Congress

‘Nobody will ever believe it’: James Comer airs doubts about his own Epstein investigation

Published

7 months ago

November 26, 2025

Without James Comer’s House investigation into Jeffrey Epstein, the world might never have seen the “birthday book” full of lewd materials or the trove of more than 20,000 documents elucidating the late convicted sex offender’s dealings with global power players — including President Donald Trump.

It would have been a career-defining triumph for any House Oversight Committee chair. But not for Comer, who expressed deep ambivalence about the ongoing probe in a recent interview.

That reflects the complicated and unpredictable fallout from the Epstein saga, which has helped derail the Republican congressional agenda and the opening year of Trump’s second term. It could also have implications for Comer’s own political ambitions — given his own belief that Americans’ minds might well be impervious to his panel’s conclusions.

“I fear the report will be like the Warren Report,” he said. “Nobody will ever believe it.”

Comer’s reference to the 1964 report on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy led by Chief Justice Earl Warren underscores how the Epstein case has enthralled legions of skeptics who say the federal government is intent on protecting powerful men involved in the exploitation of young women and girls.

That was one big reason, Comer said, that he “wasn’t excited about doing the investigation.” Even now, he has not fully committed to releasing a final report, saying it would happen “eventually, I would assume.”

“There’s so many conspiracy theories,” he said, leaving unspoken that his reputation and legacy are now entwined with the case.

That’s a shift from where Comer had staked his political brand a year ago, as the top GOP investigator of Joe Biden. But his two-year effort to undermine the sitting president produced uneven results, with his impeachment probe focusing on Biden family business dealings never coming to a vote and his investigation into the former president’s alleged mental decline failing to deliver any bombshells.

So as he eyes a 2027 run for Kentucky governor, with his relationship with Trump likely to be central to his prospects, it’s the Epstein investigation that could determine Comer’s future in politics.

For months, House GOP leadership touted the Oversight probe as proof that Republicans were taking the Epstein case seriously — even as they fought efforts from within their own ranks to advance legislation that would force a complete release of the DOJ investigative files. In a twist last week, Trump gave up fighting the bill’s inevitable passage, signing the measure into law shortly after Congress approved it with just one dissenter.

The administration now has fewer than 30 days to make materials available to the public, with redactions to protect victims’ names and respect ongoing criminal investigations. Comer, meanwhile, must find a way to shepherd his committee’s investigation to some conclusion.

Asked what the logical end point of his probe would be, Comer was not quite sure.

He said he remains hopeful the bank records he has subpoenaed will turn up something notable. The chair recently demanded Epstein-related records from JPMorgan Chase and Deutsche Bank and asked the attorney general for the U.S. Virgin Islands, whose jurisdiction includes the two private islands that Epstein owned, for additional materials.

Comer warned of various obstacles. Many of the crimes occurred decades ago, and evidence will be difficult to find. The key witness — Epstein — killed himself behind bars in 2019, while Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s longtime co-conspirator now serving a 20-year sentence for her part in the sex trafficking crimes, has said she will not cooperate with the Oversight Committee’s questioning.

In an effort to try to satisfy calls on both sides of the aisle for some kind of “list,” Comer said he has tasked Democratic and Republican women on the Oversight Committee to meet privately with victims to try to learn the identities of people complicit in Epstein’s criminal activities.

“If there is no Epstein list, and the American people expect us to compose an Epstein list, if we don’t get any names from the victims, it’s going to be hard to do,” he said.

Jennifer Freeman, an attorney representing some of Epstein’s accusers, warned that Comer’s strategy could put the women at risk.

“Why are we putting the burden on them?” she said in an interview.

But the most significant challenge Comer faces is managing the political fallout for Trump and the GOP writ large.

Comer’s targeting of the Epstein estate uncovered materials that connect the president to the late financier. But Comer has continued to downplay the significance of the revelations and insist they show no signs of wrongdoing.

Democrats publicized widely the revelations inthe birthday book, with a racy drawing and message allegedly penned by Trump. They also blasted out a set of emails mentioning Trump, including one in which Epstein said that Trump “knew about the girls.”

Comer rejects the narrative that his investigation has been damaging for Trump and blamed his panel’s minority for disregarding committee norms in selectively releasing certain information the panel had received.

