WASHINGTON, Nov 19 (Reuters) – The White Home quietly lobbied senators to slow-walk a vote to drive the discharge of investigative recordsdata on Jeffrey Epstein at the same time as President Donald Trump publicly insisted his administration had nothing to cover and urged Congress to behave, in keeping with two sources with direct information of the matter.
The hassle unraveled on Tuesday when senators accredited the measure handed by the Republican-controlled Home of Representatives with out the adjustments Trump aides had pressed for, exposing the boundaries of the president’s sway over his celebration on a problem that has bedeviled him since he returned to energy this yr. Trump introduced in a social media submit on Wednesday that he had signed the measure. His signature capped a unprecedented week that started with Trump reversing course Sunday evening to induce Home passage of a invoice his administration had been making an attempt to stall or head off for months. The measure compels the discharge of U.S. Justice Division recordsdata on Epstein, the late convicted intercourse offender and New York financier who fraternized with among the most influential males within the nation.
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PIVOT TO DAMAGE CONTROL
By late Sunday afternoon, high White Home aides and the president had concluded their marketing campaign to forestall the vote was failing, they usually tried to pivot from prevention to break management, mentioned the sources, who weren’t approved to talk publicly.
White Home aides ramped up their outreach to Senate management for amendments to the Home invoice, together with redactions to guard victims, as a closing effort to affect the measure, the 2 sources mentioned.
They ready for a interval of “messaging and management” to sluggish the invoice, encouraging senators to painting any delay as accountable oversight. In addition they circulated speaking factors tailor-made to weak Republicans, urging them to border the vote round transparency whereas shortly steering the dialog again to affordability points which can be anticipated to loom massive in subsequent yr’s midterm congressional elections.
White Home spokeswoman Abigail Jackson mentioned Trump had frightened the deal with Epstein would distract from his different priorities.
“President Trump has never been against releasing the Epstein files – rather, he has always been against Republicans falling into the Democrat trap of talking about this rather than focusing on the historic tax cuts signed into law, the fact that zero illegal aliens have entered our country in five months, and the many other accomplishments of the Trump Administration on behalf of the American people,” Jackson mentioned.
LIMIT TO TRUMP’S POWER?
Regardless of weeks of strategizing and direct strain on lawmakers – together with an extended delay in swearing in a newly elected Democratic lawmaker – congressional Republicans moved forward in opposition to Trump’s needs.
The battle has taken a toll on Trump’s public approval, which fell to its lowest level this yr in a Reuters/Ipsos ballot concluded on Monday. It discovered that simply 44% of Republicans thought Trump was dealing with the Epstein state of affairs effectively.
One other 60% of People believed the federal authorities was hiding details about Epstein’s demise, and 70% believed it was hiding details about individuals concerned in his intercourse crimes. A majority of Trump’s Republicans shared these suspicions.
The saga additionally soured relations with one in every of his strongest Republican supporters in Congress, Consultant Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia.
Trump socialized and partied with Epstein within the Nineteen Nineties and 2000s earlier than what he calls a rift, and later amplified conspiracy theories about Epstein to his personal supporters. Now, many Trump voters consider his administration has lined up Epstein’s ties to highly effective figures and obscured particulars surrounding his demise in a Manhattan jail, which was dominated a suicide whereas Trump was president in 2019.
Epstein pleaded responsible to a Florida state felony prostitution cost in 2008 and served 13 months in jail. The U.S. Justice Division charged him with intercourse trafficking of minors in 2019. Epstein had pleaded not responsible to these costs earlier than his demise.
Trump has denied any wrongdoing and the investigative materials so far has but to disclose any particular compromising particulars, although Home Democrats final week launched a 2019 electronic mail from Epstein that cryptically contended Trump “knew about the girls.”
The extraordinary deal with the Epstein recordsdata has fueled frustration throughout the White Home and for Trump personally. The president this week lashed out at feminine reporters who pressed him on Epstein, calling one “a terrible person” and saying, “Quiet, quiet piggy” to a different. Aides expressed exasperation over what they see because the Republican Occasion’s fixation on the difficulty – one, they concern, may persist it doesn’t matter what recordsdata are launched.
“There is a misconception, embraced by many in the Republican Party, that the federal government is hiding information about Epstein,” a senior White Home official mentioned. “But that theory is simply not true … the president has nothing to hide.”
(Reporting by Nandita Bose in Washington; Further reporting by Andrea Shalal; writing by Daniel Trotta; Modifying by Scott Malone, Colleen Jenkins, Stephen Coates, Rod Nickel)
