Trump told name ‘appears in Epstein files’, report says, as Democrat vows to subpoena ‘birthday book’: Live updates

Attorney Bradley Edwards – who represented over 200 Epstein victims – told MSNBC’s The Last Word that Jeffrey Epstein’s “birthday book” is in the possession of the sex offender’s estate.

According to a report last week from The Wall Street Journal, the book includes a “bawdy” 50th birthday card sent to Epstein by Trump in 2003.

Edwards claimed that “multiple” victims of Epstein and his associate Ghislaine Maxwell knew of the birthday book, and said its existence “is an absolute fact.”

The attorney said the executors of Epstein’s estate – whom he says he knows personally – would likely comply if Congress issued a subpoena for the documents.

The FBI is seeking an ultra-long-range business jet to fly agents and other bureau personnel to far-flung global locations for counterterrorism response, “high-risk operations,” and other “sensitive missions,” according to a tranche of federal procurement documents reviewed by The Independent.

Alongside the government’s request for proposals, a related statement of objectives says the aircraft “will also support executive transportation requirements for the FBI Director and the U.S. Attorney General,” namely, Kash Patel and Pam Bondi.

They have both faced withering scrutiny in recent weeks over their handling of the fallout from the non-release of the Epstein files. In May, the U.S. Government Accountability Office reportedly initiated an investigation into Patel’s supposedly robust personal use of the FBI’s existing fleet of private jets.

However, a Department of Justice official said on Wednesday that the plan had not been approved by Bondi, who is not in favor of the purchase.

Justing Rohrlich has the story:

The Justice Department announced Wednesday that it has formed a “strike force” to look into unsubstantiated claims about former President Barack Obama, peddled by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard.

The DOJ shared the announcement in a short statement, claiming that the task force will assess the “next legal steps which might stem from DNI Gabbard’s disclosures.”

The move came hours after Gabbard released a document that she claimed undermined the conclusion of Obama’s intelligence agencies that Russia favored the election of Trump in 2016.

The DNI accused Obama of ordering an intelligence analysis that was subject to “unusual directives” from him and criticized the assessment as using unclear sources.

Trump has repeatedly attacked Obama in recent days, which Democrats have branded a veiled attempt to shift the narrative away from the Epstein case and said the president is “running scared.”

Men are cooling on Donald Trump after making up a significant chunk of the president’s 2024 voting bloc.

According to a new poll by CBS/YouGov, Trump’s approval rating is tanking with men during his second term. It found that 47 percent of men approve of Trump’s job, and 53 percent do not.

Last October — just before Trump’s second electoral victory — a similar CBS/YouGov poll found that 54 percent of men supported Trump and 64 percent said they thought he would be a strong leader.

Democrat Ro Khanna has vowed to subpoena Jeffrey Epstein’s so-called “birthday book,” which Attorney Bradley Edwards, a lawyer who has represented hundreds of Epstein victims, alleged is in the hands of the financier’s estate.

The book was revealed in a damning Wall Street Journal report last week, which alleged that Donald Trump wrote a “bawdy” message and drew a lewd sketch to celebrate the convicted sex offender’s 50th birthday in 2003. Through the White House, the president denied the claims.

Now, Khanna said he will work with Democratic members of the House Oversight Committee to subpoena the book.

President Donald Trump’s victory celebrations following an uphill battle to pass his spending bill have been consumed by the Jeffrey Epstein saga — making Trump “clearly furious,” according to a report.

Trump signed what he called his “big, beautiful bill” into law on July 4. The bill’s passage marked a huge victory for the president’s agenda, but it didn’t spark the Independence Day fireworks that he hoped for. The news was swallowed up by the Epstein firestorm that followed two days later.

In recent weeks, Trump has also threatened new tariffs and met with world leaders. Still, the Epstein saga has sucked all the oxygen out of the room. The president isn’t happy about it, according to staff and allies.

“POTUS is clearly furious,” a person close to the White House told Politico. “It’s the first time I’ve seen them sort of paralyzed.”

Attorney General Pam Bondi and her deputy, Todd Blanche, told Donald Trump that his name appears multiple times in the Jeffrey Epstein files, sources told the Washington Post, New York Times and CNN.

The reports contradict the president’s claim earlier this month. When asked by a reporter whether Attorney General Pam Bondi had informed him that his name appeared in the Epstein files, he responded: “No, no.”

Texas Representative Jasmine Crockett called on Republicans to “stop playing defense and let the truth come out” after the House Oversight Comittee voted to subpoena the Justice Department for files related to the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

The motion passed in an 8-2 vote Wednesday, with five Democrats and three Republicans supporting it.

“My colleague, @RepSummerLee, filed a motion in an Oversight subcommittee to subpoena the Epstein files, and it passed,” the Democrat wrote on X. “Now let’s see if the rest of the Republicans will stop playing defense and let the truth come out.”

Attorney General Pam Bondi is facing a wave of Democratic pressure to testify before Congress following reports from the Wall Street Journal, New York Times and CNN that the president was informed in the spring that his name appeared in documents related to Jeffrey Epstein.

While appearing in the files does not indicate that an individual has committed any wrongdoing, Adam Schiff, California congressman and staunch Trump critic, tweeted that, “We need to bring Bondi and Patel into the Judiciary Committee to testify about this now.”

While the Justice Department declined to comment on the report, a joint issue from Bondi and her deputy Todd Blanche stated that investigators who reviewed the records found “nothing in the files warranted further investigation or prosecution.”

“As part of our routine briefing, we made the president aware of the findings,” they said.

President Donald Trump has found himself at the center of a MAGA firestorm over the administration’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files, which the Republican pledged to release on the 2024 campaign trail.

Now, after weeks of unrelenting uproar over the Justice Department’s announcement that there was no evidence Epstein had a “client list,” and no further documents in the sex offender’s case would be released, Trump has instructed Attorney General Pam Bondi to produce select grand jury testimony in the case – which has been denied.

The names in the court documents released last year, which include Trump, former President Bill Clinton and Prince Andrew, were part of a 2015 defamation lawsuit filed by Epstein victim Virginia Giuffre, who died by suicide in April, against the sex offender’s madam, Ghislaine Maxwell.

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