Free Republic

President Trump and his administration on Wednesday ramped up a pressure campaign on congressional Republicans who are pushing for a full release of the Justice Department’s files about the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, rushing to head off a House vote on the matter. Top officials met in the White House Situation Room on Wednesday with Representative Lauren Boebert, a Colorado Republican who is backing an effort to force a House vote on whether to demand the release of the files. She was summoned to sit down with top Justice Department and F.B.I. officials, according to two people familiar with...

During a swearing-in ceremony for Paul Atkins as the new chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, President Donald Trump was asked point-blank about the long-awaited release of documents tied to Jeffrey Epstein. A reporter asked, “When can we expect the Epstein documents to be released?” Trump replied, “Which documents?” “The Epstein files,” the reporter clarified. President Trump responded calmly but pointedly: “I don’t know. I’ll speak to the attorney general about that. I really don’t know.”

NEW YORK (AP) — A former U.S. Army mechanical engineer used his job at a military research center to fetch dozens of classified defense documents for an Israeli agent, prosecutors say. The agent — who was at the center of another, infamous 1980s espionage scandal — provided Ben-ami Kadish with wish lists of secret records, according to prosecutors. Over six years, Kadish took home information about nuclear weapons, a modified version of an F-15 fighter jet and the U.S. Patriot missile air defense system, and he let the unidentified Israeli consulate worker photograph the documents in his basement, prosecutors say....