POLITICO 07/24/2025
With help from Eli Okun, Bethany Irvine, and Ali Bianco
On today’s Playbook Podcast, Adam Wren and Dasha Burns unpack the biggest story in Washington: the WSJ’s report that the Justice Department told President Donald Trump in May that his name was among many included in the Jeffrey Epstein files.
Good morning. It’s Thursday. I’m Adam Wren. Let’s get straight to the news.
This morning, Trump’s “Epstein files” ordeal has entered a new phase. If it wasn’t a crisis already, it is indisputably one now — and it threatens to swallow the news cycle and drastically complicate the GOP’s push to enact Trump’s agenda.
First in Playbook —
— How Trump sees it: Trump has ruminated about the Epstein fallout for weeks. “They’re going to accuse me of some funny business,” he said recently in the Oval Office, according to a Republican close to the White House who personally heard the president make these comments. Trump again maintained his distance from Epstein’s criminal behavior, but lamented: “They’re going to fuck me anyways.”
— How Trump world sees it: Two people close to the White House downplayed the news to Playbook’s Dasha Burns last night. “Everyone has already seen pictures of [Trump and Epstein] together,” said the first. “None of this reporting is new information.” “The government has long had these files,” they continued. “If there was really a ‘there’ there, it would have come out. The idea that Democrats wouldn’t have used this against Trump if there was really something to it is crazy.” Added the second person: Trump “knows this is nonsense and he didn’t do anything wrong. He was actually in a good mood this afternoon.”
And yet: If that’s true, the White House’s handling of the Epstein ordeal so far is mystifying. Why not just let this news come out after Bondi briefed Trump, with his name among hundreds of others? Why tell the WSJ, as comms director Steven Cheung did, that its reporting was “fake news” if, in fact, it was information known to the White House and is true? Why did Trump deny in an interview weeks ago that Bondi had briefed him on the matter?
— How MAGA sees it: We’re picking up on another talking point in our conversations with people in the broader MAGA universe: What does Trump’s name being “mentioned” really mean? (To our minds, it’s a fair question — and one where seeing the underlying files could be helpful.) “What is the definition of a ‘file’?” far-right activist and MAGA influencer Laura Loomer questioned Playbook last night when we asked for her reaction to the WSJ story. “If they’re making these claims against President Trump, they need to define what a ‘file’ is. Are they trying to say that a file is somebody’s name in an address book? I have over 7,000 contacts in my address book. Some of those people in my address book have committed crimes. Does that mean I’m implicated in their crimes? President Trump is not a pedophile. And I look forward to seeing him sue every journalist and publication that is trying to imply that he is one.”
To be clear: At this point, the publicly available information does not point to a crime on Trump’s part. But it does suggest a cover-up. Which leads us to one big question:
WHAT DID THEY KNOW AND WHEN DID THEY KNOW IT?: (Apologies to the late Sen. Howard Baker.) A tantalizing line 16 paragraphs into the WSJ story notes that “FBI Director Kash Patel has privately told other government officials that Trump’s name appeared in the files, according to people close to the administration.” Just how widely this was disseminated is a question that major news organizations are going to be running down in the hours and days ahead.
“Right now, everyone should be asking whether the highest levels of the federal government — including but not limited to the president, the VP, the AG, the FBI director and possibly even some Republican leaders in Congress, depending on what they knew and when — have been misleading the American public for weeks, if not months,” our POLITICO colleague Ankush Khardori (himself a former federal prosecutor) tells Playbook.
To that end, we put out a few lines of inquiry:
The VP: We checked in with a spokesperson for Vice President JD Vance about when he learned that Trump’s name was in the documents. We did not hear back.
The speaker: A spokesperson for House Speaker Mike Johnson did not respond to Playbook’s request for comment last night about when Johnson learned Bondi briefed Trump.
The AG: Asked about the reporting in the WSJ and NYT, DOJ spokesperson Gates McGavick said this to our colleague Josh Gerstein: “This is a collection of falsehoods and innuendo designed to push a bullshit narrative and drive clicks.”
DOJ to meet with Maxwell today: A senior Justice Department official is expected to meet today with Ghislaine Maxwell in Tallahassee, Florida, ABC News reported late last night. Maxwell, Epstein’s close associate and confidante, is serving a 20-year prison sentence for sex trafficking, among other charges. Her brother tells the NY Post that she is readying “new evidence” ahead of the meeting. But there are substantial doubts about her veracity — voiced by, among others, Speaker Johnson — as well as her potential motives, given that Trump has the power to pardon or commute her sentence.
