Washington — US House of Representatives speaker Mike Johnson said on Sunday he believed the approaching vote on releasing justice department files related to Jeffrey Epstein should help put to rest allegations that President Donald Trump had any connection to the late sex offender’s abuse and trafficking of underage girls.
The House will vote this week on whether to release more files from the case of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
“They’re doing this to go after President Trump on this theory that he has something to do with it. He does not,” Johnson, the Republican leader in the House, said on the Fox News Sunday programme.
“Epstein is their entire game plan, so we’re going to take that weapon out of their hands,” Johnson said of Democrats. “Let’s just get this done and move it on. There’s nothing to hide.”
Though Trump and Epstein were photographed together decades ago, the president has said the two men fell out before Epstein’s convictions. Emails released last week by a House committee showed Epstein believed Trump “knew about the girls”, though it was unclear what that phrase meant.
Trump has since instructed the justice department to investigate prominent Democrats’ ties to Epstein.
The battle over disclosure of more Epstein-related documents, a subject Trump himself campaigned on, has opened a rift with some of his allies in Congress.
Trump late on Friday withdrew his support for US representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, long one of his staunchest supporters in Congress, following her criticism of Republicans on certain issues, including the handling of the Epstein files.
On Friday, he referred to Greene as “Wacky” and a “ranting lunatic” who complained he would not take her calls. On Saturday, he called her a “Lightweight Congresswoman”, “Traitor” and a “disgrace” to the Republican Party.
In an appearance on CNN’s State of the Union programme on Sunday, Greene said she did not believe the files would implicate the president, but she renewed her call for further transparency.
“I don’t believe that rich, powerful people should be protected if they have done anything wrong,” she said.
Greene accused Trump on Saturday of putting her life in danger, saying his online criticism has triggered a wave of threats against her. Once a Trump loyalist who has more recently taken positions at odds with the president, she said she has been contacted by private security firms warning about her safety.
“Aggressive rhetoric attacking me has historically led to death threats and multiple convictions of men who were radicalised by the same type [of] rhetoric being directed at me right now,” Greene wrote in a post on X. “This time by the President of the United States.”
Greene has accused Trump of lying about her and trying to intimidate other Republicans before a House vote on the files about Epstein, a convicted sex offender who was friendly with Trump in the 1990s and 2000s before they had a falling out.
Reuters
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