Speaking with reporters last week, Comer called the Oversight Committee’s top Democrat, Rep. Robert Garcia of California, “dishonest” and “awful,” among other personal attacks.

“I’m done with Garcia, criticizing me. He played the gay card,” Comer said. “He just needs to do TikTok videos or something. … He’s not a serious investigator. He’s like a TikTok video kind of guy.”

Comer added that Garcia “had limited abilities to begin with, but he’s burned his bridges with this.”

A spokesperson for Comer said the “gay card” comment referred to a September incident where Garcia invoked his sexuality after Comer called him a “drama queen” to reporters.

Garcia, who is gay, said in an interview it was “clear that Chairman Comer … and the committee Republicans have been outworked and outmaneuvered, and he’s clearly upset and panicking that we have been fighting every single day to release these files. … They’ve tried to bend the knee to Trump and coverup and be part of the White House cover-up.”

If Trump is displeased with Comer’s handling of the Epstein investigation, he hasn’t said so publicly, and there aren’t apparent rumblings inside the administration about friction.

“The president likes James Comer a lot,” a senior White House official who was granted anonymity to share private conversations said. “In fact, I spoke with [Trump] recently about [Comer] and he said he’s always been good and with him all the way. There’s no problems there.”

For Comer, there is another reason to endear himself to the president with this investigation: He’s eying a bid to succeed Gov. Andy Beshear in a state where Trump’s endorsement could have significant influence.

Comer said in the interview people were encouraging him to run, and he has been traveling statewide ahead of the potential race. He suspects Epstein will not be a major issue in the campaign, but his frequent TV hits discussing his investigative work have given him the opportunity to speak to Kentucky voters, he noted.

He said he has not spoken to the White House about the Epstein probe, and when asked how he suspects Trump views the probe, Comer said, “I don’t want to know, probably.”

Diana Nerozzi contributed to this report.

Congress

The messy standoff driving a wedge between a bipartisan Senate duo

Published

30 minutes ago

June 30, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Sens. Susan Collins and Patty Murray have long prided themselves on working together to advance government funding bills. That collegiality is now showing signs of decay.

The Maine Republican and Washington Democrat have been openly feuding about the path forward on spending measures this summer. It comes after their successful collaboration on bipartisan legislation during Murray’s two-year reign as chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, which continued when Collins took the gavel last year.

Democrats attribute the clash to Collins’ pursuit of President Donald Trump’s demands for a record military budget that eclipses domestic spending, as she fights to retain her Senate seat in November. Republicans say Murray is playing midterm politics by trying to prevent Collins from landing a deal before Election Day, when Democrats hope to regain House and Senate majorities — and the upper hand in year-end funding talks.

“It’s not personal, but it is very frustrating,” Collins said last week, while insisting she and Murray are still on good terms.

All Murray would say about the state of their relationship was, “We’re talking.”

While that impasse doesn’t necessarily heighten the odds of a government shutdown this fall, it could delay any meaningful Senate appropriations action until after the elections. The outcome of congressional races — including Collins’ toss-up contest against Democrat Graham Platner — could change the power balance in government funding negotiations.

“It certainly looks to me like the Democrats don’t want to give Susan Collins a victory,” House Appropriations Chair Tom Cole (R-Okla.) said in an interview. “I really think it’s intensely political. She is a very reasonable legislator. If you can’t make a deal with Susan Collins, you don’t want to make a deal.”

Part of Collins’ campaign-trail pitch to Mainers is that she gets results in Washington, and her inability to advance the dozen annual appropriations bills through her committee undercuts that narrative.

Collins isn’t refuting the idea that Democrats might want to deprive her of legislative success as she competes against Platner in one of the closest and most-watched races in the country.

“That’s certainly a viable theory, which is pretty pathetic,” she said in an interview.

This month Collins publicly accused Murray of sending government funding offers that have “made it clear that Democrats are abandoning the appropriations process.” Murray, meanwhile, suggested Collins was at fault for the stalemate by divulging she hadn’t responded to Murray’s latest offer in more than two weeks.

