Congress

Democrats to probe DOJ’s alleged withholding of Epstein files on Trump

Published

4 months ago

February 24, 2026

Democrats on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee are investigating whether the Justice Department purposefully withheld materials in its release of the Jeffrey Epstein files that included sexual assault allegations against President Donald Trump.

Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.), the ranking member of the panel, said in a statement Tuesday that such an act by DOJ would violate the law Congress passed in November, which required the administration to publicly release all files in its possession related to the federal case against Epstein, a convicted sex offender.

Garcia also said it also would run afoul of the subpoenas the Oversight Committee separately transmitted to DOJ last summer as part of its own Epstein investigation.

“For the last few weeks, Oversight Democrats have been investigating the FBI’s handling of allegations from 2019 of sexual assault on a minor made against President Donald Trump by a survivor,” Garcia said in the statement. “Oversight Democrats can confirm that the DOJ appears to have illegally withheld FBI interviews with this survivor who accused President Trump of heinous crimes.”

Spokespeople for the Justice Department and the White House did not immediately provide comment to Blue Light News regarding whether the administration is withholding incriminating materials.

Trump has denied wrongdoing in relation to the Epstein allegations, and no evidence has suggested that Trump took part in Epstein’s trafficking operation. Many of the materials released by the Justice Department also lack substantiation or context.

Congressional investigators identified missing materials after matching public files with case files listed in the evidence manifest provided to the legal team of Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s co-conspirator who is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence, said Sara Guerrero, a spokesperson for Oversight Democrats.

One of those files include an allegation from a redacted individual that Trump sexually assaulted a minor. The accusation appears in a slide deck presentation featuring a list of powerful men who had been at one point connected to Epstein, including Trump.

In that slide deck, a person, whose name has been redacted but was estimated to be between 13 and 15 years old at the time of the alleged incident sometime in the 1980s, accuses Trump of forcing her head down to his penis, then reacting violently when she resisted.

An investigative report by NPR, published Tuesday, found that DOJ withheld “what appears to be more than 50 pages of FBI interviews, and notes from conversations with a woman who accused Trump of sexual abuse decades ago when she was a minor.” The report also notes that DOJ “removed some documents from the public database where accusations against Jeffrey Epstein also mention Trump.”

Blue Light News did not independently verify the NPR findings.

Garcia said he viewed unredacted files on a DOJ computer Monday, per privileges afforded to members of Congress.

“Covering up direct evidence of a potential assault by the President of the United States is the most serious possible crime in this White House cover up,” he added.

The Democrats’ probe, which will lack subpoena power given the party’s minority status, comes as party operatives see political advantage in drawing attention to DOJ’s handling of the Epstein files, alleging the administration is working to hide information that could be damaging to the president and not making enough efforts to bring justice to Epstein’s accusers, a charge that the DOJ denies.

Separately, two House Democrats are asking deputy attorney general Todd Blanche to appoint a special counsel to investigate whether the nation’s top prosecutor, Pam Bondi, lied to Congress during her recent testimony before the House Judiciary Committee regarding Trump’s involvement with Epstein.

At that hearing earlier this month, Bondi said there is “no evidence” in the Epstein documents made public by her department that shows Trump committed a crime. In a letter to Blanche, Reps. Dan Goldman of New York and Ted Lieu of California pointed to the unsubstantiated claim in the Epstein documents that Trump allegedly forced himself on the young girl.

Lieu accused Bondi of lying to Congress during the hearing about whether Trump was accused of committing crimes in the Epstein files, without specifying details. Bondi responded, “don’t you ever accuse me of a crime.”

A spokesperson for House Oversight Republicans, in a statement, accused Democrats of “playing politics instead of seeking justice for survivors.”

“In the course of their witch hunt, they’ve cherry-picked and doctored documents to mislead the public and released images with no context to create a false narrative,” she continued.

She also noted Democrats have “refused to condemn their own colleague,” Del. Stacey Plaskett (D-V.I.), who was found to have been a close associate of Epstein, texting and speaking on the phone with him and trying to set up a visit to his private island.

