Republicans Tear Into Each Other Over Shutdown Deal on Jack Smith

Senate Republicans are still planning to take advantage of a provision of the shutdown-ending bill that would allow them to rake in cash from the federal government.

At the close of the 44-day federal hiatus, the caucus quietly slipped in a self-serving resolution that granted senators the ability to pursue financial compensation from the Justice Department—up to $500,000 each—if they had their phone records seized by former special counsel Jack Smith as he investigated Donald Trump’s 2020 election conspiracy.

Despite passing the measure, the House adamantly opposed the detail: House Speaker Mike Johnson has signaled his support for an effort to repeal it altogether. As of last week, it wasn’t clear whether anyone in the Senate actually planned to pursue the new retribution pathway, save for Senator Lindsey Graham—but the upper chamber’s initial resistance appears to have ebbed in recent days.

“The House is going to do what they’re going to do with it. It didn’t apply to them,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune told CNN Tuesday. “There’s a statute that obviously was violated, and what this does is enables people who are harmed, in this case, United States senators, to have a private right of action against the weaponization by the Justice Department.”

When asked whether he believed Senate Republicans would actually line their pockets with U.S. taxpayer funds, Thune said he wasn’t convinced “anybody was talking about taking the money.”

“But I think the penalty is in place to ensure that in the future … there is a remedy in place,” Thune told the network.

Eight known Senate Republicans had their phone records subpoenaed as part of Smith’s inquiry: Senators Marsha Blackburn, Lindsey Graham, Bill Hagerty, Josh Hawley, Ron Johnson, Cynthia Lummis, Dan Sullivan, and Tommy Tuberville. Of that lot, five indicated late last week that they have no intentions to utilize the controversial provision.

“This fight is not about the money; it is about holding the left accountable for the worst weaponization of government in our nation’s history,” Blackburn told CBS News, signaling her support to change the language of the resolution. “If leftist politicians can go after President Trump and sitting members of Congress, they will not hesitate to go after American citizens.”

Smith’s team from the case has clarified that it was not spying on senators and, in fact, was well within its rights to request the phone records. Two of the team members issued a letter in October stating that they had requested phone toll records, which only show incoming and outgoing phone numbers, as well as call duration—not the contents of the calls.

Former Treasury Secretary and Jeffrey Epstein confidant Larry Summers has resigned from the board of Sam Altman’s OpenAI company amid renewed scrutiny caused by the release of his countless emails to the disgraced sex offender.

“I am grateful for the opportunity to have served, excited about the potential of the company, and look forward to following their progress,” Summers said in a statement. He was also cut from his temporary guest columnist position at The New York Times. Meanwhile, Harvard announced Tuesday that it has begun an investigation into Summers, who said he will still teach at the university.

Summers and Epstein were contacting each other back and forth frequently like high schoolers in 2018 and 2019, when both men were in their sixties.

“We talked on phone. Then ‘I can’t talk later’. Dint think I can talk tomorrow’. I said what are you up to. She said ‘I’m busy’. I said awfully coy u are,” Summers wrote to Epstein, seeking advice on the young female “mentee” he was trying to seduce at the time (he was married then, and still is). “And then I said. ‘Did u really rearrange the weekend we were going to be together because guy number 3 was coming.’ She said no his schedule changed after we changed our plans.”

“Shes smart. making you pay for past errors. ignore the daddy im going to go out with the motorcycle guy, you reacted well.. annoyed shows caring., no whining showed strentgh,” Epstein wrote back, just months before his death in prison.

Summers has addressed these new revelations in a “statement of regret.”

“Some of you will have seen my statement of regret expressing my shame with respect to what I did in communication with Mr. Epstein,” Summers told a lecture hall full of students at Harvard earlier this week, stating that he’d be stepping away from other public engagements. “But I think it’s very important to fulfill my teaching obligations.”

This is a former treasury secretary and high-powered Harvard professor who was asking Epstein—a known sex offender by then—for girl advice. Some think he should be far away from the undergraduate students he’s currently teaching too.

“If he had so little ability to distance himself from Jeffrey Epstein even after all that was publicly known about Epstein’s sex offenses involving underage girls, then Summers cannot be trusted to advise our nation’s politicians, policymakers, and institutions—or teach a generation of students at Harvard or anywhere else,” Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren said on Monday.

Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson—who was so set on blocking the release of the Epstein files that he wouldn’t swear in Adelita Grijalva—says he has “concerns” about Congress’s decision to open the files up.

“Any reaction to Leader Thune releasing the bill without adding amendments or changing it?” MS NOW’s Mychael Schnell asked Johnson, hours after the Senate passed the bill on Tuesday.

“I am deeply disappointed in this outcome. I think … I was just told that Chuck Schumer rushed it to the floor and put it out there preemptively. It needed amendments, I just spoke to the president about that. We’ll see what happens.”

“So do you think he may veto it? You say you spoke to the president—”

“I’m not saying that—”

“Is he supportive of it in its current form?”

“We both have concerns about it, so we’ll see.”

It’s unclear what exactly Johnson has to be worried about (aside from more allegations and potentially incriminating references to President Trump, of course).

“Yesterday the House did the People’s will by voting overwhelmingly to release the Epstein files, overcoming Mike Johnson’s five month long obstruction,” Representative Thomas Massie, the original Republican co-sponsor of the discharge petition behind the bill, wrote in response to Johnson. “His last hope was that the Senate would insert a loophole to kill the intent of the bill, but the Senate was having none of it.”

From “the files are on my desk” to this, the GOP’s handling of the Epstein case has been completely botched from the jump. Now, Johnson is hand-wringing about amendments and concerns while the majority of Congress—and the country—is longing for any semblance of truth or transparency. What amendments would Johnson possibly introduce that would get in the way of that?

