The White House is dodging questions about whether the president will meet with survivors of Jeffrey Epstein’s abuse – as one Democratic lawmaker says the effort to release the files related to the deceased pedophile is “not about Donald Trump.”
Rep. Ro Khanna, one of two congressional lawmakers leading efforts to get the Trump administration to release files related to the disgraced financier, says he plans to ask the president to meet with Epstein accusers at the White House this week, News Nation reported.
The White House declined to commit to a meeting with a spokesperson telling the outlet: “They are only pretending to care about these victims now as they attempt to score political points against President Trump.” The Independent has contacted the White House for comment.
Meanwhile, Khanna has insisted the push for the files has nothing to do with Trump, but would be a way to bring justice to survivors.
“So, it’s not about Donald Trump. I don’t even know how involved Trump was. There are a lot of other people who are involved who have to be held accountable,” Khanna said Sunday during an appearance on NBC News’ Meet the Press.
Khanna said many of the survivors who have already spoken out about their experiences with Epstein will be in Washington, D.C., Tuesday, and that he hoped Trump would meet them then.
The California Rep. had teamed up with Republican Rep. Thomas Massie, of Kentucky, in a bipartisan effort to get Congress to release the controversial “files” in the case. House Speaker Mike Johnson had tried to avoid a vote on the files but last week the petition reached 218 signatures, forcing a vote on the measure on the House floor.
Khanna’s efforts to set up a meeting with Epstein’s accusers and Trump comes as the president suddenly shifted course late Sunday and called on House Republicans to vote for the release of the Epstein files.
Trump called the situation a distraction from his accomplishments in office, and said that the lawmakers investigating Epstein’s alleged ties to powerful people, including himself, “can have whatever they are legally entitled to.”
“I DON’T CARE!” Trump wrote on Truth Social, looking ahead to the upcoming House floor vote, expected to be held Tuesday.
Before the switch-up, Trump had slammed GOP representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene and Thomas Massie because they supported their Democratic colleagues in securing the release of the Justice Department’s documents concerning the sex offender, who died by suicide while awaiting trial six years ago.
Trump’s change of heart also comes as the House Oversight Committee released 20,000 pages of emails and documents from Epstein’s estate last week.
While Trump’s name appeared across many of the emails, including those between the late pedophile and his accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein did not accuse the president of any wrongdoing or illegal activity in the messages.
Trump himself did not send or receive any of the emails. The president has consistently denied any knowledge of Epstein’s alleged crimes, saying that the two stopped being friends years ago.
“These emails prove absolutely nothing other than the fact that President Trump did nothing wrong,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters last Wednesday.
Before Trump changed his mind, Khanna noted that releasing the files would likely be a “political win” for Trump, as the president is “losing his MAGA base on this.”
“The reason he’s losing it is he ran saying, ‘There’s a corrupt governing elite that has shafted you,’ that ‘This is the Epstein class versus forgotten Americans, and I’m going to stand up for forgotten Americans,’” Khanna told NBC. “He’s forgotten those forgotten Americans, and we are saying that we are going to stand up for survivors, for America’s kids and we’re going to hold this class accountable.”
Also on Sunday, women who survived abuse by Epstein released a powerful video urging House Republicans to vote to release all of the files ahead of Tuesday’s vote.
In the video, the group of women held up photos from when they allegedly first met the sex offender as teenagers and said it was “time to bring the secrets out of the shadows.”
The public service announcement was released by World Without Exploitation, a group that campaigns against sexual exploitation.
