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Hey, guys, it's me, Sam Stein, managing out at the Bulwark. I am randomly in the MSNBC green room. Found the best backdrop I could get. I'm coming to because there's some really heartbreaking news on Jelaine Maxwell, who is Jeffrey Epstein's co conspirator. She has been incarcerated for some time now. And kind of this, like, looming figure over this controversy, which, as you know, has been just unspooling across Washington, D.C. and really rankling the White House and Congressional Republicans. This morning, a fairly abrupt tweet or statement, I should say, from Todd Blanche, who's at the Department of Justice. He's the Deputy Training General. He put out this. I'm going to read it. This Department of Justice does not shy away from uncomfortable truths. We can get back to that one. Not from, nor from the responsibility to pursue justice wherever the facts may lead. The joint statement by the DOJ and FBI of July 6th remains as accurate today as it was when it was ran. I'm going to pause for a second there. What he's referring to is that statement from the DOJ and FBI that they looked into the Epstein matter. Nothing new. Back to Todd Blanche, namely that in recent thorough review of the files maintained by the FBI in the Epstein case, no evidence was uncovered that could predicate an investigation against uncharged third parties. President Trump has told us to release all credible evidence. And here comes the key part. If Jelaine Maxwell has information about anyone who has committed crimes against victims, the FBI and the DOJ will hear what she has to say. Therefore, at the direction of Attorney General Bondi, Pam Bondi, I have communicated with counsel for Ms. Maxwell to determine whether she would be willing to speak with prosecutors from the department. I anticipate meeting with Ms. Maxwell in the coming days. Until now, no administration on behalf of the department has inquired about her willingness to meet with the government. That changes now. Well, let me just say, very bold to blanch, very bold to actually pick up the phone and talk to the attorney of someone who has incredibly pertinent information on this model. I'm so glad you did that. It raises the question of why you wouldn't do this action prior to issuing a report that you had made a comprehensive review of all the evidence and determined there was nothing more to investigate. In theory, I would imagine that talking to Jelaine Maxwell and seeing what she might have to say would probably be an investigative step to take. But, you know, we don't know. Perhaps that's just not something that you do. I certainly don't know. For, for example, I've never investigated anything like that in my time. That said, there's a few more things to get to. Maxwell's attorney, David Oscar Marcus, has responded saying that they can confirm that they are in discussions with the government and that Jelaine will always testify truthfully and, quote, we are grateful to President Trump for his commitment to uncovering the truth in this case. And then something else happened involving Julian Maxwell, and this one was kind of crazy. The Congressman, Tom Burchette, Tim Burchette, sorry. Decided this morning to offer a Ghislaine Maxwell subpoena for when the House Oversight Committee was gathering and the subpoena. The idea would be they're going to vote on the idea to subpoena her, however, come before the committee. Well, wouldn't you know it, the hearing began and they passed it on a voice vote. So that means that they've approved of a motion to subpoena Jelaine Maxwell. Things are moving so fast here. I'm not entirely sure where that leaves us, because in theory, it would be up to, I guess, the chair of the Oversight Committee, Chairman Comer, to schedule that subpoena. House is about to go on recess, so it's not going to happen anytime soon. But I guess we could end up having a situation where Jalaine Maxwell not only is talking to the Department of Justice, but also going up to the Hill and testifying. I can't imagine that they would do this in public, but, God, that would be incredible if they did. And what she has to say is obviously of immense intrigue for everybody who's been following this case. There is some concern, I would see, be honest, about people who think she's just pardon shopping and that she's going to dangle out some information and hopes that Trump gives her a pardon. And obviously, if you want to dangle information in hopes of getting a partner with Donald Trump, you're not going to say anything that would implicate Donald Trump. So we'll have to see about that. But a lot of developing stuff happening on this storyline. All this, I should note, is. Is taking place amid what is best described as a real pickle for House Republicans over what to do about this. They have been sort of batting back and forth whether or not to allow a vote to release any more information on Jeffrey Epstein. The consensus this morning from House Speaker Mike Johnson was that they were not going to do this, that they were absolutely going to, you know, go on break for August, come back and figure it out. The basic Gist from Johnson was that they want to let August recess happen to give the Trump administration some time to get the docs out. But the Trump administration has decided it doesn't really care for all the docs. Obviously, president has rejected the idea of getting special counsel. And then of course, he's only requested grand jury testimony. He has not requested any other fundamental documents that would happen. So that's taking place in, in the meantime, House Republicans are just getting pummeled as we've talked about over this for by the mag influencers by the online community. I would encourage folks to look one last thing before I let you go. I would encourage folks to take a look at Will Summer and his latest from False Flag to give you a real sense of what's going on here. One is he took, he took a little dive into what is clearly an effort to distract from the main storyline by Donald Trump. We see is the stuff like, you know, let's arrest Barack Obama, let's deport Rosie o', Donnell, let's change the name of the Washington Commanders back to the Washington Redskins. It's all, you know, know, oh, distraction. So Will was kind of looking into is the distraction campaign working? And what he determined is that for some, sure, like, you know, Benny Johnson, Charlie Kirk, et cetera, like they're, they're willing to like throw three siren emojis up on a post and say, yeah, let's arrest Barack Obama. And you know, everyone's posting AI images of Obama in the jumpsuit and whatever. But for like the true, you know, Epstein heads for the people who care about this stuff, like they see through it. And a lot of posts on some of the, you know, forums where these people congregate, they're just like, okay, cool, arrest Obama, but can we also like see the Epstein files? And so that to me is like indicating that the Republicans have a problem and maybe they know it. I just don't know. The second thing that I think Will and this kind of got lost in the mix is, you know, part of the problem that Trump has here is that there's just this like bifurcated, byzantine, Balkanized conservative media ecosystem now where people have different audiences and forums and channels and it's not like centralized, top down, right wing media echo chamber. And so Trump has a little bit more trouble controlling the narrative you can put out. You can demand that people stop covering it and maybe Foxville for a beat, but others aren't. Which brings us back to Ghislaine Maxwell. The Todd Blanche thing is so clear an effort to try to make it seem like they are moving with the tides here. It's why that Trump said we will release grand jury interviews. It's why, you know, they put out this statement this morning. They're going to talk to Jalaine Maxwell. They want it to appear like they are looking for information, that they are interested in uncovering more information. But at the same time, when you have them going on recess for all of August and when you have Trump saying, you know what, maybe I don't want a special counsel, and when you have him resisting more than just grand jury interviews, you're going to have that tension of, wait a second, they're on the one hand saying we're all for transparency, but the other hand finding transparency. And until they resolve that central question, you have a sense that this stuff is going to stay a problem for them. Now, maybe you overtake by other events. That always happens. But these things don't last forever. Scandals certainly bow down. But when you have that central tension, that's a problem. So especially when you have Jalen Maxwell potentially testifying for the House, the likelihood is that this story stays in the spotlight. And I have to imagine that these House members, when they go home for August recess, they might actually get confrontations with the rotors over this stuff. All right, I'll wrap it there. That's the latest news from this morning. Again, more Jeffrey Epson drama never ends. We'll keep covering it. Thank you so much for paying attention to this stuff. And we will talk shortly.
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