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(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump on Friday suggested there is no “smoking gun” in the Jeffrey Epstein files as he seeks to downplay a case that’s long animated his MAGA supporters.

“If there was a ‘smoking gun’ on Epstein, why didn’t the Dems, who controlled the ‘files’ for four years, and had Garland and Comey in charge, use it? BECAUSE THEY HAD NOTHING!!!” Trump wrote on his conservative social media platform.

The post comes after Trump announced Thursday night that he was ordering Attorney General Pam Bondi to seek the release of additional Epstein material.

Trump said he asked Bondi to “produce any and all pertinent Grand Jury testimony, subject to Court approval.”

Bondi, in response, said action could come in court as soon as Friday. But the release of any grand jury materials could take longer, subject to a legal process to consider impact on victims and ultimately approval of a federal judge.

According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, Trump allegedly sent Epstein a letter in 2003 for his 50th birthday. The president is now threatening to sue the paper, and in an interview with the Journal, denied writing the letter. ABC News has not been able to confirm the existence of the letter.

“I look forward to getting Rupert Murdoch to testify in my lawsuit against him and his ‘pile of garbage’ newspaper, the WSJ. That will be an interesting experience!!!” the president wrote on his social media platform Friday.

The move from Trump to order the attorney general to seek the release of additional grand jury material comes after a week of intense pressure from his MAGA supporters to do more on Epstein following a brief memo from the Justice Department and FBI stating no further disclosure “would be appropriate or warranted.”

The memo stated a review from the DOJ and FBI found no evidence that Epstein kept a so-called “client list” of associates or that he blackmailed any prominent individuals, and also confirmed the disgraced financier died by suicide in prison while awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges.

Bondi days ago had said the “memo speaks for itself.”

Between then and now, Trump has tried to tamp down intrigue into Epstein that’s been fueled by right-wing figures for years, including conspiracy theories of a “deep state” protecting the country’s elites.

He has called the Epstein files a “Democratic hoax” against him and those Republican supporters who are questioning his administration’s handling of them as “stupid” and “foolish.”

But his administration has shut down the idea of appointing a special prosecutor in the Epstein case.

“The idea was floated from someone in the media to the president. The president would not recommend a special prosecutor in the Epstein case. That’s how he feels,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters at Thursday’s briefing.

Sen. Dick Durbin, the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, penned three separate letters to Bondi, FBI Director Kash Patel and FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino to raise questions about discrepancies concerning the Epstein files and about the July 7 memo from the administration concerning Epstein.

Durbin wrote that his office received information that Bondi “pressured the FBI” to enlist 1,000 personnel, along with New York field office personnel, to review approximately 100,000 Epstein related records and to “flag” any records in which Trump was mentioned. He asked Bondi to respond to a number of questions concerning her personal review of the Epstein documents.

ABC News’ Allison Pecorin contributed to this report.

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(WASHINGTON) — The Trump administration has unfrozen over a billion dollars for critical after-school and summer education programming, a senior administration official told ABC News.

“The programmatic review is over for 21st Century Community Learning Centers (21st CCLC),” the senior administration official said. “Funds will be released to the states. Guardrails have been put in place to ensure these funds are not used in violation of Executive Orders,” the official said in a statement to ABC News.

The official did not provide further details on the “guardrails” for the program. 21st Century Community Learning Centers — the chief federal funding stream for after-school and summer-learning programs — supports more than 10,000 local programs serving more than 1 million children nationwide. Congress appropriated $1.329 billion for the programs this fiscal year.

ABC News’ Aidan Gellert contributed to this report.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

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(WASHINGTON) — Facing uproar from his MAGA base over the Jeffrey Epstein files, President Donald Trump has called for Attorney General Pam Bondi “to produce any and all pertinent Grand Jury testimony, subject to Court approval” related to the case.

Bondi responded on social media Thursday evening, saying, “We are ready to move the court tomorrow to unseal the grand jury transcripts.”

It’s not immediately clear from the social media postings how extensive the administration’s request to unseal the transcripts would be.

The release of any grand jury materials, which are secret, would be subject to a legal process and the approval of a federal judge in the Southern District of New York, where Epstein was charged before he died by suicide in 2019.

A judge would likely consider the impact of the release on victims, which courts have gone to great lengths to protect, as well as any parties who may be implicated in the case and want the information to remain secret.

Crucially, the 2019 case pertains to allegations against Epstein and his alleged sex crimes, not the broader questions posed by many of Trump’s supporters about who else, if anyone, might have been involved.

The DOJ and FBI have numerous other unclassified records in the case that they said they will not disclose, despite vowing in February to “release the remaining documents upon review and redaction to protect the identities of Epstein’s victims.”

An “evidence list” released in February offers a roadmap to some of these unreleased records, including visitor records to Epstein’s private island as well as wiretap records for his convicted associate Ghislaine Maxwell.

Earlier this month, the DOJ and FBI released a memo stating no further records in the case would be released, saying “much of the material is subject to court-ordered sealing” and that the agencies “will not permit the release of child pornography” or sensitive details pertaining to the victims.

