Bondi briefed president in spring; House set to subpoena DOJ, Maxwell.

By Wire Reports

Attorney General Pam Bondi informed President Donald Trump in the spring that his name appeared in the Jeffrey Epstein files, according to three people with knowledge of the exchange.

Meanwhile, a House subcommittee on Wednesday voted to subpoena the Department of Justice for files in the sex trafficking investigation into Epstein, and the panel is poised to subpoena controversial testimony from Ghislaine Maxwell, who is serving a lengthy prison sentence after being convicted of helping Epstein sexually abuse underage girls.  Also Wednesday, a judge rejected a Trump administration request to unseal transcripts from grand jury investigations of Epstein years ago in Florida.

Bondi's disclosure came as part of a broader briefing on the reexamination of the case by FBI agents and prosecutors. It was made by Bondi during a meeting that also included the deputy attorney general, Todd Blanche, and covered a variety of topics. Bondi frequently meets with Trump to brief him on various matters, officials said.

Bondi and Blanche informed the president that his name, as well as those of other high­ profile figures, came up in their reexamination of documents connected to the case that had not previously been made public. Trump, a friend of the disgraced financier, has already appeared in documents related to the investigation. Appearing at the White House in February, Bondi distributed a series of binders about the Epstein files with the phone numbers of the president's former wife and his daughter in them.

"As part of our routine briefing, we made the president aware of the findings," Bondi and Blanche wrote in a statement in response to questions about the briefing. "Nothing in the files warranted further investigation or prosecution."

Steven Cheung, the White House communications director, would not address questions about the briefing, but called any suggestion that Trump was engaged in wrongdoing related to Epstein "fake news" and said Trump ejected Epstein from his club, Mar-a-Lago, for "being a creep."

Department officials have regularly informed some White House officials about developments in the inquiry. Such communications are permissible under the law.

The conversation was reported earlier by The Wall Street Journal.

One person close to Trump, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said that White House officials were not concerned about the latest disclosures given that Trump's name appeared in the first round of information that Bondi released.

The House Oversight Committee's deposition of Maxwell is set to take place on Aug. 11 at the Federal Correctional Institution Tallahassee, Florida, where she is being held.

Democrats successfully goaded GOP lawmakers to defy Trump and Republican leadership on Wednesday to support the Department of Justice subpoena vote.

Democrats on a subcommittee of the powerful House Committee on Oversight made a motion for the subpoena in the afternoon, just hours before the House was scheduled to end its July work session and depart Washington for a monthlong break.

Three Republicans on the panel voted with Democrats for the subpoena, sending it through on an 8-2 vote tally.

The Republican subcommittee chairman, Rep. Clay Higgins of Louisiana, said that work was beginning to draft the subpoena but that it would take some time for both sides to work out the final language.

"If the Republican Party, if our colleagues on this committee don't join us in this vote, then what they're essentially doing is joining President Donald Trump in complicity," Rep. Summer Lee, the Pennsylvania Democrat who made the motion for the subpoena, told reporters outside the hearing room.

The move by Democrats showed how they were doing practically everything in their power to force Republicans to act on the Epstein files. House Speaker Mike Johnson - caught between demands from Trump and clamoring from his own members for the House to act - has resisted calls for action and prepared to send the House home a day early.

Johnson told reporters earlier Wednesday there was no need to vote on legislation calling for the release of the Epstein files this week because the Trump administration is "already doing everything within their power to release them."

U.S. District Judge Robin Rosenberg in West Palm Beach, Florida, said the Trump administration's request to release grand jury documents from 2005 and 2007 did not meet any of the extraordinary exceptions under federal law that could make them public.

The Justice Department last week asked the judge to release records to quell a storm among supporters of Trump who believe there was a conspiracy to protect Epstein's clients,

conceal videos of crimes being committed and other evidence. A similar request for the work of a different grand jury is pending in New York.

In 2008, Epstein cut a deal with federal prosecutors in Florida that allowed him to escape more severe federal charges and instead plead guilty to state charges of procuring a person under 18 for prostitution and solicitation of prostitution.

Blanche had asked judges in Florida and New York to unseal transcripts from grand jury proceedings that resulted in indictments against Epstein and former girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell, saying "transparency to the American public is of the utmost importance to this Administration."

Federal grand juries hear evidence in secret and then decide whether there is enough for an indictment. Experts say the transcripts likely would not reveal much because prosecutors typically are trying only to present enough material to get charges and don't introduce the entire investigation.

Epstein years later was arrested in 2019 on federal sex trafficking charges, while Maxwell was charged with helping him abuse teenage girls.

Epstein was found dead in his cell at a federal jail in New York City about a month after he was arrested. Investigators concluded he killed himself. Maxwell later was convicted at trial and sentenced to 20 years in prison.

The case attracted attention because of Epstein and Maxwell's links to famous people, including royals, presidents and billionaires. It also led to some of the biggest conspiracy theories animating Trump's base.

The furor over records has been stoked by the Justice Department. In February, far-right influencers were invited to the White House and provided with Epstein files documents that had largely already been in the public domain.

The department on July 7 acknowledged that Epstein did not have a list of clients. It also said no more files related to his case would be made public.

The New York Times, The Associated Press and Bloomberg contributed to this report.