President Donald Trump skipped town Friday to head to Scotland, leaving the firestorm surrounding the Jeffrey Epstein scandal behind him.
But the crisis is not going anywhere anytime soon.
Trump has weathered many a political storm, and for a brief moment at the start of the week, it appeared the furor over his administration’s handling of the late sex offender’s case might be starting to subside.
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The steady trickle of allegations died away, and the administration’s efforts to distract and deflect showed signs of progress with his MAGA base.
But any relief from the Epstein onslaught proved fleeting, as a series of damaging reports and missteps sent the crisis spiraling out of control over three days, adding fuel to the flames and raising questions about whether this will be one scandal too far for this non-stick president.
Trump’s supporters appeared busy attacking the Wall Street Journal and Rupert Murdoch for revealing Trump’s alleged birthday message to the disgraced financier, which reportedly suggested Epstein and Trump shared secrets and the president turned his own signature into a doodle of a woman’s pubic hair.
Trump’s minions had also seized on the Russian meddling allegations that the White House had lobbed at the Obama administration.
But then a bombardment of new Epstein headlines began, ramping up the crisis.
On Wednesday, a new report appeared in the Wall Street Journal, alleging that Attorney General Pam Bondi told Trump in May that his name appeared in the Epstein documents multiple times.
The White House blasted the story as “fake news,” but it was quickly matched by similar reports by The New York Times and CNN.
It dropped one day after Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, who previously served as Trump’s personal criminal attorney, said he would sit down with Epstein’s convicted accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell.
The allegation that Bondi told Trump his name appeared in the documents also directly contradicted the president’s response of “no, no” when asked earlier this month on camera whether he’d been told by the attorney general that his name appeared in the files.
The same day as the Wall Street Journal report rocked Washington, a federal judge denied the Justice Department’s request to unseal grand jury transcripts from the investigation.
The decision sent officials back to the drawing board on how to appease the MAGA base and shore up their denial that members of the administration were covering for the president.
As if that was not enough to send the Trump administration scrambling, the cover being provided by Republican leadership on Capitol Hill was starting to break.
House Speaker Mike Johnson was able to avoid a vote on a bipartisan resolution to force the release of files, sending lawmakers home to their districts, but not before some GOP members rejected his push to give the Trump administration room to handle the case.
On Wednesday, House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer sent a subpoena for Maxwell’s testimony after a motion introduced by GOP Rep. Tim Burchett passed. House Republicans are seeking to question her at the federal prison in Florida on Aug. 11.
In another last-minute move before lawmakers left town for six weeks, Democrats on a House Oversight subcommittee were joined by Republicans in a vote to subpoena the Justice Department to turn over the Epstein files.
It happened as several GOP lawmakers warned their offices were fielding calls from constituents raising concerns about the Epstein case, signaling interest was not dissipating but intensifying.
Despite Johnson’s efforts to quell the storm, the cancellation of votes only sent Democrats into overdrive with their attacks on the case and sparked additional GOP criticism.
Apart from the subpoenas, a bipartisan resolution to force the release of the Epstein files is expected to come back to haunt Republican leadership when they return in September from recess, giving the issue additional time to bubble well into the fall.
On Thursday, The New York Times published a story claiming that the Epstein birthday book from 2003 was real, and that Trump’s name was listed as a contributor despite his denials. The report also provided another handwritten note where Trump called Epstein the “greatest,” dated October 1997.
The disastrous week culminated with the president’s frustrated departure from the White House on a planned visit overseas as the howls for more information intensified stateside.
Podcaster Joe Rogan tore into the Epstein case and its crazy handling in his latest episode on Friday, fueling the outrage.
At the same time, Trump’s deputy attorney general sat down with Maxwell for a second round of interviews, after meeting with her for six hours of questioning on Thursday at a Florida courthouse.
As Epstein’s accomplice shared everything she knows, according to her lawyer, Trump would not rule out a presidential pardon on Friday for Maxwell despite her being convicted by a jury for the trafficking of teenage girls for sex.
Maxwell’s lawyer David Oscar Markus said after day two of the interview that the team has not spoken to Trump about a pardon, but indicated it will push for one.
“We hope he exercises that power in a right and just way,” her lawyer said.
He also said his client answered questions about 100 different people during her meeting with Blanche.
The president simply said he had not thought about the pardon, but he admitted he could do it as president.
Trump also insisted he had his own list of Epstein associates that the media should be looking at as he tried to steer questions away from his own relationship with the pedophile.
However, the president’s comments only added fuel to the political inferno raging back home as he skipped across the pond to play golf on one of his Scottish courses, and meet a few foreign leaders.
