats in pushing for transparency on the issue.
A House Oversight and Government Reform subcommittee passed a motion brought by Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., on Tuesday to subpoena Maxwell for a deposition.
“We’ve just got to get to the bottom of this thing, folks,” Burchett said in a video he posted to X. “It’s four years and you know, we don’t need to tolerate this stuff anymore.”
Speaker of the House Rep. Mike Johnson, R-La., also released the House for its summer recess earlier than planned on Tuesday to avoid votes on releasing more files.
“What we refuse to do is participate in another one of the Democrats’ political games,” Johnson said at a press conference. “We are not going to let them use this as a political battering ram.”
Johnson has previously said on a conservative podcast that he believes the administration should “put everything out there and let the people decide,” and he affirmed that he and other Republicans are for “maximum transparency.” But he also said that transparency needs to be balanced with protecting the privacy of victims and that the administration was already working to release all “credible evidence,” as the president has called for.
“In an open release like that, you have to be very careful,” Johnson said. “When the Epstein records are turned over to the public, which we must do as quickly as possible, we also have to be very judicious and careful about protecting the innocent.”