The agencies found no evidence that Epstein kept a “client list” of associates or that he blackmailed any prominent individuals and concluded no investigation into uncharged third party was warranted.

The brief memo put out by the DOJ and FBI stoked furor among Trump’s diehard supporters after years of prominent right-wing figures pushing accusations about Epstein and the “deep state” that’s protecting elites.

Trump’s since sought various ways to put out the political firestorm, coming to Bondi’s defense while also saying she should release what she deems “credible.”

Shifting explanation from Trump

In Trump’s call for Bondi to produce the grand jury testimony, he said it was a “SCAM, perpetuated by the Democrats,” and that it “should end, right now!”

This is a shift from his previous statement of calling the Epstein files a “hoax” and those Republican supporters who are questioning his administration’s handling of it as “stupid” and “foolish.”

Trump, in a phone interview with “Just the News” on Real America’s Voice on Wednesday night, alleged without providing evidence that Democrats and former officials doctored files relating to the disgraced financier and convicted sex offender.

The comments came when Trump was asked if he wanted one prosecutor to look into the broad subject of political prosecution.

“Well, I think it’s in the case of Epstein, they’ve already looked at it, and they are looking at it, and I think all they have to do is put out anything credible,” Trump said.

“But you know, that was run by the Biden administration for four years. I can imagine what they put into files, just like they did with the others,” Trump continued. “I mean, the Steele dossier was a total fake, right? It took two years to figure that out for the people, and all of the things that you mentioned were fake.”

“So I would imagine if they were run by Chris Wray and they were run by Comey, and because it was actually even before that administration, they’ve been running these files, and so much of the things that we found were fake with me,” Trump said.

Despite Trump’s claims that Democrats “put” things in the files, many documents relating to Epstein, including those that mention Trump and several prominent Democrats, have been public for years.

No special prosecutor

And the White House on Thursday shut down the idea of appointing a special prosecutor in the Epstein case.

“The idea was floated from someone in the media to the president. The president would not recommend a special prosecutor in the Epstein case. That’s how he feels,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters at the briefing.

Asked to clarify what part of the Epstein saga is a “hoax” as Trump claimed, Leavitt only continued to criticize Democrats.

“The president is referring to the fact that Democrats have now seized on this as if they ever wanted transparency when it comes to Jeffrey Epstein, which is an asinine suggestion for any Democrat to make,” she said. “The Democrats had control of this building, the White House, for four years, and they didn’t do a dang thing when it came to transparency in regards to Jeffrey Epstein and his heinous crimes.”

Epstein was arrested in 2019 and died in prison by suicide while awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges while Trump was president.

“Some of the naive Republicans fall right into line, like they always do,” the president said on “Just the News.”

Calls for transparency

Calls for transparency on Epstein came from several Republicans on Capitol Hill on Wednesday. And Trump’s own former vice president, Mike Pence, called for the administration to “release all of the files” regarding the Epstein investigation.

Leavitt on Thursday defended the administration’s handling of the Epstein files and attempted to distance Trump from further decision-making on the case.

Leavitt said it would be up to the Justice Department and Bondi to release any other “credible” evidence.

“In terms of redactions or grand jury seals, those are questions for the Department of Justice. Those are also questions for the judges who have that information under a seal. And that would have to be requested and judge would have to approve it. That’s out of the president’s control,” she said when asked why they wouldn’t release the files, with sensitive information redacted, in order to provide more transparency.

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(WASHINGTON) — Annie Tomasini on Friday became the third Biden administration official to plead the Fifth Amendment in a House panel’s investigation into former President Joe Biden’s mental fitness and use of a presidential autopen while in office.

Tomasini was called on to appear before the Republican-led House Oversight Committee for a closed-door interview.

Tomasini, who served as the deputy chief of staff to Biden, invoked the Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination and declined to answer questions, according to Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer.

Comer, who did not attend the hearing on Friday, subsequently criticized what he called a “pattern of key Biden confidants seeking to shield themselves from criminal liability.”

“It’s unbelievable that Ms. Tomasini and others refuse to answer basic questions about President Biden’s fitness to serve. It’s apparent they would rather hide key information to protect themselves and Joe Biden than be truthful with the American people about this historic scandal,” Comer said in a statement.

Tomasini didn’t take questions from reporters as she left the Rayburn House Office Building Friday.

Tomasini’s lawyer provided a statement to the committee, which was obtained by ABC News, on her reasons for invoking the Fifth Amendment.

“The Committee has asked Ms. Tomasini to testify in connection with an investigation into use of the autopen,” the statement, signed by Tomasini’s counsel Jonathan Su, read. “There is no actual evidence of wrongdoing by Ms. Tomasini, and President Biden has already confirmed that he made all decisions concerning the grants of clemency at the end of his term.”

