Congress

Longtime Epstein assistant says she set up phone calls between Epstein and Trump

Published

3 months ago

June 9, 2026

Jeffrey Epstein’s longtime assistant Lesley Groff said in a closed-door interview Tuesday that she arranged phone calls between the late, disgraced financier and President Donald Trump, two Democrats on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee told reporters.

“I believe she referred to a time before, before Mr. Trump was president, that she did arrange for multiple phone calls between the two,” Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-Mass.) said of Groff, who worked for Epstein for around 18 years beginning in 2001.

Rep. Melanie Stansbury (D-N.M.) also said that Groff told the panel that “she arranged calls for them to connect,” referring to the president and Epstein, but that those calls were not frequent.

Groff is on Capitol Hill to speak to the Oversight committee as part of its ongoing Epstein investigation. Trump has insisted he cut off ties with Epstein years before his death and has not been charged with any misconduct, but Democrats have repeatedly questioned whether the administration has worked to cover up evidence of a continued relationship.

“Just as President Trump has said, he’s been totally exonerated on anything relating to Epstein,” said White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson in a statement. “And by releasing thousands of pages of documents, cooperating with the House Oversight Committee’s subpoena request, signing the Epstein Files Transparency Act, and calling for more investigations into Epstein’s Democrat friends, President Trump has done more for Epstein’s victims than anyone before him.”

Groff was never charged with any wrongdoing, but in a class-action lawsuit against the co-executors of Epstein’s estate, she is cited as “Epstein’s secretary who made travel arrangements for the girls, tended to their living needs, and scheduled massage sessions.” She also was named as an unindicted co-conspirator as part of Epstein’s 2008 non-prosecution agreement.

A key player in Epstein’s orbit throughout his life, Groff’s name is featured prominently in the Epstein files rolled out by the Justice Department late last year, showing her on the front lines of arranging meetings on her former boss’s behalf.

But behind closed doors Tuesday, lawmakers said Tuesday that Groff sought to distance herself from Epstein’s improprieties, telling the Oversight committee she did not see Epstein engage in misconduct.

Rep. James Walkinshaw (D-Va.) said in an interview that he did not believe it was “remotely plausible” for Groff to be oblivious to Epstein’s deeds.

“He was a registered sex offender, and she arranged young women for massages with a registered sex offender, and I just question whether, whether she can rightfully and truthfully maintain that she saw nothing improper,” said Lynch.

Rep. Suhas Subramanyam (D-Va.) said in an interview Monday night he was eager to “get [Groff] on the record, so that when we find out later she was lying, we can arrest her.”

An attorney for Groff did not return a request for comment.

Congress

‘I don’t think anyone is really comfortable’: Democrat leading on AI raises alarms at Trump, Zuckerberg call

Published

23 minutes ago

September 4, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

A House Democrat trying to lead her party on artificial intelligence policy sent a warning shot Friday to tech CEOs trying to undermine efforts to regulate the fast-growing technology.

In an interview, Rep. Lori Trahan raised alarm bells over a POLITICO report detailing attempts by Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg to personally discourage President Donald Trump from moving ahead with plans to establish an independent AI regulator modeled after the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, or FINRA.

“I don’t think anyone is really comfortable when they see tech executives who are sitting on the stage at the president’s inauguration, and have had to pay millions of dollars to this fund and that fund, calling the shots,” said the Massachusetts Democrat.

Allowing Zuckerberg to call the shots on the proposed AI commission would be tantamount to “a complete abdication of Congress,” Trahan continued. She also suggested would use her perch on the House Energy and Commerce Committee to work with other Democrats to haul in industry executives like Zuckerberg to testify, should Democrats win back the House majority in the midterms.

“Congress’ job is to do oversight and to have those hearings,” she said. “And I think we would learn a lot from those hearings so that we can put pen to paper on thoughtful proposals. So yes, there have been a number of people, myself included, who have called for those hearings, and I think we’re going to continue to do that.”

Trahan is poised to be a major player in the coming weeks and months when it comes to AI, especially if Democrats prevail in the November elections and are forced to solidify a position on the subject; the party is currently all over the map.

Unlike other Democrats who have retreated to their corners to work on partisan proposals, Trahan has gone out on a limb by crossing the aisle to broker a deal on a bipartisan AI safety bill with Rep. Jay Obernolte (R-Calif.) — a package that was originally met with disdain by members of both parties.

She announced this week she would opt out of a run for a place in House Democratic leadership after being widely expected to make a play in the next Congress — in part, she said, to continue working on AI issues.

But Trahan’s comments Friday illustrate the deep distrust among Democrats, herself included, over the GOP approach to AI regulation — from Republicans waffling on whether they support the proliferation of data centers to Trump’s recent call with Zuckerberg.

Her calls are consistent with left-leaning members like Rep. Greg Casar, a Texas Democrat and chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, who has been at the forefront of the most aggressive proposals to crack down on top tech companies.

“The CEOs of Anthropic and OpenAI say that cutting edge AI could be as dangerous as nuclear weapons,” Casar said Thursday on X in response to the Blue Light News report. “But Trump is conspiring with billionaires for this technology to be regulated like … Hollywood movies.”

Trahan said Friday that “reasonable people can disagree on what regulatory construct we come up with” governing development and use of AI.

But, she added, “what I don’t think the American people agree with is that Mark Zuckerberg and President Trump are going to figure that out on a phone call.”

Congress

House Dem election leader’s message to states: Count faster

Published

7 hours ago

September 4, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

House Democrats’ top election leader has a message for states ahead of the midterms: count faster.

“We are, I think, nicely trying to encourage people to do their balloting as quickly as possible, and that means hiring additional staff so that it doesn’t call into question results,” Rep. Joe Morelle of New York, the top Democrat on the House Administration Committee, said in a Thursday interview with Blue Light News.