It’s a major tone shift for the two lawmakers, who have earned a reputation for trying to stay out of the partisan fray since they became their party’s top leaders on the Appropriations Committee in 2023. They’ve consistently resisted broadcasting behind-the-scenes friction during tough negotiations and succeeded in reaching cross-party compromises to advance funding bills each year — even after the record government shutdown last fall.

But they’re now at loggerheads over funding totals for the military and domestic programs, along with votes on hot-button Trump policies. Senate Republicans are seeking a military funding boost more than four times larger than any increase in domestic spending, as Trump calls for a record $1.5 trillion defense budget.

“We do not have an agreement,” Murray said, because Republicans “are set on increasing defense in an increasingly huge way that we’ve never had to deal with before.”

GOP senators also want to avoid any amendment votes that could sink approval of appropriations bills, including some related to the Justice Department’s “Anti-Weaponization Fund” administration officials have promised not to pursue.

The result is that Collins has yet to hold a committee markup on a single government funding bill with just three months left before federal dollars expire. And some Republican appropriators acknowledge it’s possible the panel won’t vote on any of the spending measures this year given the deadlock.

“Obviously Susan is up this year. And Democrats, at every level and every opportunity, are playing politics with it,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune said in an interview. “The appropriations process used to be fairly bipartisan. … Murray and the Democrats have turned it into a partisan game.”

Some Democrats openly sympathize with Collins’ predicament in trying to represent politically moderate Maine while holding one of the most influential positions on Capitol Hill during Trump’s second term and unified Republican control of Congress.

“The chair of the committee is being squeezed in every direction,” Wisconsin Sen. Tammy Baldwin, a senior Democratic appropriator, said in an interview.

Many Senate Republicans don’t “give a damn” about funding domestic efforts like public education and biomedical research, Baldwin continued. “I believe that the chairwoman does care about those issues. But you know, she’s in an unenviable position.”

Since Trump was reelected, Collins has worked to negotiate funding bills that spend far more on domestic programs than the president sought. The result has been essentially flat funding for nondefense programs and a 17 percent increase in military spending, which includes the billions of dollars Republicans enacted along party lines last year.

“Chair Collins is very devoted to, or interested in, following through to help the president get more money for the Department of War and munitions, et cetera,” said West Virginia Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, a top Republican appropriator. “And I think Senator Murray is on the opposite page.”

“Rather than legislate and work these things out,” Capito added, “I think it’s been decided on the other side to just be obstinate and not participate and not negotiate.”

Trump is calling this year for boosting Pentagon spending by more than 40 percent while slashing domestic programs by 10 percent. Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, a senior Democratic appropriator who has served in Congress for more than 40 years, calls it “a massive change” in the way government funding has been divvied up for decades — by negotiating matching dollar-for-dollar increases in both military and nondefense funding.

“We’re so far apart. We haven’t faced anything like that in recent memory,” Durbin said in an interview. “And to accept the premise of it — what’s left for nondefense is terrible.”

Collins could proceed with markups this summer without an agreement with Democrats, as the House Republican majority has done for years. But Republican senators would need to be willing to vote on controversial amendments Democrats might offer — including proposals that defy Trump.

Senate Republican appropriators faced that issue last summer, when the panel unexpectedly adopted an amendment barring the Trump administration from repurposing cash intended for relocating the FBI headquarters. That outcome prompted several GOP senators to withdraw support for the funding bill.

“The challenge is that, if you have every Democrat voting against reporting the bill out — and then they also are offering poison pills — it’s hard to move those bills,” Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.), chair of the Appropriations subcommittee that funds the FBI, said in an interview.

During the two years Murray chaired the full committee, Moran recalled, “We had members who wanted to offer what would probably be considered poison pills by Democrats. And Senator Collins talked Republicans out of doing so, to move the process.”

The two sides could easily reach an agreement on amendments and policy stipulations, some Democrats contend, if only Collins and Murray could bridge the divide between the president’s military funding demands and their own domestic priorities.

“Senator Collins is carrying out the administration’s wishes,” Oregon Sen. Jeff Merkley, another senior Democratic appropriator, said in an interview. “And Senator Murray is noting that a reckless increase in defense spending is not in the best interest of Americans.”

“So they’re both advocating for their viewpoint,” Merkley added. “That’s what we do in a democracy.”

Katherine Tully-McManus contributed to this report.

