Vice President Vance and other senior Trump Administration officials cancelled a scheduled dinner Wednesday evening that was to take place at Mr. Vance’s official residence after word leaked out in the press that the purpose of the dinner was to strategize about how to handle the Jeffrey Epstein affair.
Those who’d planned to attend the aborted dinner included the FBI director, Kash Patel, the Attorney General, Pam Bondi, and her deputy, Todd Blanche, and the White House chief of staff, Susie Wiles. The group was planning to discuss how to resolve the controversy surrounding how much to disclose from the government’s years-long investigation into Epstein — including whether to release audio of Mr. Blanche’s interview last week with Epstein’s incarcerated associate, Ghislaine Maxwell, or to put a Trump Administration official on the “Joe Rogan Experience” podcast.
“This is not a meeting. This is a PR meeting,” a source close to the investigation tells the Sun.
“There was never a supposed meeting scheduled at the Vice President’s residence to discuss Epstein strategy,” a Vance spokesman said in a statement.
An FBI spokesman confirmed to the Sun that a dinner scheduled for Wednesday night was cancelled.
CNN, which on Wednesday morning first reported plans for the Epstein dinner, said Wednesday night that the dinner “appeared to have been moved or rescheduled.”
After CNN first made publics its report Wednesday morning, the family of one of Epstein’s self-described victims, Virginia Giuffre, complained that they were not invited to the dinner. In a statement to MSNBC, family of Giuffre, who committed suicide earlier this year, called out the Trump Administration for not inviting to Mr. Vance’s dinner any of the survivors “of the vicious crimes of convicted perjurer and sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein.”
Mr. Blanche’s two-day meeting with Ms. Maxwell last week, in northern Florida, was reportedly successful enough to prompt the Trump administration to transfer her to a minimum-security prison camp, which is often part of a step down toward a release. No explanation was given for the move. The House Oversight Committee also agreed to delay its effort to depose Ms. Maxwell until after the Supreme Court decides to hear her petition to overturn her conviction on September 29.
During her nine hours of interviews with Mr. Blanche over two days, Ms. Maxwell reportedly said Mr. Trump never did anything in front of her that would have “caused concern,” according to ABC News.
Mr. Rogan, who endorsed Mr. Trump for reelection, has been one of the Trump administration’s harshest critics since the Justice Department – after originally promising to release all the so-called “Epstein files” – reversed course, said Epstein had indeed committed suicide and that there was nothing to see in the files. Mr. Rogan accused the Trump Justice Department of trying to “gaslight” the public.
On Tuesday, the Oversight Committee, as part of its investigation into the Jeffrey Epstein issued a sweeping round of subpoenas as part of its Epstein investigation, targeting President Clinton, Secretary Clinton, and several of the highest-ranking law enforcement officials from the Trump, Biden and Obama Administrations like former attorneys general William Barr and Merrick Garland, and former FBI director James Comey.
Notably absent from the Oversight Committee’s list was the former Trump Labor Secretary, Alex Acosta, who as the U.S. attorney for South Florida, in 2007, brokered the controversial non-prosecution agreement between the government and Epstein.
In a statement to NBC News, an Oversight Committee spokesperson said “both Republicans and Democrats on the Federal Law Enforcement Subcommittee in July approved a motion offered by Rep. Scott Perry by unanimous consent directing the Chairman to issue targeted subpoenas to Bill and Hillary Clinton, James Comey, Loretta Lynch, Eric Holder, Merrick Garland, Robert Mueller, William Barr, Jeff Sessions, and Alberto Gonzales. Chairman Comer has now issued the subpoenas.”
The Oversight Committee also ordered the Justice Department to hand over all Epstein-related records by August 19. The DOJ moved to unseal the grand jury transcripts from the investigations of both Epstein and Ms. Maxwell, a move that was protested by both Epstein’s victims and Ms. Maxwell’s attorney, David Oscar Markus.
“Why the lack of concern in handling such sensitive information for the victim’s sake?” one unnamed victim writes in a court filing.
However, on Wednesday, a woman claiming to have filed a police report against Epstein after he allegedly sexually abused her in a Santa Monica hotel room in 1997 pleaded for the Justice Department to release the Epstein files.
“I’m tired of the government saying that they want to release them. So please just do it,” the woman, Alicia Arden, said during a press conference with her attorney, Gloria Allred.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by PostX News and is published from a syndicated feed.)