A big surprise on Capitol Hill: Just as the House was taking its last floor vote ahead of August recess, a Republican-led House Oversight subcommittee approved a motion by Rep. Summer Lee (D-Pa.) to subpoena the DOJ for documents related to Epstein, POLITICO’s Hailey Fuchs reports. Three Republicans — Nancy Mace (R-S.C.), Scott Perry (R-Pa.) and Brian Jack (R-Ga.) — joined with Democrats to support it. Of the Democratic-led effort, a person familiar with the Oversight panel tells Playbook that the move is “indicative of the path we’re on … the base is asking for hardball; we’re playing hardball.”
Meanwhile, Oversight is subpoenaing Maxwell: House Oversight Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) issued a subpoena yesterday compelling Ghislaine Maxwell’s testimony to Congress on Aug. 11, Hailey reports.
Oversight Dems have a new subpoena target: Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) said last night that he intends to subpoena the Epstein estate for the book in which Trump purportedly drew a nude woman and made an enigmatic statement wishing his then-friend a happy birthday.
The silent treatment from the White House: “Trump and his aides have settled on silence as a strategy to stamp out criticism” of the Epstein matter, NBC News’ Jonathan Allen and colleagues report this morning. “White House aides have made it clear that no one in the administration is allowed to talk about Epstein without high-level vetting, according to a senior administration official who spoke on the condition of anonymity.”
Given Trump’s longstanding expectation that his aides and administration officials will robustly defend him to the media, this would be a big change — and perhaps a short-lived one.
It’s unclear if we’ll hear from the president himself on the matter today. He signs bills and executive orders at 3 p.m. in the Oval Office, before heading to the Federal Reserve to tour the building amid simmering tensions with Fed Chair Jerome Powell. He may try to turn the page and avoid the Epstein ordeal, but it seems unlikely that such an attempt will be successful.
“Short of a war or some life-changing news event,” a Trump ally told NBC, “I’m not sure what does the trick.”
DRIVING THE DAY
THE CRISIS IS HERE: Yesterday afternoon, the Wall Street Journal dropped a four-bylined bombshell: Attorney General Pam Bondi and Deputy AG Todd Blanche briefed Trump in May that his name appeared multiple times in the Epstein files alongside many others.This morning, Trump’s “Epstein files” ordeal has entered a new phase. If it wasn’t a crisis already, it is indisputably one now — and it threatens to swallow the news cycle and drastically complicate the GOP’s push to enact Trump’s agenda.
First in Playbook —
— How Trump sees it: Trump has ruminated about the Epstein fallout for weeks. “They’re going to accuse me of some funny business,” he said recently in the Oval Office, according to a Republican close to the White House who personally heard the president make these comments. Trump again maintained his distance from Epstein’s criminal behavior, but lamented: “They’re going to fuck me anyways.”
— How Trump world sees it: Two people close to the White House downplayed the news to Playbook’s Dasha Burns last night. “Everyone has already seen pictures of [Trump and Epstein] together,” said the first. “None of this reporting is new information.” “The government has long had these files,” they continued. “If there was really a ‘there’ there, it would have come out. The idea that Democrats wouldn’t have used this against Trump if there was really something to it is crazy.” Added the second person: Trump “knows this is nonsense and he didn’t do anything wrong. He was actually in a good mood this afternoon.”
And yet: If that’s true, the White House’s handling of the Epstein ordeal so far is mystifying. Why not just let this news come out after Bondi briefed Trump, with his name among hundreds of others? Why tell the WSJ, as comms director Steven Cheung did, that its reporting was “fake news” if, in fact, it was information known to the White House and is true? Why did Trump deny in an interview weeks ago that Bondi had briefed him on the matter?
