Trump-Epstein Saga Dominates Sunday Political Shows

The ongoing furor over whether President Donald Trump will release a trove of documents from the investigation into disgraced financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein dominated the Sunday political talk shows this week, despite repeated attempts by Trump and his top officials to dislodge the saga from the headlines.

Tennessee Rep. Tim Burchett, one of a small group of Republicans on Capitol Hill pushing for greater transparency in the case, doubled down on his calls for the White House to release its evidence against the late accused pedophile in twin interviews Sunday on ABC’s This Week and CNN’s State of the Union.

He criticized Attorney General Pam Bondi in particular, saying that he thought her inexperience was the cause of her early missteps in the case.

“I think her communication with us early on was not as good,” Burchett told This Week host Martha Raddatz. “I think it was her limited knowledge, and her taking advice from the wrong people.”

He stopped short, however, of criticizing the president directly for his efforts to downplay the discontent from his supporters, and attack the “weaklings” in his base who have called for more information to be released from the Department of Justice investigation into Epstein.

Burchett added that Trump’s move last week to request that a federal court unseal grand jury files from the case should “pretty much cover everything” he would like to see made public.

“I applaud the president and Attorney General Bondi for wanting to release the grand jury files,” he told This Week host Martha Raddatz. “I believe that will pretty much cover everything.”

The conversation surrounding the case reached a fever pitch over the weekend following a bombshell report in The Wall Street Journal last week that revealed a “bawdy” letter the president had allegedly sent Epstein to celebrate his 50th birthday. Trump’s ties to the late financier have been well documented — though both men claimed to have had a falling out prior to Epstein’s 2008 conviction for procuring a minor for prostitution.

Trump said the letter was “a fake thing,” and later sued the Journal and its owner, Rupert Murdoch, for defamation. He has also claimed that the narrative is a “hoax” perpetrated by Democrats.

Burchett said he was not worried about Trump’s ties to Epstein and went as far as to suggest that President Joe Biden or someone in his White House might have added false information into the Epstein investigation to incriminate the president. The Tennessee Republican also urged the public to not jump to conclusions about the “wealthy people” in Epstein’s orbit — including Trump — who may appear briefly in the Justice Department’s investigation.

“I have a lot of wealthy friends, and they fly on people’s planes. And their plane will be down, and they’ll say, ‘Hey, we’re going somewhere, and we’ve got an extra seat, do you want to go?’ And they don’t even know the person on the plane,” he said on CNN Sunday. “I worry about some of those innocent names being out on that too as well.”

“Just because somebody flew on a plane doesn’t mean they’re a daggum pedophile,” he added.

Despite the saga dominating headlines across much of the media landscape, Fox News’ Sunday Morning Futures did not mention Epstein. Host Maria Bartiromo, however, dedicated much of her show to a set of separate allegations that Trump administration officials alleged last week just as the Epstein-related drama was reaching a head.

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard released her own trove of documents Friday related to purported efforts within the “deep state” to hamper Trump during his first term through investigations into his 2016 campaign’s alleged ties to Russia. She called the effort a “treasonous conspiracy” that amounted to a “years-long coup” against the president.

Gabbard told Bartiromo on Sunday that she would be sending her findings to the Department of Justice for a criminal referral that could potentially implicate top national security officials in the Obama administration, including former DNI James Clapper, former CIA Director John Brennan and former FBI Director James Comey, among others.

“I’m not a lawyer, but in my view we have the evidence to be able to move forward and bring about justice, and yes, to prosecute and indict those responsible,” Gabbard said, adding that Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel would have to ultimately make any charging decisions.

Democrats, however, have decried the effort as an attempt to shift focus away from Trump’s ties to Epstein and said that the effort, like all of Trump’s past efforts to relitigate the 2016 and 2020 elections, will fizzle out.

“This is Epstein all over again,” Rep. Jim Himes, a Democrat who serves as ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, said of Gabbard’s allegations on CBS’ Face the Nation Sunday. “Right now the mouth breathers from MAGA online are going out of their minds based on a lie.”