White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt sidestepped repeated questions from reporters regarding reports that top Trump administration officials met with Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) to discuss the Justice Department case files related to Jeffrey Epstein.
The meeting was allegedly to pressure Boebert not to sign a petition in Congress that would force a vote on the release of the Epstein files. The petition currently needs 218 signatures, which could happen later Wednesday after Rep. Adelita Grijalva (D-AZ) is sworn into office.
“Doesn’t it show transparency that members of the Trump administration are willing to brief members of Congress whenever they please?” Leavitt asked during Wednesday’s press briefing.
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“Doesn’t that show our level of transparency? Doesn’t that show the level of transparency when we are willing to sit down with members of Congress and address their concerns?” Leavitt continued. “That’s a defining factor of transparency, having discussions, having discussions with members of Congress about various issues. And I’m not going to detail conversations that took place in the Situation Room, in the press briefing room.”
It is unclear if Leavitt misspoke when she said conversations took place in the Situation Room.
Reps. Thomas Massie (R-KY) and Ro Khanna (D-CA) led the measure to force a vote on the release of the file in Congress, but if Boebert removes her signature, they will have fallen short of the 218 votes. Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and Nancy Mace (R-SC) are the two other Republicans who have signed onto the petition.
CNN first reported that Attorney General Pam Bondi, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, and FBI Director Kash Patel were among the officials who attended the meeting.
Trump took to social media to slam Democrats over the Epstein case after the briefing concluded.
“The Democrats are trying to bring up the Jeffrey Epstein Hoax again because they’ll do anything at all to deflect on how badly they’ve done on the Shutdown, and so many other subjects. Only a very bad, or stupid, Republican would fall into that trap,” he wrote on Truth Social.
“The Democrats cost our Country $1.5 Trillion Dollars with their recent antics of viciously closing our Country, while at the same time putting many at risk — and they should pay a fair price. There should be no deflections to Epstein or anything else, and any Republicans involved should be focused only on opening up our Country, and fixing the massive damage caused by the Democrats!” he continued.
Before the Wednesday press briefing, House Democrats on the Oversight Committee released emails from Epstein, including at least one that Epstein wrote to confidant Ghislaine Maxwell that stated Trump had “spent hours” at Epstein’s house with sex trafficking victims.
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“These emails prove absolutely nothing other than the fact that President Trump did nothing wrong, and what President Trump has always said is that he was from Palm Beach, and so was Jeffrey Epstein,” Leavitt said, denouncing the emails.
“Jeffrey Epstein was a member at Mar-a-Lago until President Trump kicked him out because Jeffrey Epstein was a pedophile, and he was a creep,” she added.