According to reports, the White House staff was so stunned by the revelations in the Justice Department’s release of the files related to the late Jeffrey Epstein concerning President Donald Trump that it held a meeting without him.
The meeting is one of the many details found in the upcoming book by reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump. It was convened by Vice President JD Vance in the Situation Room which he raised heavy concern that the files not being fully released would split the president’s MAGA base of supporters.
Susie Wiles, the White House Chief of Staff, would go on to view Vance as someone who bought into the conspiracy theories surrounding the files. Vance had suggested that former Fox News host Tucker Carlson interview Ghislaine Maxwell to quell the growing disdain from the voter base. That idea was summarily shot down by Wiles along with White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt and Communications Director Steven Cheung.
There was also concern over one Epstein victim’s allegation that Trump had a “predilection for nipples” contained in some of the files, which now-acting Attorney General Todd Blanche worked to keep from being publicly available.
Another revelation of from the book showed how the Trump administration was split, with then-Attorney General Pam Bondi’s backtracking about releasing all of the files putting former FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino against other members of the cabinet over how Bondi handled the files. “This is going to be President Trump’s Iran-contra,” he was reported to have said.
The reactions to the article from observers online displayed concern over how truly messy the Trump administration has been in blocking transparency of the Epstein Files. In a post on X, formerly Twitter, one user wrote: “The Situation Room exists for wars and terrorist attacks. Trump’s team used it to manage Epstein spin. Not justice. Not victims. Damage control. That’s who they work for.”
In a post on Bluesky, Harper’s Magazine Contributing Editor Scott commended the reporting. Others were upset that Haberman and Swan would keep such detailed reporting for a book they would profit from. The White House has not commented on the report, which was published on Wednesday (June 10).
