President Donald Trump has helped Speaker Mike Johnson survive every political storm of his speakership. Now, Johnson is stuck in a crisis of Trump’s own making over Jeffrey Epstein — and there’s no clear way forward without risking the ire of the speaker’s most critical ally.

"I think true accountability, especially for people that have been victimized by the Epstein episode, requires full transparency," Grassley said.

The Jeffrey Epstein morass surrounding President Donald Trump is deepening amid growing defiance by some Republicans and despite the administration’s most inflammatory attempt yet at distraction.

The British socialite and convicted sex offender is a new focus in the calls for increased transparency in the Jeffrey Epstein case.

THE CRISIS IS HERE: Yesterday afternoon, the Wall Street Journal dropped a four-bylined bombshell: Attorney General Pam Bondi and Deputy AG Todd Blanche briefed Trump in May that his name appeared multiple times in the Epstein files alongside many others.

Ghislaine Maxwell's attorney has said that if she agrees to testify in front of the House of Representatives Oversight Committee she would do so "truthfully."

A lawyer who has represented over 200 victims of Jeffrey Epstein says the existence of a book given to the sex offender for his 50th birthday is an “absolute fact”. Attorney Bradley Edwards says the 2003 birthday book,

Stephen Colbert feigned surprise at reports that the president had already been told he was in the Epstein files: “But he said he hardly knew the guy!”

House lawmakers ran to catch flights Wednesday afternoon -- leaving for their August recess a day early -- without taking a substantive vote on releasing the Epstein files. On their way out the door, some Republicans acknowledged they're bracing for serious Epstein-related questions from the MAGA base when they get home.