Trump’s DOJ musters ‘courage’ to ask Ghislaine Maxwell what she knows about Epstein case: Latest updates – UK Times

Hunter Biden has claimed that his father Joe Biden was groggy from taking the sleeping aid Ambien during his presidential debate against Donald Trump last year, accounting for his disastrous performance.

“I know exactly what happened in that debate,” Hunter told YouTube personality Andrew Callaghan in an interview released on Monday.

“He flew around the world. He’s 81 years old. He’s tired. They give him Ambien to be able to sleep and he gets up on the stage and looks like a deer in the headlights.”

The Daily Show leapt to the defense of his former co-star last night, delivering an impassioned attack on CBS for bowing to the thin-skinned president’s demands rather than fight its corner.

Greg Evans has the story.

The host of MSNBC’s Morning Joe presented a full list of subjects the president has been posting about on social media over the last two weeks, finding 14 separate issues that he has “thrown at the wall” as part of his attempt to distract his base from the Jeffrey Epstein furore.

This was what was on Scarborough’s rundown:

• Joe Biden
• Barack Obama
• Adam Schiff
• Martin Luther King Jr
• Hillary Clinton
• Ex-USAID administrator
• Harvard University
• Immigration
• Rosie O’Donnell
• Tariffs
• NPR and PBS
• Idaho student murders
• Washington Commanders
• Cleveland Guardians

A fairly classic Trump mix there, with O’Donnell remaining an improbable obsession even after her move to Ireland.

Here’s what the New York progressive Democrat has to say about Mike Johnson kicking the can down the road, seemingly in the hope that MAGA will have forgotten about Jeffrey Epstein after the summer recess:

All very David Brent from Speaker Johnson isn’t it?

“They won’t remember…”

Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson has backtracked on his surprise break with President Donald Trump over the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files and now says the administration needs “space” to vet them.

“We need the administration to have the space to do what it is doing,” Speaker Johnson told reporters at the Capitol on Monday when pushed on whether he would be holding a vote in the House of Representatives on releasing all documents pertaining to the late billionaire pedophile held by the Justice Department.

“If further congressional action is necessary or appropriate, then we’ll look at that,” Johnson said, adding that there would be no such vote before the House breaks for its six-week summer vacation on Thursday.

Joe Sommerlad has the details:

Todd Blanche, Trump’s former personal attorney, has said the Department of Justice will reach out to the late financier’s former girlfriend and fixer, now behind bars, to find out what she knows about Epstein.

“I’ve contacted her counsel,” he says. “I intend to meet with her soon. No one is above the law – and no lead is off-limits.”

Here’s a pertinent question:

And here’s our report from Kelly Rissman.

House Republicans brought legislative business to a near-standstill ahead of the summer recess on Monday evening.

GOP leaders are now weighing whether to send the House home as early as Wednesday, after the Rules Committee recessed amid a heated bipartisan clash over the potential release of Epstein-related documents, according to Politico.

Democrats threatened to force a vote on the issue, derailing planned floor action for the week.

House Speaker Mike Johnson and House Majority Leader Steve Scalise denied on Monday that the lower chamber would be sent home early.

“We’re not sending anybody home,” Johnson said.

Civil rights activist Rev. Al Sharpton questioned whether the Trump administration’s release of thousands of files on Martin Luther King Jr’s assassination was truly about transparency – or driven by another motive.

In a statement early Tuesday morning, Sharpton said the unsealing of the files was “not about transparency or justice.”

“It’s a desperate attempt to distract people from the firestorm engulfing Trump over the Epstein files and the public unraveling of his credibility among the Maga base,” he said.

Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s daughter has urged Donald Trump to release the full, unredacted Jeffrey Epstein files after thousands of documents surrounding the civil rights activist’s assassination were unsealed.

Bernice King, 62, issued a blunt request to the president after Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard announced the release of more than 230,000 pages tied to MLK’s 1968 murder, promising “complete transparency” over the case.

“Now, do the Epstein files,” King tweeted on Monday evening, along with a photograph of her father.