All Democrats voted against a Republican-led resolution in November that would have formally reprimanded Plaskett and kicked her off the House Intelligence Committee.

“Democrats have no credibility on this issue,” the spokesperson said.

Plaskett has not been found guilty of wrongdoing and has described Epstein as her former “constituent.” Her office did not respond to a request for comment.

Congress

GOP hard-liners outline anti-abortion, military funding demands for party-line bill

Published

1 hour ago

June 24, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

The House Freedom Caucus sent a letter to Speaker Mike Johnson on Wednesday outlining its demands for a third reconciliation bill, including extending a prohibition on federal funding for abortion providers and immediately paying for any new spending.

“This is our last and best chance to prove they were right to send us here to fight for them,” the House Freedom Caucus Board of Directors wrote in the letter, referring to U.S. voters who gave the GOP control of both chambers this Congress. “That is why any Reconciliation 3.0 bill must be focused on wins for the American people.”

The letter comes as House Republicans have started to move ahead on another party-line package, though without consensus on the details of what the legislation will actually include. The conference is considering provisions to fund the war in Iran alongside other policies related to affordability and health care. The bill is also expected to tackle alleged fraud in government programs as one way to offset the costs.

Several members of the conservative hard-liner group in recent weeks have warned they would only support the upcoming bill if any new spending included in it is fully paid for. Some members, like Rep. Chip Roy of Texas, have also said the pay-fors need to be immediate — not several years in the future.

In the letter, the members also told Johnson the next bill should eliminate clean energy tax credits — something they pushed for in the first reconciliation bill last year. The lawmakers are also asking for reforms to health care, the removal of certain firearm-related taxes and “responsible short-term funding for key government personnel and services” to prevent another government shutdown ahead of the midterms.

With the military funding portion of the reconciliation bill, the members requested the package should be used to “modernize our military and deliver clear America First national security priorities.”

“Together with President Trump, we must use our unified Republican majorities to advance a bold, America First agenda,” the members wrote in the letter. “We control the field — we cannot afford to leave any points on the board in reconciliation. We stand ready to work with you to accomplish this goal.”

Congress

Johnson to meet with Trump in last-ditch bid to unstick House floor

Published

2 hours ago

June 24, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Republican leaders are scrambling to regain control of the House after GOP hard-liners effectively shut down the floor Wednesday over their demands that the Senate pass a stalled elections overhaul bill.

Speaker Mike Johnson is set to meet with President Donald Trump Thursday morning in an effort to try and find a way out of the mess, according to four people granted anonymity to describe the private plans.

Johnson is planning to keep the House in session Thursday and have members vote on at least one bipartisan bill that has already been teed up for the floor as he tries to convince the president to help end the hard-liners’ blockade.

GOP leaders hoped to put several additional bills up for a vote this week, including a pair of fiscal 2027 spending measures. But the group of MAGA loyalists, led by Rep. Anna Paulina Luna of Florida, is insisting no legislation can pass until the SAVE America Act clears the Senate.

If Johnson can’t enlist Trump to break the impasse, the House will leave for the week, the four people said.

A breakthrough won’t be easy. The president is just as animated about the SAVE America Act as the hard-liners holding up the House floor. He abruptly canceled a planned bill-signing for landmark bipartisan housing legislation Wednesday morning, just hours before it was scheduled to take place in the Capitol with Johnson and other GOP leaders, citing the need to prioritize the elections bill.

Johnson is expected to pitch Trump on a plan to enact a watered-down version of the SAVE America Act’s proof-of-citizenship requirement by including a grant program to encourage adoption of voter ID laws in a long-shot plan to pass a new party-line policy bill this year.

But that is only a fraction of what Trump wants the Republican Congress to get done this year, and the GOP hard-liners are already panning Johnson’s plan as insufficient.

