{"id":7396,"date":"2025-11-12T22:15:03","date_gmt":"2025-11-12T22:15:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/2025\/11\/12\/exclusive-trump-administration-holds-situation-room-meeting-over-house-effort-to-force-release-of-all-of-dojs-epstein-files-cnn\/"},"modified":"2025-11-12T22:15:03","modified_gmt":"2025-11-12T22:15:03","slug":"exclusive-trump-administration-holds-situation-room-meeting-over-house-effort-to-force-release-of-all-of-dojs-epstein-files-cnn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/2025\/11\/12\/exclusive-trump-administration-holds-situation-room-meeting-over-house-effort-to-force-release-of-all-of-dojs-epstein-files-cnn\/","title":{"rendered":"Exclusive: Trump administration holds Situation Room meeting over House effort to force release of all of DOJ\u2019s Epstein files – CNN"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Top Trump administration officials met Wednesday with a key GOP lawmaker about an effort in the US House to force a vote on releasing Justice Department case files related to Jeffrey Epstein, according to multiple sources familiar with the meeting. <\/p>\n

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt acknowledged the meeting later Wednesday when asked about reporting that administration officials were huddling with GOP Rep. Lauren Boebert. <\/p>\n

\u201cDoesn\u2019t that show the level of transparency when we are willing to sit down with members of Congress and address their concerns?\u201d she told reporters at the press briefing. <\/p>\n

Leavitt added: \u201cI\u2019m not going to detail conversations that took place in the Situation Room.\u201d <\/p>\n

A source familiar confirmed the meeting in the Situation Room included Boebert, who has wanted the Justice Department to release its trove of Epstein files and has signed onto the effort in the House to force the vote compelling their release. <\/p>\n

But after the White House meeting, the Colorado Republican is not expected to remove her name from the petition that would force such a vote, another source familiar with the meeting told CNN. <\/p>\n

CNN has reached out to Boebert for comment. She wrote on X, \u201cI want to thank White House officials for meeting with me today. Together, we remain committed to ensuring transparency for the American people.\u201d <\/p>\n

Separately, President Donald Trump and Rep. Nancy Mace, another Republican who\u2019s signed the petition, have been playing phone tag. The South Carolina Republican previously told CNN\u2019s Manu Raju that rumors that she was planning to remove her name from the petition were untrue. <\/p>\n

Both the meeting and Trump\u2019s efforts to talk to Mace underscore the administration\u2019s concerns around the Epstein saga, which roared back Wednesday morning when the House Oversight Committee released more documents it had obtained from Epstein\u2019s estate. (Leavitt said Wednesday the emails from that trove that mention Trump \u201cprove absolutely nothing.\u201d<\/a>) <\/p>\n

Besides Boebert and Mace, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene is the other Republican who\u2019s signed onto the petition from Reps. Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican, and Ro Khanna, a California Democrat, to force the vote on the release of the files on the House floor. The pair is set to receive the 218th decisive signature from Democratic Rep. Adelita Grijalva Wednesday afternoon, allowing the push to force a vote to move forward.<\/a> <\/p>\n

Should anyone remove their name from the petition, Massie and Khanna would no longer have the support needed to move forward. <\/p>\n

Boebert had previously told CNN\u2019s Raju in September that she wouldn\u2019t be removing her name and wasn\u2019t getting pressure from the White House. <\/p>\n

Under the arcane procedure of a House discharge petition, if 218 members of the House \u2013 a majority of all 435 districts \u2013 sign on, they can force a floor vote in the chamber on anything \u2014 even if leadership opposes it. Such an effort rarely succeeds. <\/p>\n

The unreleased Justice Department files, which capture years of investigation into child sex trafficking, could include details the House hasn\u2019t obtained. <\/p>\n

Ahead of the White House meeting, one source said it would also include Attorney General Pam Bondi, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, FBI Director Kash Patel. <\/p>\n

A spokesperson for the Justice Department declined to comment, and the White House did not immediately return a request for comment. <\/p>\n

Bondi was seen leaving the White House at 1:10pm ET on Wednesday. <\/p>\n

The controversy around Epstein and his contacts with other powerful people, including Trump, has divided the Republican Party in recent months, with Boebert being among the Republican House members publicly pushing for more transparency around the case. <\/p>\n

Trump hasn\u2019t been accused of any crime, and longtime Epstein contact and convicted child sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell previously told Blanche in an interview this summer that she had seen no wrongdoing, including by Trump. <\/a> <\/p>\n

At least two women who say they are survivors of Epstein\u2019s abuse were expected to attend Grijalva\u2019s swearing-in ceremony Wednesday afternoon, sources with knowledge tell CNN. <\/p>\n

This story has been updated with new reporting.<\/em> <\/p>\n

CNN\u2019s Manu Raju and MJ Lee contributed to this report. <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Top Trump administration officials met Wednesday with a key GOP lawmaker about an effort in the US House to force a vote on releasing Justice Department case files related to Jeffrey Epstein, according to multiple sources familiar with the meeting. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt acknowledged the meeting later Wednesday when asked about reporting […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7397,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7396","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7396","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7396"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7396\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7397"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7396"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7396"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7396"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}