Congress

Johnson-backed plan to combine Pentagon and election bills advances to floor

Published

7 hours ago

June 30, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

The House Rules Committee advanced a procedural measure aimed at breaking an intra-Republican deadlock Monday night. But GOP leaders are still facing a major battle Tuesday to regain control of the House floor.

The panel approved on party lines a measure to set up Republicans’ $1.1 trillion defense policy bill, a government funding bill and other GOP bills for floor debate. It would then combine the Pentagon bill, once passed, with the contentious elections overhaul known as the SAVE America Act and send it to the Senate as one piece of legislation.

That maneuver, telegraphed by Speaker Mike Johnson earlier Monday, is aimed at appeasing House GOP hard-liners who have blockaded the floor, demanding the Senate pass the elections bill that has languished there for months.

However, Rep. Anna Paulina Luna of Florida, the Republican leading the blockade, said in an interview Monday before the Rules Committee acted that Johnson’s plan is not sufficient — raising the possibility she and allies could vote down the measure on the floor. Other House GOP hard-liners say there are other outstanding issues to battle over Tuesday.

Rep. James McGovern of Massachusetts, the top Rules Democrat, called the merger move “a big waste of time.” The panel voted down a motion by McGovern to remove the provision to combine the two bills in a party-line vote.

The Senate is set to debate its own version of the defense bill next month, and it is likely that the elections overhaul will be removed in negotiations between the two chambers — as McGovern acknowledged Monday and House GOP leaders privately concede.

“The Senate will just strip the SAVE Act out,” he said at the meeting. “There is a zero percent chance SAVE ends up in the [Pentagon bill] because of this rule today.”

The defense bill faces a tight vote if Republicans can pass the procedural measure. Most Democrats are expected to oppose the measure over its massive price tag, which they contend is wasteful.

The panel is set up debate on 312 amendments to the bill. The slate includes GOP measures to codify a Trump executive order to block transgender people from serving in the military, prohibit coverage of gender-affirming care, block aid to arm Ukraine and strip Democratic-backed protections for collective bargaining for Pentagon civilian workers.

The committee also voted down Democratic proposals to slash $150 billion from the bill’s topline and limit the war against Iran.

Mia McCarthy contributed to this report.

Congress

Pentagon and elections bills could be combined in bid to unfreeze House floor

Published

10 hours ago

June 29, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Speaker Mike Johnson said Monday he plans to deploy an unusual procedural maneuver in a bid to unfreeze the House floor this week, seeking to send the annual Pentagon policy bill and the GOP elections bill known as the SAVE America Act to the Senate in a single package.

That is likely a recipe for a continued standoff between the two chambers over the SAVE America Act, which has stalled in the Senate for months due to internal GOP divides. Under Johnson’s plan, the annual defense policy bill, which typically passes every year with large bipartisan majorities, could become a collateral victim of the impasse.

Asked in brief interview if he had talked to Senate Majority Leader John Thune about his plans, Johnson replied, “I have to do my job in the House, and they’ve got to do their job in the Senate, so we’ll see what happens.”

Johnson is seeking to placate House conservative hard-liners, led by Florida Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, who have threatened to oppose the procedural measures that give Republicans control of the floor unless they agree to tougher tactics meant to force the Senate into passing the elections bill.

House GOP leaders discussed the plan to merge the two bills over the weekend as Luna pushed to amend the defense bill directly.

She did not say in an interview Monday whether Johnson’s gambit would suffice: “We want it baked together, not able to be stripped out,” she said.

But the Senate is free to work its own will, and members of that chamber are likely to reject any defense bill that has the partisan elections bill attached. That would set the stage for GOP leaders to strip it out when the House and Senate hash out the differences between their competing Pentagon bills later this year.

Johnson, meanwhile, is pushing a separate plan to pass a slimmed-down version of the SAVE America Act through the party-line budget reconciliation process — an option hard-liners have all but rejected.

“I don’t think that that can be done,” Luna told reporters Monday.

He’s also facing another complication: The version of the SAVE America Act he is proposing to attach to the Pentagon bill doesn’t include the latest demands for the bill from President Donald Trump — including a near-total ban on mail voting that is opposed by many Republicans.

Jennifer Scholtes contributed to this report.