Trump orders Bondi to release Jeffery Epstein grand jury testimony: Live updates

President Donald Trump says he’s asked Attorney General Pam Bondi to release certain Jeffrey Epstein files and relevant grand jury testimony: “subject to court approval.”

The president’s directive follows weeks of uproar surrounding the handling of the so-called Epstein files and after Trump announced his plans to sue the Wall Street Journal after the paper published a bombshell report detailing a bawdy birthday card Trump allegedly gave to Jeffrey Epstein.

A schism in MAGA world broke open after the Justice Department said there was no evidence to support the existence of a “client list” of associates some claim Epstein blackmailed over their alleged involvement in his trafficking scheme.

Donald Trump continued to distance himself from the Jeffrey Epstein files on Friday morning, claiming that there’s no “smoking gun” that might link him to anything nefarious concerning the disgraced financier.

“If there was a ‘smoking gun’ on Epstein, why didn’t the Dems, who controlled the “files” for four years, and had Garland and Comey in charge, use it?,” he said of Merrick Garland, the Attorney General under Biden and James Comey, the FBI director under Obama.

“BECAUSE THEY HAD NOTHING!!!,” he concluded.

As constituents apply pressure on the GOP to provide more transparency around the Epstein files, House Republicans voted down a Democratic amendment Thursday night.

Democratic lawmakers attempted to advance a bipartisan effort calling for the full release of documents related to the convicted sex offender’s case.

Early Friday morning, Musk admitted on X that it would be “hard to accept a clean bill not going to a vote.”

The story from The Wall Street Journal that President Donald Trump reportedly sent a birthday card with a picture of a naked woman to Jeffrey Epstein rocked the House of Representatives late on Thursday evening.

The House had gone into overdrive to pass a bill that would claw back appropriated money for foreign aid and public broadcasting, including NPR and PBS, that the president demanded from Congress.

But the news that Trump had reportedly sent the card to the disgraced financier and convicted sex offender created another headache for Republicans, many of whom have pushed for the declassification of files related to Epstein’s trafficking of underage girls.

Washington Bureau Chief Eric Garcia has the story:

After blasting the Wall Street Journal Thursday evening over a report on a lewd birthday letter to Jeffrey Epstein, Trump shifted focus back to Federal Reserve Board of Governors Chair Jerome Powell, accusing the central bank of “choking out the housing market.”

“‘Too Late,’ and the Fed, are choking out the housing market with their high rate, making it difficult for people, especially the young, to buy a house,” he said.

Trump, who hired Powell in 2018 and has considered firing him over his failure to cut interest rates, called the central bank boss “truly one of my worst appointments.”

“The USA is Rockin’, there is VERY LOW INFLATION, and we deserve to be at 1%, saving One Trillion Dollars a year on Interest Costs,” he continued. “I can’t tell you how dumb Too Late is – So bad for our Country!”

After years of peddling conspiracy theories about the Jeffrey Epstein files, President Donald Trump is now attempting to shift focus away from the case and his relationship with the convicted sex offender.

The Trump administration continues to face backlash after a Department of Justice and FBI memo released last week stated that there was no evidence that the disgraced financier, who socialised with royalty and celebrities and was accused of running a large network of underage girls for sex, had a “client list.”

Over the years, thousands of pages of records have been released through lawsuits, Epstein’s criminal dockets, public disclosures, and Freedom of Information Act requests.

While judges, court staff, and legal representatives are excluded, here are some of the names that do appear in the legal records connected to Epstein:

Elon Musk rushed to Donald Trump’s defense after a damning Wall Street Journal report detailed a lewd birthday letter the president allegedly presented to Jeffrey Epstein.

The tech billionaire has repeatedly demanded the release of the unredacted documents related to the disgraced financier’s sex-trafficking case since dropping the “really big bomb” last month, a baseless claim that Trump was withholding the files because they implicated him.

After the Journal described on Thursday a birthday card that appeared to be signed by Trump for Epstein’s 50th birthday, Musk abruptly shifted gears, coming to the former president’s defense.

James Liddell has the details:

Only about a quarter of Americans believe President Donald Trump’s policies have helped them, according to a new poll.

A majority of Americans believe Trump has fallen short on key issues such as the economy and immigration. These are issues he campaigned on and led former Vice President Kamala Harris on in polls during the 2024 election cycle.

Rachel Dobkin has the story.

The White House stonewalled Thursday when pressed for an explanation as to why President Donald Trump told a group of business leaders an implausible tale about his late uncle, a noted MIT professor, once teaching Unabomber Theodore Kaczynski.

The Independent asked Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt about the president’s bizarre anecdote during a routine press briefing, two days after Trump insisted that Kaczynski, who earned a bachelor’s degree at Harvard and a master’s and a PhD at the University of Michigan before going on his deadly terror spree, had been a student of his famous uncle.

Leavitt attempted to deflect by claiming surprise that The Independent would be interested in the matter despite having received a query about the president’s claims by email within minutes of him making the remarks in question on Tuesday.

Andrew Feinberg has the story.