By Ben Meiselas
This morning, even before Adelita Grijalva was sworn in as the newest member of Congress and delivered the crucial 218th signature on the discharge petition to force release of the Epstein files, Donald Trump and his inner circle were already in full-blown crisis mode. And as the Democratic ranking member of the House Oversight Committee, Congressman Robert Garcia told me, the panic is justified.
When Democrats on the Oversight Committee released a new tranche of emails obtained from the Epstein estate, the reaction from Trump, Speaker Mike Johnson, and the MAGA leadership told the story as clearly as the documents themselves. They do not want the truth out.
Some of the emails date back to 2011. In one, Jeffrey Epstein wrote to Ghislaine Maxwell that Trump was “the dog that hasn’t barked,” noting that Trump had spent hours at Epstein’s home with a victim and “knew” about “the girls.” Another email released today includes Epstein saying, “i know how dirty donald is.”” These are Epstein’s own words, many of which were written before Trump was anywhere close to being a political figure.
As these revelations broke, Trump reportedly spent the morning working the phones in desperation, pleading with MAGA Representatives Lauren Boebert and Nancy Mace to withdraw their names from the discharge petition. He then summoned top administration officials, including Attorney General Pam Bondi (who was the former Florida AG during much of Epstein’s legal issues), Deputy AG Todd Blanche, and FBI Director Kash Patel, for an emergency White House meeting—a meeting which Trump press secretary Karoline Leavitt admitted took place in the Situation Room. And yes, they summoned Lauren Boebert in as well in a last-ditch effort to pressure her to remove her name from the petition (she kept her name on it, by the way).
When people behave like this, it’s rarely because the truth is exculpatory. Let’s be honest for a moment: if those files actually exonerated Donald Trump and incriminated a bunch of Democrats, Trump would be the first to release them. Instead, he’s putting the weight of his entire government into one of the most blatant cover-up attempts in American history.
As Congressman Garcia explained, MAGA leadership has fought transparency at every turn, blocking subpoenas, delaying depositions, stonewalling document requests, and refusing to enforce lawful committee subpoenas to the Justice Department. “Mike Johnson and the House Republicans are complicit, as far as I’m concerned, in this White House coverup,” Garcia told me. “The only reason we have these documents is because we have pushed and fought to get them public.”
Garcia made clear that if Trump truly believed these emails were “fake” or “misleading,” he has the power to end the matter immediately: “Donald Trump could fix all this… release the files today.”
But Trump won’t. And that speaks louder than any press release.
Garcia also addressed the stunning contradictions between Maxwell’s newly revealed emails and her deposition with Trump’s own former defense lawyer, Todd Blanche. While Maxwell told Blanche that Trump was always a “perfect gentleman” and she “never saw anything inappropriate,” her correspondence with Epstein paints a far different, and deeply troubling, picture.
“To say she was not being truthful is an understatement,” Garcia said. “She needs to come before the committee.”
With the discharge petition now officially past the 218 threshold following Grijalva’s swearing-in, the House must schedule a vote. House rules require seven legislative days for it to ripen before the motion becomes privileged. The Speaker then has two legislative days to schedule a floor vote on discharging the committee. As Congressman Ro Khanna has indicated, there may be “40 to 50” Republicans willing to join Democrats to force release of the full Epstein files once the bill reaches the floor.
Then it moves to the Senate, where the question becomes whether elected officials will side with victims or with Trump’s political panic. And of course, we will have to see if the bill could reach a veto proof majority.
Garcia emphasized that Democrats will continue releasing what they can while pressing for full compliance with the committee’s subpoena to the Department of Justice. “People deserve justice,” he said. “And we’re not going to stop until we get it.”
I will be doing a full, in-depth breakdown early tomorrow of the Epstein emails specific to Donald Trump. I’ll go over the language, the timelines, and the disturbing implications. I’ve been pouring through the emails all day, and I can guarantee there is so much you haven’t seen. If these emails are as bad as they are, I can only imagine what’s in the full files.
For years, survivors have demanded transparency. Today, thanks to their strength and the determination of pro-democracy leaders in Congress, the wall of secrecy is finally cracking.
And the panic inside Trump World tells you how much further the truth may go.
Before I go: I want to thank Congressman Garcia for his kind words about the MeidasTouch Network at the end of our interview. “MeidasTouch Network has been on this from day 1, oftentimes when we couldn’t even get the legacy media to cover this story,” he told me. He added, “I just want to thank you and the team who have been all over it for getting this information out to the American people.”
Watch that clip here:
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