House GOP Issues Subpoena for Epstein Files—With One Big Exception
The Republican-led House on Tuesday issued subpoenas to the Justice Department and high-ranking officials for files related to convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. But there was one notable name missing from the list of subpoenas: President Donald Trump.
House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer issued 11 subpoenas in total, including some to prominent politicians from Republican and Democratic administrations: Bill and Hillary Clinton, former FBI Director James Comey, multiple former attorneys general including Merrick Garland and William Barr, and former special counsel Robert Mueller, according to The Washington Post.
But Trump himself is notably absent from that list.
The subpoenas are a result of a bipartisan effort on behalf of the House to release the files. On July 23, Democratic Representative Summer Lee of Pennsylvania brought a motion to subpoena the DOJ, which passed in the House Oversight Federal Law Enforcement subcommittee with three Republicans joining Democrats in the vote.
Trump’s former Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta is also missing from the list of subpoenas. In 2008, as U.S. attorney in Miami, Acosta gave Epstein a secret plea deal for soliciting a minor for prostitution—a crime that, if charges had been brought federally, could have resulted in a life sentence. Acosta resigned from the Trump administration in 2019 amid scrutiny during Epstein’s sex-trafficking case.
Despite the public’s overwhelming interest in transparency regarding Epstein, Trump has denied and deflected, blaming the controversy on a Democratic hoax and belittling members of his base who are still interested in seeing the files. Before the Justice Department issued a “case-closed” memo last month, Attorney General Pam Bondi reportedly told Trump that his name was in the files, which isn’t a surprise to anyone who’s seen the mountain of evidence that Trump and Epstein were friends.
This story has been updated.
Deciding to condition FEMA aid on support for Israel has not panned out well for the Trump administration.
Grant orders issued by the agency directed states and cities to certify that they would not avoid or end “commercial relations specifically with Israeli companies” while receiving the federal disaster relief funds, Reuters reported Monday, citing official notices it had obtained. But in the wake of the news, fierce bipartisan backlash effectively forced the White House to nix the operation.
MAGA influencers including Candace Owens, Nick Fuentes, and Matt Walsh came out in staunch opposition to the effort, accusing Donald Trump of failing to put “America first.”
“Remember to pledge allegiance to Israel before your house is destroyed by a fire or hurricane, it could save your life,” wrote Fuentes on X.
Owens, meanwhile, claimed that Trump had “fully betrayed America” for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “If you cannot see that now you are completely blind,” the talk show host wrote. “Best 100 million Miriam Adelson ever spent.”
Walsh simply stated, “There is just no way to reasonably claim that this qualifies as ‘America First’.”
Hours after initial reports broke about the conditioned aid, the Department of Homeland Security issued a statement insisting that “there is NO FEMA requirement tied to Israel in any current NOFO.”
But that doesn’t mean that future funding is protected from similar efforts. The notice underscored DHS’s ability to deny funds to any entity it deemed affiliated with the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, which aims to curb Israel’s violence in Gaza by peeling financial support away from the nation and its businesses.
“No states have lost funding, and no new conditions have been imposed,” the notice reads. “FEMA grants remain governed by existing law and policy and not political litmus tests. DHS will enforce all anti-discrimination laws and policies, including as it relates to the BDS movement, which is expressly grounded in antisemitism. Those who engage in racial discrimination should not receive a single dollar of federal funding.”
But a review of the order shows that it did indeed originally contain language conditioning aid on support for Israel. Following the backlash, the language was quietly edited to remove the reference to anti-Israel boycotts.
And as journalist Saagar Enjeti noted on X, “the DHS … makes it clear the admin reserves the right to deny these funds … based on the Anti-Boycott Act.”
“They still might do it. They’re just not saying it out loud right now,” he added.
The off-color FEMA order was just the latest in a long line of warnings from the Trump administration regarding its alliance with Israel and Netanyahu. The Department of Homeland Security announced in April that boycotting Israel was forbidden for any state or city intending to receive federal funding, and the White House has rescinded billions of dollars from universities around the country for failing to meet Trump’s metric of support for America’s genocidal Middle Eastern ally.
President Trump faced a surprisingly tough interview on CNBC’s Squawk Box Tuesday morning, as host Joe Kernen, who has often praised the president in the past, grilled him on his ousting of the commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics over his claims that the job numbers were “rigged.”
Trump fired accused the former commissioner, Erika McEntarfer, last week after accusing her of propping up former President Biden and attempting to undermine himself. The firing came after an abysmal July job report, leading many to the reasonable conclusion that Trump is shooting the messenger while wrecking the economy, and now plans to install a lackey to replace McEntarfer.
On Squawk Box, Kernen noted that Elaine Chao, a former Trump transportation........© New Republic
