Trump has faced growing resentment over the decision of his attorney general, Pam Bondi, to withhold information
Mike Johnson, speaker of the House, called for the justice department to make public documents related to the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, breaking with Donald Trump over an issue that has roiled the president’s rightwing base.
It was a rare moment of friction between Trump and the speaker, a top ally on Capitol Hill, and came as the president faces growing backlash from conservatives who had expected him to make public everything known about Epstein, who killed himself in 2019 while in federal custody as he faced sex-trafficking charges.
Earlier in the day, Republicans voted down an attempt by Democrats to insert language into legislation that would require files related to the Epstein case to be made public. But the minority party is determined to keep the issue alive, and Democrats on the House judiciary committee have demanded that its Republican chair, Trump ally Jim Jordan, hold a hearing with Bondi and her deputy as well as the leaders of the FBI to answer questions about Epstein.
