House Speaker Mike Johnson is under growing fire after a tense exchange with Senator ___ (D-AZ), who publicly accused him of deliberately refusing to swear in newly elected Democratic Representative Adelita Grijalva. The senator alleged that Johnson’s delay is a calculated move to stall an upcoming House vote on whether to release the long-suppressed Epstein files—documents that could expose the full extent of Jeffrey Epstein’s powerful network of associates.
#BREAKING: Hayes: "That was @SpeakerJohnson insisting three times in the past 24 hours, that he is not holding off on swearing in a duly elected Democratic Congresswoman [@AdelitaForAZ] to avoid a vote on releasing the #Epstein files. I'm not sure he's really helping his case…" pic.twitter.com/mP40Fl6kCx
The confrontation reportedly took place during a joint leadership meeting on Capitol Hill, where the Arizona senator pressed Johnson on the delay. Witnesses say Johnson attempted to deflect, citing “procedural timing issues,” but the senator shot back that the Speaker was “weaponizing procedure to shield the guilty.”
Johnson, who has cultivated an image as a devout Christian and moral conservative, now finds himself in an increasingly awkward position—forced to reconcile his public faith with what critics see as a willingness to protect the powerful at the expense of truth and transparency. “You can’t claim to walk in the light while covering for people who trafficked in darkness,” one Democratic aide remarked after the exchange.
The late financier Jeffrey Epstein was famously connected to some of the most influential figures in politics, business, and entertainment. Among them was Donald Trump, then a New York real estate mogul and now President of the United States. The Trump administration’s handling of the Epstein files has only fueled suspicion that critical evidence—particularly anything implicating high-level figures—is being withheld from public view. Officials have repeatedly promised a “measured” release, but months of delays have left watchdogs, journalists, and victims’ advocates convinced the White House is hiding something.
Privately, some insiders suggest that Speaker Johnson may personally favor full transparency. However, given the Trump administration’s well-documented record of punishing perceived disloyalty, Johnson is said to be under immense pressure to toe the line. The Speaker, they claim, fears political retaliation—or worse, a full-scale MAGA backlash—if he defies the administration’s wishes and allows the House to move forward on the Epstein vote.
For now, the standoff continues. Representative-elect Grijalva remains in limbo, waiting to be officially sworn in while the partisan tug-of-war plays out behind the scenes. Whether Johnson’s delay is a procedural quirk or a deliberate act of political obstruction, one thing is certain: the issue isn’t going away. At some point, Speaker Johnson will have no choice but to seat the incoming Democrat from Arizona—and when he does, the House may finally be forced to confront the explosive truth behind the Epstein files.
MSNBC’s Legal Analyst Lisa Rubin appeared on the 09/19/25 edition of Deadline White House show where she made a compelling argument as to how Congress can and should go about getting Jeffrey Epstein-related information from former U.S. Attorney Alex Acosta.
#BREAKING: Lisa Rubin re #AlexAcosta: "There are a BUNCH of documents that Alex Acosta saw, and or was involved in creating, that could be released by DOJ tomorrow, but also, some of them might still be in Alex Acosta's own possession. I just want to detail THREE of them…[1]… pic.twitter.com/lZgmUL9X8i
Rubin said that there are a bunch of Epstein-related documents that Acosta either saw, or was involved in creating. This, she argued, meant the said documents were either currently in the possession of the Department of Justice, or even by Acosta himself.
The first question Congress needs to ask Acosta is about the 60-count federal indictment drafted by prosecutor Ann Marie Villafaña in 2007. DOJ definitely has this document, and the allegations therein, may shed a lot of light as to Epstein’s illicit operation, and potentially, the actions of his his co-conspirators, most of who were later granted immunity.
The second question regards the lengthy prosecution memo that aforementioned Villafaña wrote regarding the federal case re Epstein. Rubin says this can shed a lot of light as to the evidence the feds had against Epstein to support the 60-count indictment
Finally, Rubin says Congress should ask Acosta about his own interview transcript from the office of professional responsibility investigation that was conducted at DOJ in 2020. That was an investigation started at the instigation of Republican Senator Ben Sasse. Rubin argues that Acosta must have that transcript in his possession because he and his lawyers were given an opportunity to review it and suggest any corrections.
