Top Trump administration officers met Wednesday with a key GOP lawmaker about an effort within the US House to force a vote on releasing Justice Department case files associated to Jeffrey Epstein, in accordance to a number of sources aware of the meeting.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt acknowledged the meeting later Wednesday when requested about reporting that administration officers have been huddling with GOP Rep. Lauren Boebert.
“Doesn’t that show the level of transparency when we are willing to sit down with members of Congress and address their concerns?” she instructed reporters on the press briefing.
Leavitt added: “I’m not going to detail conversations that took place in the Situation Room.”
A supply acquainted confirmed the meeting within the Situation Room included Boebert, who has needed the Justice Department to release its trove of Epstein files and has signed onto the effort within the House to force the vote compelling their release.
That effort is now in movement after a newly sworn-in Democratic member of Congress offered the 218th – and ultimate – signature wanted on the discharge petition to force such a vote and, in flip, set off a quantity of procedural steps earlier than the House can vote on a invoice compelling the files’ release.
After the meeting, Boebert wrote on X, “I want to thank White House officials for meeting with me today. Together, we remain committed to ensuring transparency for the American people.”
She later instructed NCS’s Manu Raju that Trump didn’t strain her to take her title off of the discharge petition and that whereas Epstein got here up within the White House meeting, different subjects have been additionally lined.
Separately, President Donald Trump and Rep. Nancy Mace, one other Republican who’s signed the petition, had been enjoying cellphone tag for the previous 24 hours. The South Carolina Republican despatched a direct message to the president Wednesday outlining why she’s supporting the discharge petition, in accordance to a supply aware of the message who stated it largely mirrored a public assertion through which she stated: “I will NEVER abandon other survivors.”
But each the meeting and Trump’s efforts to discuss to Mace underscored the administration’s issues across the Epstein saga, which roared again Wednesday morning when the House Oversight Committee launched extra paperwork it had obtained from Epstein’s property. (Leavitt stated Wednesday the emails from that trove that point out Trump “prove absolutely nothing.”)
Besides Boebert and Mace, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene is the opposite Republican who’s signed onto the petition from Reps. Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican, and Ro Khanna, a California Democrat, to force the vote on the release of the files on the House ground. The pair acquired the 218th decisive signature from Democratic Rep. Adelita Grijalva Wednesday afternoon, allowing the push to force a vote to move forward.
Had anybody eliminated their title from the petition earlier than reaching 218, Massie and Khanna would have not had the help wanted to transfer ahead.
Under the arcane process of a House discharge petition, if 218 members of the House – a majority of all 435 districts – signal on, they’ll force a ground vote within the chamber on something — even when management opposes it. Such an effort hardly ever succeeds.
The unreleased Justice Department files, which seize years of investigation into baby intercourse trafficking, might embody particulars the House hasn’t obtained.
Ahead of the White House meeting, one supply stated it could additionally embody Attorney General Pam Bondi, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, FBI Director Kash Patel.
A spokesperson for the Justice Department declined to remark, and the White House didn’t instantly return a request for remark.
Bondi was seen leaving the White House at 1:10pm ET on Wednesday.
The controversy round Epstein and his contacts with different highly effective individuals, together with Trump, has divided the Republican Party in current months, with Boebert being among the many Republican House members publicly pushing for extra transparency across the case.
Trump hasn’t been accused of any crime, and longtime Epstein contact and convicted baby intercourse trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell beforehand instructed Blanche in an interview this summer season that she had seen no wrongdoing, including by Trump.
At least two girls who say they’re survivors of Epstein’s abuse have been anticipated to attend Grijalva’s swearing-in ceremony Wednesday afternoon, sources with data instructed NCS.
The House effort to compel the release of the files, ought to it cross, would nonetheless have to cross the GOP-led Senate and be signed into legislation by Trump, who has derided the effort.
This story has been up to date with new reporting.