— How MAGA sees it: We’re picking up on another talking point in our conversations with people in the broader MAGA universe: What does Trump’s name being “mentioned” really mean? (To our minds, it’s a fair question — and one where seeing the underlying files could be helpful.) “What is the definition of a ‘file’?” far-right activist and MAGA influencer Laura Loomer questioned Playbook last night when we asked for her reaction to the WSJ story. “If they’re making these claims against President Trump, they need to define what a ‘file’ is. Are they trying to say that a file is somebody’s name in an address book? I have over 7,000 contacts in my address book. Some of those people in my address book have committed crimes. Does that mean I’m implicated in their crimes? President Trump is not a pedophile. And I look forward to seeing him sue every journalist and publication that is trying to imply that he is one.”
To be clear: At this point, the publicly available information does not point to a crime on Trump’s part. But it does suggest a cover-up. Which leads us to one big question:
WHAT DID THEY KNOW AND WHEN DID THEY KNOW IT?: (Apologies to the late Sen. Howard Baker.) A tantalizing line 16 paragraphs into the WSJ story notes that “FBI Director Kash Patel has privately told other government officials that Trump’s name appeared in the files, according to people close to the administration.” Just how widely this was disseminated is a question that major news organizations are going to be running down in the hours and days ahead.
“Right now, everyone should be asking whether the highest levels of the federal government — including but not limited to the president, the VP, the AG, the FBI director and possibly even some Republican leaders in Congress, depending on what they knew and when — have been misleading the American public for weeks, if not months,” our POLITICO colleague Ankush Khardori (himself a former federal prosecutor) tells Playbook.
To that end, we put out a few lines of inquiry:
The VP: We checked in with a spokesperson for Vice President JD Vance about when he learned that Trump’s name was in the documents. We did not hear back.
The speaker: A spokesperson for House Speaker Mike Johnson did not respond to Playbook’s request for comment last night about when Johnson learned Bondi briefed Trump.
The AG: Asked about the reporting in the WSJ and NYT, DOJ spokesperson Gates McGavick said this to our colleague Josh Gerstein: “This is a collection of falsehoods and innuendo designed to push a bullshit narrative and drive clicks.”
THE NEXT STEPS …
DOJ to meet with Maxwell today: A senior Justice Department official is expected to meet today with Ghislaine Maxwell in Tallahassee, Florida, ABC News reported late last night. Maxwell, Epstein’s close associate and confidante, is serving a 20-year prison sentence for sex trafficking, among other charges. Her brother tells the NY Post that she is readying “new evidence” ahead of the meeting. But there are substantial doubts about her veracity — voiced by, among others, Speaker Johnson — as well as her potential motives, given that Trump has the power to pardon or commute her sentence.
A big surprise on Capitol Hill: Just as the House was taking its last floor vote ahead of August recess, a Republican-led House Oversight subcommittee approved a motion by Rep. Summer Lee (D-Pa.) to subpoena the DOJ for documents related to Epstein, POLITICO’s Hailey Fuchs reports. Three Republicans — Nancy Mace (R-S.C.), Scott Perry (R-Pa.) and Brian Jack (R-Ga.) — joined with Democrats to support it. Of the Democratic-led effort, a person familiar with the Oversight panel tells Playbook that the move is “indicative of the path we’re on … the base is asking for hardball; we’re playing hardball.”
Meanwhile, Oversight is subpoenaing Maxwell: House Oversight Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) issued a subpoena yesterday compelling Ghislaine Maxwell’s testimony to Congress on Aug. 11, Hailey reports.
Oversight Dems have a new subpoena target: Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) said last night that he intends to subpoena the Epstein estate for the book in which Trump purportedly drew a nude woman and made an enigmatic statement wishing his then-friend a happy birthday.
The silent treatment from the White House: “Trump and his aides have settled on silence as a strategy to stamp out criticism” of the Epstein matter, NBC News’ Jonathan Allen and colleagues report this morning. “White House aides have made it clear that no one in the administration is allowed to talk about Epstein without high-level vetting, according to a senior administration official who spoke on the condition of anonymity.”
Given Trump’s longstanding expectation that his aides and administration officials will robustly defend him to the media, this would be a big change — and perhaps a short-lived one.
It’s unclear if we’ll hear from the president himself on the matter today. He signs bills and executive orders at 3 p.m. in the Oval Office, before heading to the Federal Reserve to tour the building amid simmering tensions with Fed Chair Jerome Powell. He may try to turn the page and avoid the Epstein ordeal, but it seems unlikely that such an attempt will be successful.
“Short of a war or some life-changing news event,” a Trump ally told NBC, “I’m not sure what does the trick.”
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