Long story short, the lingering questions about Jeffrey Epstein and his child sex trafficking operation must be answered, and key players like Acosta must not be allowed to come before Congress and just gaslight the public. These crucial documents are currently in the possession of the DOJ and/or Acosta, and the public deserves to see them.
An alternative route would be to have Ann Marie Villafaña testify before Congress. Who knows, she might have “kept receipts”.
As the Jeffrey Epstein scandal continues to heat up, new questions are being raised about the infamous 2008 sweetheart plea deal he received from then U.S. Attorney Alex Acosta, who later joined the Trump administration as Labor Secretary in 2017
#BREAKING: 🔥Kristy: "A week later after #Epstein is arrested, Acosta resigns and Trump gave a statement saying how great Acosta was…even when he found out that Acosta was connected with this kind of sweetheart deal, he didn't seem to care."🤦♀️ pic.twitter.com/X00jq28KEK
The running narrative thus far, has been that after details of the sweetheart plea deal started getting a lot of media coverage, the Trump administration was forced to cut ties with Acosta—he became a liability, if you will.
However according to Kristy Greenberg, herself a former federal prosecutor, President Trump might have known all along about Alex Acosta’s shady Epstein deal when he made him his labor secretary. As Greenberg further put it, “he [President Trump] didn’t seem to care.”
If Greenberg’s account holds up, it would reflect very poorly on the president as America’s moral leader. Republicans have for decades, put a premium on moral values, so it will be interesting to see how they navigate this Trump-Acosta relationship.
Rep Ro Khanna (D-CA) appeared in a segment of MSNBC’s The Briefing with Jen Psaki (08/14/25) where he confirmed that together with Rep Thomas Massie (R-KY), they had arranged a 09/03/25 press conference with the survivors of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell.
It cannot be understated just how important this presser may turn out to be , not just for curious public, but also for the victims. Reps Massie and Khanna are giving them an avenue to vent out their grievances and frustrations, something they were denied when Epstein died before his criminal trial. They were robbed of an excellent opportunity to confront their abuser publicly in a court of law.
The presser will of course serve another very important function, and that is, bring back the media’s focus to the heinous crimes committed by Epstein and Maxwell, and how both shared a close relationship with Donald Trump, now President.
The Trump administration has moved heaven and earth to keep the Epstein story away from the mainstream media’s focus, so it will be very interesting to see what “shiny object” they dangle out there on 09/03/25.
A segment on the 08/11/25 edition of MSNBC’s The Rachel Maddow Show (TRMS) delved into the Trump administration’s “tough on crime” facade. The gist of the segment was that while President Trump and his administration go to great lengths to project a “tough on crime” stance, they have been super lenient with some very serious criminals the president favors. In other words, there are glaring double standards with the said tough on crime policy.
#BREAKING: Legendary #Maddow: "Investigators in Spain ended up picking up his trail, in part because of the lid of a water bottle that he left behind at the scene. They trailed him as he fled Spain, he went first to Germany, where he had previously lived, and then he fled from… pic.twitter.com/h03RjzNDrV
One of the shocking examples host Maddow pointed to was a triple murder convict—yeah you read that right—a triple murder convict serving a 30 year sentence, that the Trump administration recently released from a Venezuelan prison and flew into the United States. Reasonable people can agree that this is not the kind of person a “tough on crime” administration would be bringing into the country.
He apparently committed the murders at a law office in Madrid, Spain, realized the Spanish authorities were onto him, fled to Germany, and then ran from Germany to Venezuela. Venezuela has a no-extradition policy, so they didn’t send him back to Spain, but agreed to prosecute him for the Madrid murders in Venezuela. It was there that he was convicted and received a 30 year sentence.
He is currently running the streets of some American city as a free man. It will be interesting to hear the rationale the “tough on crime” Trump administration gives for not only freeing such a heinous criminal, but also setting him loose in an American city.
Maddow also brought up the other unavoidable elephant in the room—convicted child Sec trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell who it appears, is gearing up for a presidential pardon after being transferred to a cushy fed camp in Texas. Maxwell is also serving a 30 year sentence.
