Top Trump administration officials will meet Wednesday night at Vice President JD Vance’s residence to discuss their strategy to quell the uproar over their refusal to release the Epstein files, CNN reported. The meeting shows just how perilous the Epstein files scandal is for Donald Trump’s presidency.
CNN reported that Vance is hosting White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, Attorney General Pam Bondi, FBI Director Kash Patel, and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche for dinner, where the group will discuss whether they will release the transcript of Blanche’s two-day-long interview with Epstein associate and convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell.
“The administration’s handling of the Epstein case, as well as the need to craft a unified response, is expected to be a main focus of the dinner,” a trio of unnamed sources told CNN.
Among the ideas that will be discussed is whether Blanche—Trump’s former criminal defense attorney who interviewed Maxwell—would go on podcaster Joe Rogan’s show to discuss Maxwell’s insights. That’s a risky idea, as Rogan has bashed the Trump administration’s handling of the case.
The administration’s refusal to release the files it possesses related to accused child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein has consumed the White House for weeks. =
Despite many of the aforementioned Trump aides promising for years that Trump would release files that would expose the powerful people involved in Epstein’s criminal sexual enterprise, the administration said instead that it possesses no documents that would incriminate powerful people and considered the Epstein case closed.
That enraged the MAGA base, which had been told they’d get the goods on Epstein and his accomplices only to have the rug pulled out from under them.
Since the administration announced its decision to not release any more Epstein files, multiple reports then surfaced exposing Trump’s close ties to Epstein, including a raunchy birthday message Trump wrote to Epstein in which he cryptically told him, “may every day be another wonderful secret.”
Other reports showed that the Department of Justice was told to specifically redact the multiple instances in which Trump’s name appeared in the files.
The constant drip of embarrassing reports tying Trump to Epstein has led Trump to have public meltdowns about the Epstein files. In one case, Trump bashed his own base as “stupid,” and said he doesn’t want the support of anyone who is still pushing for the Epstein files to be released.
In yet another bizarre tantrum, Trump oddly admitted that his own falling out with Epstein was over Epstein taking young female employees from his Mar-a-Lago club.
In order to distract from the Epstein files saga, Trump and his allies have crafted baseless allegations against former President Barack Obama—and are now even launching a witch hunt grand jury investigation against the former president.
Democrats, meanwhile, are keeping the scandal in the news by consistently accusing Trump of a cover up.
“A family meeting. Yeah this is how the mob does it, too,” Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) wrote in a post on X of the powwow at Vance’s residence to discuss the Epstein files.
Polling, meanwhile, shows Americans believe the Trump administration is engaged in a cover-up, and overwhelmingly disapproves of their handling of the files.
Ultimately, whatever strategy emerges from the Wednesday night meeting could further exacerbate the administration’s problems.