Congress

A frustrated Trump unloads on Senate Republicans behind closed doors

Published

3 hours ago

June 24, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Senate Republicans hoped to use a closed-door lunch to clear the air with President Donald Trump. Instead, the president vented his frustrations with the senators for more than an hour, leaving them no closer to detente.

The meeting came at an explosive moment, with GOP lawmakers increasingly frustrated by Trump’s mercurial treatment of congressional Republican priorities. Just hours before arriving on Capitol Hill, Trump delivered his latest rug-pull — announcing he would refuse to sign a major housing bill that leaders were already touting after big bipartisan majorities passed it this week.

But senators said Trump arrived determined to prosecute his internal grudges against the Republican lawmakers who have opposed him at times — particularly those who have expressed misgivings about the Iran war and who are refusing to comply with the president’s demands for swift passage of a controversial elections bill.

Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) described Trump as “mad as a murder hornet” about the Iran vote, while Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kansas) described the scene as “very much like a hospital board meeting, when a bunch of doctors are yelling at each other.”

Marshall added that “at the end of the day, we’ll figure out a way to get along.”

Another GOP senator, granted anonymity to speak candidly, called the lunch “very intense.” Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), deploying some go-to congressional lingo for heated encounters, called it “spirited,” “frank” and “candid.”

Trump and Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) sparred at length over the Iran war, according to two people granted anonymity to describe the private interaction. Trump also railed over Tuesday’s successful war powers vote, lambasting Cassidy and three other GOP senators who voted for the resolution.

Cassidy acknowledged the two had a heated exchange to reporters after the lunch. After Trump questioned why Republicans would vote against him on the war, Cassidy said he told the president that the conflict was not going as well as senators were being told.

“The president said something negative about me. I received it as attempting to bully me from asking a question that I think the American people need to know, and I’m not going to be bullied,” said Cassidy, who recently lost his campaign for renomination after Trump endorsed against him.

Sen. Jim Justice (R-W.Va.) also confirmed the exchange between Trump and Cassidy. He said the two “harbor bad feelings” and urged them both to move on.

The meeting also failed to reveal a way forward on Trump’s No. 1 priority, the elections bill known as the SAVE America Act.

Trump cited the need to pass the legislation in his stunning decision Wednesday morning to cancel a signing ceremony for the long-stalled housing bill. A rostrum had been erected in Statuary Hall for the occasion, and House GOP leaders were promoting its benefits at a news conference when the presidential U-turn occurred.

Senators said Trump largely reiterated his publicly stated positions on the housing bill, the GOP election bill and his demand that they eliminate the 60-vote legislative filibuster.

“He believes that the SAVE America act ought to be in front of the housing bill,” Justice said.

Sen. Rand Paul said there had been “a thorough airing” of the elections bill during the meeting, but added it’s unclear “if there is a solution.”

The announcement only served to further exasperate the Senate GOP ahead of the lunch, which had been arranged by Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), a MAGA loyalist who acted without the foreknowledge of Senate Majority Leader John Thune.

Underscoring the mood going into the meeting, Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) said, “I would advise them to only use plastic utensils today.”

Republicans had hoped the housing bill would give them a long-sought legislative victory that would get the party on the same page and give them a foothold to argue that they are responding to Americans’ affordability concerns heading into the midterms.

Instead, Trump’s surprise declaration, which appeared to catch even some of his own staff off guard, became the latest curveball for Senate Republicans — following a surprise request for White House ballroom security funding and the announcement of a Justice Department “Anti-Weaponization Fund” that overshadowed and delayed passage of a GOP immigration enforcement bill.

Since then, Trump also has thrown a key surveillance program into limbo and upended the confirmation plans for his own nominee for director of national intelligence.

Most persistently, he has fixated on Senate Republicans passing the SAVE America Act — including by eliminating the filibuster — even though Thune and other GOP senators have said repeatedly that there aren’t the votes to do that.

“There is a huge group of people who really appreciate what the president is doing right now and it’s the Democrat party,” Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) said. ”And we’ve got to get our act together and stop surprising people and stop having conflicting messages.”