Bottom line, the Trump administration has to decide whether it wants to be tough on crime towards everybody, or just those the president disfavors. As it currently stands, the latter appears to be the case, and it’s not a good look.
An interesting segment on the 08/06/25 edition of MSNBC’s All In with Chris Hayes (Velshi subbing) delved into the widely reported “strategy session” that was supposed to take place at Vice President JD Vance’s residence to deal with the Jeffrey Epstein scandal. The scandal has engulfed the Trump White House and is leading to accusations of a coverup.
#BREAKING: Velshi in for Hayes: "…a coordinating session between a VP & DOJ officials is a sort of thing that Republicans would have made into a scandal before the Trump era, in fact, come to think of it, they did. Back in 2016, after a 30 minute get-together on an airport… pic.twitter.com/ZwAGcl9j0s
The MSNBC segment aptly pointed out the hypocritical Republican reaction back in 2016, when then AG Loretta Lynch was spotted at an airport tarmac chatting with former President Bill Clinton. The DOJ was at that time investigating Hillary Clinton–then the Democratic presidential candidate–over her email server. Many Republicans were very outraged by that meeting, accusing Bill Clinton and Lynch of conspiring to bury the email server probe. The firestorm surrounding the tarmac meeting almost led to AG Lynch’s resignation.
It is therefore quite interesting how the same Republican party which pushed for Lynch’s resignation sighting DOJ independence, is now very comfortable with the prospect of current AG Pam Bondi sitting down with Trump admin officials for a “strategy session” regarding the Epstein scandal which implicates President Trump.
What happened to their clamour for DOJ independence? It is a very hypocritical stance, and MSNBC’s All In crew deserves major kudos for calling it out
Back in February 2019, I wrote about the Trump-Epstein connection. My argument then, as it is now, is that Epstein & Trump were much closer than Trump has led the public to believe.
Well, a bombshell segment on the 07/16/25 edition of CNN’s Outfront with Erin Burnett has just confirmed how close the two were.
#BREAKING: Former Trump Hotel C.O.O. to🔥Erin: "One incident that I think, kind of proves their closeness [Trump & #Epstein] and how much they hung out together–one time, a Monday morning, I came in and the commission was waiting, the inspectors were waiting in my office. Donald… pic.twitter.com/Bn3PNNFyLU
It turns out, per a former Trump Hotel C.O.O., that Trump & Epstein once showed up at an Atlantic City casino at 1:30am on a Sunday with three women, one of whom was too young to be there(19). This raised a lot of concerns for the casino management who were afraid they may lose their license due to this.
The point is, you don’t run around at a casino in the wee hours of Sunday morning with just a casual friend. That’s someone you are really really close with.
U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi recently came out and declared the Jeffrey Epstein case officially closed. Epstein is the billionaire who was charged with child sex trafficking in 2019, but later died in prison while awaiting trial. The government declared his death a suicide, but there have been serious questions raised by some very credible voices, as to whether he really took his own life.
Part of the firestorm that has predictably erupted following DOJ’s abrupt closure of the Epstein case, stems from this theory that he was an intelligence asset tasked with a honey pot scheme aimed at compromising powerful U.S. figures. The argument in a nutshell, is that Epstein would befriend powerful figures and lure them into his illicit activities with minors, while secretly recording them for “kompromat”. These powerful figures, usually politicians, would then feel compelled to go with whatever the Deep State wanted–afraid to be exposed.
Among the loudest voices advancing this Deep State theory is longtime Trump ally Steve Bannon, who is now calling for a special prosecutor to be appointed to investigate everything about Epstein. Bannon argues that it is only through a special prosecutor probe of Epstein, that we will finally break the stranglehold the Deep State has on America.
BANNON: The real fight here is dismantling the deep state.
Epstein, Ukraine, the Middle East, the CCP infiltration: it's all connected to that same apparatus.
— Bannon’s WarRoom (@Bannons_WarRoom) July 9, 2025
It will be interesting to see how Bannon’s request for a special counsel probe plays out, or whether Congress decides to look into the matter via its various available investigative tools.
As someone who has consistently called for a new Church-type probe, I think this push for an Epstein special counsel probe dramatically increases the odds that a Church-type committee investigating our intelligence agencies, is where we will finally end—especially if it turns out that Epstein was indeed an intelligence asset.