“It is well known that there is an ongoing federal criminal investigation into this matter by the Department of Justice, ordered by the current White House,” the statement continued. “This past week, the Chairman suggested that it is ‘very possible’ the investigation could generate criminal referrals to the Department of Justice. Under these circumstances, any reasonable person would seriously consider an invocation of their Fifth Amendment rights.”

The House panel has requested several interviews with former Biden officials as part of their probe.

Earlier this week, Anthony Bernal, who served as assistant to the president and chief of staff to the first lady in the Biden administration, also invoked the Fifth Amendment in his deposition.

“The record is also clear that persons of the full range of the political spectrum, in recent and historical Congressional investigations, have invoked their Fifth Amendment rights to decline to answer questions from Congress. Any suggestion that such an invocation is itself evidence of wrongdoing would be highly irresponsible and flatly wrong, particularly from those elected to represent the people and uphold the Constitution,” Bernal’s lawyer wrote in a letter to the committee obtained by ABC News.

After Bernal’s deposition, Comer told reporters that former Vice President Kamala Harris and former first lady Jill Biden “should” be subpoenaed in the committee’s probe.

The House panel had also subpoenaed Dr. Kevin O’Connor, Biden’s White House physician, for testimony.

O’Connor, too, declined to answer questions when he briefly appeared before the committee for a transcribed interview. He cited both the Fifth Amendment and physician-patient privilege. After, the House Oversight Committee took the unprecedented step of releasing a video of the deposition that occurred behind closed doors.

The committee also released a video of Bernal’s deposition and is likely to do so for Tomasini as well.

Neera Tanden, who served as the director of the White House Domestic Policy Council under Biden, sat for several hours of testimony in late June. When asked after by reporters if there was an effort to disguise Biden’s condition, Tanden replied: “Absolutely not.”

Biden himself rejected reports of cognitive decline during an appearance on ABC’s “The View” in early May.

“They are wrong. There’s nothing to sustain that,” Biden said at the time.

ABC News’ Alexandra Hutzler contributed to this report.

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(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump is slated Friday to sign the first major federal law governing cryptocurrency, a business that Trump’s family have begun forging strong ties to and have promoted in recent years.

The House of Representatives passed the GENIUS Act Thursday with bipartisan support, a month after it cleared the Senate. The bill, a key priority for the president, outlines specific regulations aimed at making a specific kind of digital currency called stablecoins more accessible and mainstream.

Over the last few years, Trump, once a crypto skeptic, has begun to tout himself as the most crypto-friendly commander in chief in U.S. history, and pushed for Congress to take up the issue on the campaign trail. The president, who launched his own crypto meme coin earlier this year, recently said he is a “fan of crypto” and called it a “very powerful industry” that the U.S. has “dominated.”

“I’m president. And what I did do there is build an industry that’s very important,” Trump said last month. “If we didn’t have it, China would.”

Stablecoins are cryptocurrency that have their value tied to a stable asset like the U.S. dollar. The GENIUS Act makes it easier for banks and other entities to issue these coins, and is expected to increase public trust in the assets and growing the industry overall.

Traditionally, buyers use their personal bank accounts to buy a stablecoin, and then use the stablecoin to trade for some other kind of more volatile crypto, such as Bitcoin or something else.

“Our years of diligent work in Congress to bring clarity to payment stablecoins have reached a historic turning point. President Trump called on Congress to send him landmark legislation to his desk by August, and we have delivered,” Republican Rep. French Hill, the chairman of the House’s Financial Services Committee, said in a statement.

The bill passed following a stalemate among House Republicans after it stalled for nine hours before it made it to a debate.

Although many Democrats, including House leaders, backed the bill, some expressed concerns that the bill doesn’t stop public officials from pushing their personal coins and profiting from anonymous transactions.

Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters, the ranking member of the House Financial Services Committee, slammed the bill, pointing to a firm with ties to the Trump family that recently launched its own stablecoin and could benefit from the currency being more widely used.

A company associated with the Trump family owns a 60% stake in World Liberty Financial, a crypto venture, which launched USD1, a stablecoin pegged to the U.S. dollar, this spring.

Trump’s image is all over the firm’s website, which once dubbed him “chief crypto advocate” and has since changed his title to “co-founder emeritus.”

“The Unstable Act creates the appearance of a federal framework for stablecoins, but it does not provide the federal government with the full authority it needs,” Waters said Thursday before the vote.

World Liberty Financial said in a previous statement to ABC News that it is “a private company with no ties to the U.S. government.”

Trump and his family have fully immersed themselves in the cryptocurrency marketplace, developing not only the $TRUMP meme coin, but also a bitcoin mining firm and a crypto reserve.

The White House has insisted that there are no conflicts of interest in the crypto ventures, stating that Trump’s assets are in a trust managed by his children.

It will take some time before the public sees changes outlined in the bill. After Trump signs the law, federal regulators will have six months to come up with specific regulations.

The House also passed the CLARITY Act, a market structure package that sets the rules for assets that are overseen by the Securities and Exchange Commission or commodities that are regulated by the Commodities Futures Trading Commission. That measure now heads to the Senate.

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