The advice is just one part of Morelle’s efforts to secure the midterm elections. He said Democrats have wargamed over 150 scenarios of how the Trump administration could attempt to interfere or complicate the November elections and its certification. He is encouraging states to have a “degree of urgency” when counting ballots to stave off Republican-led conspiracy theories about the reasons for delays.

Morelle said he is leaning on states to staff up on election officials to facilitate speedy ballot counting while emphasizing the process should still be “done properly,” “fairly” and that “we don’t want people with cast ballots not to have their ballots counted.” He is going to Los Angeles next week to deliver that message and meet with election security experts and election administrators — though he did not specify whom he is meeting with or where.

“We are trying to gently encourage people to staff up,” he said. Morelle added that if Democrats take the House majority, they’d “push for more resources for local and state administrators so they can hire additional capacity.”

Morelle has other big plans in the majority, including cracking down on dark money in politics, protecting voting rights and most notably, working on a bipartisan voter identification bill.

Asked whether he could accept some form of voter identification as part of a larger bipartisan elections package, Morelle said, “I’m personally not opposed to some form of voter ID,” adding that he has opposed multiple Republican-led proposals to tighten up identification requirements.

“I don’t know where my colleagues on the Democrat side will be, but I think voters think, ‘Okay, you show your ID for just tons of things. Is it really that much of a burden?’” he said. “And if it is, we’ll get state issued IDs or federally issued IDs to people who can’t afford it. So I do think that there’s hope for a bipartisan way forward, and I’ll be anxious to work with colleagues to do it.”

Congress

Capitol agenda: What Johnson’s early exit could leave behind

Published

7 hours ago

September 4, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Speaker Mike Johnson on Thursday curtailed the chamber’s pre-election calendar, putting a number of priorities at risk of being delayed until the lame-duck period or axed altogether.

Johnson cited pre-midterm political pressures and a lack of action in the Senate — which is due to return Sept. 14 — as reasons for canceling the House’s final two weeks of session before November.

But that means House lawmakers have just one more work week in Washington before the elections, and a short list of priorities some members wanted to see action on are now in serious doubt:

— DATA CENTERS: One key item that could slip off the pre-midterm agenda is a measure to rein in data centers. Several vulnerable Republicans, like Rep. Rob Bresnahan, say they want to respond to voter backlash against the AI infrastructure.

Rep. Brett Guthrie’s so-called Ratepayer Protection Act was the most promising bill poised for action this month given its bipartisan approval by Energy and Commerce. He’s been pushing Johnson for a floor vote for the bill meant to curb data centers’ grid impact — but the speaker has made no commitments as the broader data center issue has divided Republicans.

— RUSSIA SANCTIONS: Legislation aimed at sanctioning Russia’s trading partners is also at risk of languishing in the House after supporters earlier this week had hoped for a vote this month. Johnson on Thursday told reporters leaders were still trying to build bipartisan consensus on the measure.

Foreign Affairs ranking member Gregory Meeks, “apparently is vehemently opposed to it, and I think the Democrat leadership is as well,” Johnson said. “This should be a bipartisan effort.”

— EPSTEIN OVERSIGHT: House Oversight members, including Chair James Comer, wanted to hold a meeting as early as this month for Attorney General Todd Blanche to be interviewed as part of the panel’s Jeffrey Epstein investigation. But yesterday Comer sought to temper expectations given the shortened calendar.

An effort by Reps. Thomas Massie and Ro Khanna to force a second House vote requiring Blanche to provide more Epstein documents could also fall by the wayside. Massie had earlier this week been bullish on getting enough signatures to force the vote before the midterms, saying he thought the transparency effort would “help anybody who’s in a purple state.”

Anything that gets punted to November joins a lengthy list of other major priorities lawmakers have lined up to deal with when they return, including the annual defense policy bill, government funding legislation, a surface transportation package, a farm bill, a renewal of government spy powers and more.

The diminished likelihood of some of these members’ priorities reaching the floor before then is a likely welcomed fate to some Republicans, who hoped to avoid what could be politically tricky votes on data centers and further scrutiny of administration officials and the Epstein files.

Democrats, meanwhile, have cast the curtailed schedule as proof of the GOP’s dysfunction.

“No farm bill. No AI regulations. No affordability agenda. No transportation bill. No water resources bill. No college sports bill. No end to this war,” Sen. Brian Schatz posted about Johnson’s schedule change. “See you right before the holidays! Great job!”

What else we’re watching:

— BATTLEGROUND REPUBLICANS WARY OF TRUMP MIDTERM VISITS: Republicans facing tough elections are wary of tying themselves too closely to President Donald Trump despite his eagerness to get on the campaign trail. Trump’s promise to be heavily involved in the final days of the midterm elections has put many Republicans in an uncomfortable spot: Stay too close to Trump and they could be dragged down by the president’s low approval rating. But run too far away and risk alienating MAGA or Trump, whose super PAC is sitting on more than $400 million they desperately need deployed to help them win key races.

— DEM ELECTION CHIEF WANTS FASTER VOTE TALLIES: Count faster. That’s the message from Rep. Joe Morelle, House Democrats’ top election leader, to states ahead of the midterms. Morelle said in an interview with Blue Light News he’s been leaning on states to staff up on election officials to facilitate speedy ballot counting, while emphasizing the process should still be “done properly.” The advice is part of his efforts to secure the midterm elections and stave off Republican-led conspiracy theories about the reasons for delays. Morelle also said Democrats have wargamed over 150 scenarios of how the Trump administration could attempt to interfere or complicate the November elections and its certification.

Andrew Howard, Meredith Lee Hill, Erin Doherty, and Riley Rogerson contributed to this report.