Whitney Webb, an independent journalist best known for her work trying to expose Jeffrey Epstein’s child sex enterprise, recently made some very explosive allegations in a YouTube interview chief among them, that Trump’s ex wife Ivana trump (Ivanka’s mother) worked with Ghislaine Maxwell to recruit underage school girls in the New York area into Epstein’s child sex operation. This and other explosive allegations in the YouTube interview are based on a phone call Whitney Webb recently had with Maria Farmer, one of Epstein’s victims in the 1990s.
Webb specifically said regarding Ivana Trump(video at 4:40); “When she[Maria Farmer] told the FBI in 1996, she said the Clintons were part of it. She also said Donald Trump was part of it. One of the reasons she said that is because Ivana Trump, she said, was with Ghislaine Maxwell when she would go out to recruit girls for Epstein. It was her[Ghislaine] and Ivana Trump, Trump’s ex wife. They would go out together all the time and pick up these 12 year old girls in school uniforms and braces, exchange information with them and the next day they would be in Epstein’s office. She[Farmer] saw between 5 and 10 different girls every day go into Epstein’s office the whole two years she was there. Every day. This is in the 90s. So much of what we know from the other victims is after 2000. The FBI knew this then and they didn’t act and that’s why all those other victims exist. It’s just disgusting.”
Some of the bombshell allegations Whitney Webb makes in this interview are already fairly well circulated among the general public so Yours Truly will just mention them in passing while focusing more on the “new” and frankly more interesting bombshells (Ivana Trump being one of them). Whitney Webb for example says the Clintons were implicated and that the FBI covered up Epstein’s illicit conduct in the 1990s, claims that have been made repeatedly ever since the Epstein scandal broke.
Another interesting bombshell Whitney Webb dropped on the interview is that Victoria’s Secret’s Leslie Wexner and his wife Abigail were the masterminds behind Epstein’s child sex trafficking operation(see video at 8:00). According to Webb, young school girls would be lured into Epstein’s operation under the guise that they were being groomed to be Victoria’s Secret Models. If true, the billionaire Wexners could face very serious criminal conspiracy charges.
As for Vicky Ward, the journalist much celebrated for her Epstein pieces most notably her 2003 Vanity Fair piece, Whitney Webb says not so fast(see video at 12:00). According to Webb, Maria Farmer gave Vicky Ward details about Epstein’s child sex trafficking operation but Ward left them out of her bombshell Vanity Fair piece. As if that was not enough, Ward who was apparently an acquaintance of Ghislaine Maxwell, told Ghislaine that Maria Farmer talked to the FBI about her—essentially ratted out her source. Vicky Ward endangered Maria Farmer’s life so much that she went into hiding. Farmer apparently referred to Vicky Ward as a “monster”, according to Whitney Webb.
Farmer also told Whitney Webb that she fears some of the children involved in Epstein’s Florida operation may have been killed because out of some 500 children only about 30 of them came forward and the rest cannot be found(video at 21:30). She added that some of these children were really young(pre-teen). Importantly, Farmer said that Epstein’s legal team which included Alan Dershowitz, knew all the names of the missing children .
Whitney Webb also talked about a January 2001 article on the Evening Standard (U.K) that has since been scrapped from the internet, which said Epstein’s money came from his business links to three people–Leslie Wexner, Donald Trump and Bill Gates. Webb argues that nobody pushed back on this article(by one Nigel Russert) because back then(2001), Epstein was not a controversial figure(see video at 35:30). Webb also slammed as a total lie New York Times’ recent reporting that Bill Gates first met Epstein in 2011.
Farmer also told Webb that Epstein and people in his circle were extreme White Supremacists and she regularly overheard them speaking about other races, especially Blacks, in the most disgusting way(see video at 37:25). She said Epstein and his pals refused to go anywhere they thought there would be too many people of African descent.
