Trump held Situation Room meetings over Epstein crisis, new book says

Even if you’re tired of hearing about Jeffrey Epstein (and who among us hasn’t felt that way at one time or another), President Donald Trump and his team are far more focused on these relentless controversies than they’ve ever admitted.

This (and many other intriguing revelations) is based on three years of reports for an upcoming book. “Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump” New York Times by reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan and is scheduled to be published in two weeks.

Whether you are a Trump supporter or detractor, the book is full of facts that make it clear that most or all of the major participants were collaborating with them. The president also gave Haberman and Swan a one-hour interview in March.

One key takeaway: Trump and White House officials have met repeatedly in the Situation Room to try to manage the crisis, even as they try to dismiss the endless feud stemming from Trump’s long-ago friendship with the deceased pedophile and sex offender as old or irrelevant news.

WHY IS MELANIA TRUMP DENIES ALLEGATIONS ABOUT JEFFREY EPSTEIN AND WANTS VICTIMS TO TESTIFY?

In early meetings, Vice President J.D. Vance argued passionately that some dubious or completely unsubstantiated more detailed allegations about Trump would eventually surface and that they should come out before the story.

Some argued that Vance “seemed panicked,” according to the book, and Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, who led the meetings, told others he was a conspiracy theorist. But Vance said he would push for the release of the full Epstein files no matter what Congress does.

In my opinion, the vice president was right.

REVEALED: TRUMP CALLED POLICE CHIEF TO SUPPORT EPSTEIN INVESTIGATION AND LAWS NAMED 6 PEOPLE WHO WERE PROTECTED FROM EXPOSURE

At another meeting, it was discussed whether Trump should pardon Ghislaine Maxwell, an Epstein supporter, Trump defender, and currently serving a 20-year prison sentence for sex trafficking of minors.

“Pardoning teenage girl trafficker Maxwell would create a major public relations problem,” Communications Director Steven Cheung warned.

Trump reportedly asked attorney general Pam Bondi to release the grand jury testimony (which is almost never confirmed) “based on the ridiculous amount of publicity given to Jeffrey Epstein.”

Former Attorney General Pam Bondi faced a barrage of questions about Epstein. (Bloomberg via Getty Images)

According to the book, during a hearing last summer, FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino, who had requested the files be released as a podcaster, began yelling at Bondi.

“You’ve screwed this up from the beginning,” he declared. “The way you talked about it — that stupid charade about the Epstein files, the ‘They’re on my desk’ nonsense, all the promises you made to the people there.”

Bongino and FBI Director Kash Patel told a White House official that Bondi should resign.

In a meeting with Wiles to smooth things over, Bongino accused the White House of ignoring his warnings of what he predicted would happen and stormed out of the Situation Room.

Bongino resigned in December and returned to the podcast business, where he felt he had given up millions of dollars. Trump fired Bondi in April.

Separately, Trump blasted conservative activist Charlie Kirk for allowing one of his events to turn into a “complaint fest” over the Epstein files. Kirk was tragically killed in September.

HOW PAM BONDI AND THE DEMOCRATS TURNED A STAND IN FRONT OF JEFFREY EPSTEIN’S VICTIMS INTO HYSTERIA

Another claim is attracting media attention and is almost certainly untrue, given that the accuser is not credible. This message comes secondhand from a woman who previously made allegations of sexual abuse and later retracted those allegations.

This woman, whom the Times named, claimed in an e-mail that she knew a second woman who claimed that Trump focused specifically on her nipples. One official described these discussions as “surreal.”

President Trump resisted his advisors at every opportunity. (Shawn Thew/EPA/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Here is my analysis:

Donald Trump didn’t want to do what his advisors wanted him to do. He resisted at every opportunity.

Last summer, the president began calling the Epstein affair a “SCAM” and a “hoax” by Democrats and attacked some pro-release members of his own party as “weaks” and later helped oust them in the primaries.

Although his personal frustrations continued to mount, his public attitude was that everything was a nuisance.

Some of the behind-the-scenes friction has focused on whether average voters care about the upheaval.

BILL GATES SAYS EPSTEIN TRIED TO USE THE MARRIAGE ISSUE TO GAIN ‘LEFT’ OVER HIM

What Trump had trouble understanding was that the MAGA base actually cared deeply about the issue. There was something unnerving about it. Some podcasters, such as Megyn Kelly, were criticizing the president for not releasing all the documents.

Trump aides debated putting it all on a website, but as Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche noted, the files clearly contained child pornography that could not be made public.

A memo from Trump pollster Tony Fabrizio said the “Epstein files” were the sixth most important issue discussed negatively by focus groups, behind issues like inflation and foreign policy but ahead of issues like crime and the military.

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The fiasco came up again yesterday when Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates told the Hill that he had no knowledge of Epstein’s crimes but had made poor decisions in associating with Epstein and was pressured into doing so by Epstein, who discovered he was unfaithful to his wife, according to Politico. They are now divorced.

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What is clear is that publishing this book will add fuel to the fire.