Speaker Mike Johnson Is Finally Breaking With Trump… Over The Epstein Files

His statements come over a week after the Justice Department and FBI said they wouldn’t be releasing any additional files about Epstein after concluding that there wasn’t evidence the disgraced financier kept a so-called “client list” to blackmail influential figures or that he had died by means other than suicide.

In a post this past weekend, Trump doubled down on this stance, defending Attorney General Pam Bondi and calling for his followers to move on. On Tuesday, he softened his position somewhat, stating that Bondi should “release whatever she thinks is credible.”

“I agree with the sentiment that we need to put it out here,” Johnson said, noting that Bondi should explain what she meant when she once referenced having the Epstein client list on her desk. “She needs to come forward and explain that to everybody,” Johnson said. (White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt has said that Bondi was referencing the “entirety of all the paperwork” related to the Epstein case.)

The speaker’s position points to blowback Trump and his administration have received from his base over the handling of the Epstein files, and highlights how Republican lawmakers are trying to acknowledge the uproar while still backing the president.

Johnson and other House Republicans were also widely criticized Tuesday for claiming to want transparency about the Epstein files, but stymying a Democratic effort to push for their release.

“Republicans spent years screaming for the Epstein Files to be released. Now Donald Trump wants to hide them. Today, every R can vote to release the files. Will they give the American people transparency or block the truth to protect Trump?” Rep. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.) wrote on X.