Webb concluded by tying the entire Epstein scandal into a global intelligence operation involving Israel which Yours Truly will deliberately ignore because we will never get to the bottom of it(managing expectations). There are however some bombshell allegations that we could easily get answers to for example, whether Ivana Trump really helped Ghislaine Maxwell recruit young girls for Epstein, the missing 500 children who Dershowitz allegedly knows about, whether Vicky Ward(now at CNN) really ratted out Maria Farmer to Ghislaine Maxwell, whether Bill Gates knew Epstein in 2001 as opposed to 2011, whether Trump financed Epstein(another excuse for his tax returns), the Wexners’ involvement with Epstein, why the mainstream media refuses to act on stories by Maria Farmer and others, just to mention but a few.
Bottom line folks, as Yours Truly has repeatedly stated regarding Epstein’s stories, sunlight is the best disinfectant. It appears the more efforts are made to cover up Epstein’s child sex trafficking operation, the more bombshell revelations come up, the latest clearly being Ivana Trump. It will be interesting to hear what Ivana Trump says regarding these troubling allegations, assuming the mainstream media will be courageous enough to ask her. What will CNN do with Vicky Ward given the troubling revelations about her? Hmm–as Trump famously says, “We’ll see what happens.”
For those of you very happy with @Emolclause’s activism don’t shy away from the “tip jar” below on your way out. You may also Cash App
Email author at admin@grassrootsdempolitics.com
Become an Octapharma Plasma donor. Make up to $200 in one week and help save lives too! Learn More
CNN reports that prosecutors have subpoenaed the personal pilots of accused child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein in a move clearly aimed at corroborating victims’ accounts and possibly charging other actors.
It has been known for decades that Epstein befriended a lot of very powerful people and it was just a matter of time before prosecutors started digging into who among them accompanied Epstein on his illicit missions. The flight logs maintained by Epstein’s personal pilots are of course the perfect place for prosecutors to be digging for such information.
According to CNN reporter Kara Scannell, the relationship between Epstein and billionaire Leslie Wexner (the CEO of L Brands–the parent company of Victoria’s Secret), has attracted the attention of prosecutors.
Appearing on the Saturday morning edition of CNN’s NewDay, Kara Scannell said, “There are new details emerging about the relationship between L Brand’s CEO Leslie Wexner and Epstein. The New York Times is reporting how Epstein leveraged his relationship with the billionaire behind Victoria’s Secret for money and access to young aspiring models. According to The Times, Wexner gave Epstein power of attorney over his finances allowing Epstein to sign Wexner’s tax returns, borrow money in his name, and buy and sell properties. The financial ties between the men were also intertwined. According to The Times, Epstein bought at least two properties from Wexner including the New York mansion. Epstein also allegedly leveraged that friendship to gain access to women. According to a Santa Monica police report obtained by CNN, one woman said she met with Epstein in a California hotel room believing she was interviewing for a job as a Victoria’s Secret catalogue model but once inside, the woman alleges Epstein groped her…”
There is absolutely no question that Epstein’s very close personal and business relationship with Wexner raises a lot of eyebrows and prosecutors are justifiably curious about it. Is Wexner so ensnared by Epstein’s illicit conduct that he felt compelled to bow to his demands? Has Epstein been blackmailing Wexner using potentially compromising behavior the two have engaged in together over the years? These are the kind of questions beginning to pop up regarding the relationship between Epstein and Wexner and undoubtedly, there will be similar stories about other rich people Epstein dealt with, the most anticipated one being his relationship with Trump. CNN pointed out that Wexner’s camp has denied any involvement with Epstein regarding the child sex trafficking allegations.
Bottom line, as troubling as the allegations involved in Epstein’s child sex trafficking case are, his case presents a major test for the U.S. criminal justice system. For decades the charge has been levelled against the U.S. criminal justice system–that it is a two tier system that holds poor suspects to a very harsh standard while extending a lot of leniency to rich and powerful suspects, often times for more egregious crimes. Epstein’s case is clearly one where very rich and powerful people have committed horrific crimes against the most vulnerable victims–children. Will the U.S. criminal justice system rise up to the occasion and “throw the books” at the rich suspects or will it be the usual “slap on the wrist” treatment the public has become accustomed to? Only time will tell or as Trump famously says, “We’ll see what happens.”
For those of you very happy with @Emolclause’s activism don’t shy away from the “tip jar” below on your way out. You may also Cash App
Email author at admin@grassrootsdempolitics.com
Become an Octapharma Plasma donor. Make up to $200 in one week and help save lives too! Learn More
