Controversy over the handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files had dogged the Trump administration for weeks. So as Congress went on their typical August recess, President Donald Trump’s team began discussing ways they could finally get ahead of the story.
They debated in particular whether to release audio and transcripts from Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche’s interview with Ghislaine Maxwell, an Epstein associate who herself was convicted on federal charges stemming from his alleged sexual abuse of children, officials familiar with the matter told CNN.
They considered a number of things, including ensuring that victims’ names would be redacted and contemplating whether those redactions would fuel a backlash and allegations of a coverup.
“This wasn’t handled well,” one senior White House official said of the original roll out of the Department of Justice memo in July declaring no more materials would be released. “We’d like to take control of the narrative.”
On Friday, with the Justice Department scheduled to hand over files from the Epstein case to Congress, the administration published the Maxwell audio and transcript to the internet. The move rapidly drew media attention away from the FBI searches of Trump national security adviser-turned-critic John Bolton’s home and office and on to a subject that Trump had complained in the past was getting too much airtime.
