Attorney General Pam Bondi continues to defend her decision to withhold certain files pertaining to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, who was found dead in his jail cell in 2019 after being arrested on federal sex trafficking charges.
The Wall Street Journal reports Bondi told President Trump in May that his name appeared several times in the files along with many other people, but nothing merited further investigation. Being mentioned in the files is not evidence of wrongdoing. Bondi reportedly said she declined to release the files because they contain pornographic information about minors and she wants to protect the victims.
However, calls to release all files pertaining to Epstein persist from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said, “One must ponder the question, ‘What are they hiding from the American people?'”
Republican Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina said the issues will not go away. “This is going to be like those zombies in the Walking Dead,” he said. “Every time you think you’ve killed it, another one’s just going to come out of the closet running after you.”
A federal judge in Florida denied a Department of Justice request to unseal grand jury records pertaining to Epstein. Two similar requests remain ongoing.
Meanwhile, the House Oversight Committee voted to subpoena the Department of Justice for the Epstein files and also subpoenaed Epstein co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell, who is currently serving a lengthy prison sentence for helping Epstein sexually abuse underage girls, to tell the committee what she knows next month.
However, House Speaker Mike Johnson questions Maxwell’s credibility. “Can she be counted on to tell the truth?” he said. “Is she a credible witness?”
Maxwell is also scheduled to meet with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche today.
Meanwhile, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard is furthering her accusations against the Obama administration.
“President Obama, Hillary Clinton, John Brennan, James Clapper, James Comey and others, including their mouthpieces in the media, knowingly lied as they repeated the contrived narrative that was created in this January 2017 intelligence community assessment with high confidence, as though it were fact,” she said.
Gabbard alleges the team falsified intelligence with the intent to derail Trump’s first term.
“It has to do with an outgoing president taking action to manufacture intelligence to undermine and usurp the will of the American people in that election and launch what would be a years-long coup against the incoming president of the United States,” she said.
Nathan Gonzales, editor and publisher of Inside Elections, told CBN News that if the Trump administration has enough proof, they should take the matter to the next level.
“If they have the evidence against President Obama or people in the administration, charge them. Take it to court and let the process play out rather than just standing behind a podium and making very serious allegations,” he said.
Wednesday, Gabbard stopped short of saying the actions were criminal, but said she’s referring the matter to the Justice Department for possible charges.