“I cannot believe they took all the Goodwill they had after the election and called us stupid for wanting the files then trying to primary two Republicans to then in the end release the files anyway,” one user replied to Massie. “MAGA needs a better PR firm.”

“Insane, isn’t it?” Massie replied.

The Trump administration has not hired the best people to work for Immigration and Customs Enforcement. One of them was arrested for sex trafficking as part of a three-day sting earlier this month.

The man is an auditor for ICE, and was one of 16 men arrested who were allegedly attempting to solicit a 17-year-old girl in Bloomington, Minnesota. The ICE employee, 41-year-old Alexander Steven Back, could face federal charges, said Bloomington Police Chief Booker Hodges at a news conference on Tuesday.

Back, a resident of Robbinsdale, Minnesota, responded to a fake online ad “offering prostitution services,” and wasn’t dissuaded when an undercover officer pretending to be 17 years old wrote, “U ok if I’m a lil younger than my ad says … just wanna be honest.”

“Sure,” Back responded, according to charging documents.

“K cause I am 17 and one guy got hella mad at me,” the undercover officer, going by the name “Bella,” replied.

“Bella” told Back that she was 17 a second time, and then gave him a Bloomington address, where police arrested him and took his phone.

“When he was arrested, he said, ‘I’m ICE, boys,’” Hodges said. “Well, unfortunately for him, we locked him up.”

Under the Trump administration, ICE’s hiring has become so haphazard that many people aren’t properly vetted, with some being turned away due to disqualifying criminal backgrounds or failed drug tests. Many end up being terminated because they don’t meet academic or physical standards. Back’s case seems to show that the agency is attracting the wrong kinds of people.

Indiana’s Senate has decided not to meet until January, signaling that redistricting will not be on the state’s legislative agenda this year.

The decision is in direct defiance of an order issued earlier this year by Donald Trump, who met privately with Indiana Republicans in August as part of a pressure campaign to maximize GOP House seats before the 2026 midterms.

The White House visits were, apparently, ineffective at changing the minds of state lawmakers. The issue came down to a 29–18 vote Tuesday, with 19 Republicans joining 10 Democrats to effectively adjourn until next year.

But the elected officials’ anticipated rebuke didn’t minimize the president’s gaze: Indiana Governor Mike Braun has remained in Trump’s hot seat so far this week. The two reportedly had a “good conversation” on Monday, in which Trump reiterated that he expected the state Senate to vote to draw up new maps.

“Unfortunately, Senator Rod Bray was forced to partner with DEMOCRATS to block an effort by the growing number of America First Senators who wanted to have a vote on passing fair maps,” Braun wrote in a statement after the vote. “Now I am left with no choice other than to explore all options at my disposal to compel the State Senate to show up and vote.

“I will support President Trump’s efforts to recruit, endorse, and finance primary challengers for Indiana’s senators who refuse to support fair maps,” he added.

The other half of Indiana’s Congress was not on the same page, however. House Speaker Todd Huston told state lawmakers to keep the first two weeks of December clear for a potential redistricting vote, reported the Indiana Capital Chronicle.

The White House’s intense focus on this issue illustrates just how nervous the GOP is about maintaining its razor-thin majority in Congress: Indiana holds nine seats in the U.S. House—seven of those are already held by Republicans.

Trump issued similar directives for a handful of other red states, including Missouri, Ohio, Florida, and Texas, though some of those redistricting efforts have also crumbled. After facing similar fire—including legal threats—from the Trump administration, a federal judge threw out Texas’s gerrymandered congressional maps earlier Tuesday, ruling that there was “substantial evidence” the state had “racially gerrymandered” its 2025 maps at the president’s direction.

If House Speaker Mike Johnson thought his buddy Senate Majority Leader John Thune would help hold up a measure to release the government’s files on Jeffrey Epstein, he was sorely mistaken.

The House voted 427–1 in favor of the Epstein Files Transparency Act (H.R.4405) Tuesday. Shortly after, Thune sounded optimistic about advancing the effort to release a complete trove of documents on the alleged sex offender, who had ties to prominent figures such as President Donald Trump, through the Senate.

Thune said that the Senate would likely take up the petition “very quickly,” after Trump revealed he was “prepared” to sign it, according to Semafor’s Burgess Everett.

Thune acknowledged that Johnson hoped his colleagues in the Senate would amend the legislation but admitted that making changes “wasn’t likely” after the overwhelming support from the House.

That could spell bad news for Johnson. Earlier Tuesday, the staunch Trump ally said he was “very confident” that Thune and Senate Republicans would address his own laundry list of concerns about the resolution.

Alongside his supposed concerns about not protecting the identities of victims, or not adequately preventing the release of child sexual abuse materials, Johnson has also expressed fears that the release could potentially disclose “non-credible allegations” and risk “creating new victims.”

Representative Thomas Massie, the sole Republican co-sponsor of the resolution, dismissed Johnson’s so-called concerns as a “red herring” and warned they could simply be another “delay tactic.”

Donald Trump couldn’t handle a reporter asking about Jeffrey Epstein while he met with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman at the White House Tuesday. 

ABC News reporter Mary Bruce asked Trump if the House of Representatives even needs to vote on releasing the Epstein files, when the president could just order the release of the files himself. That set Trump off.

“People are wise to your hoax, and ABC is, your company, your crappy company is one of the perpetrators. I’ll tell you something, I’ll tell you something, I think the license should be taken away from ABC because your news is so fake and so wrong. And we have a great commissioner, a chairman, who should take a look at that,” Trump said, referring to FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, who has taken a combative approach against TV news stations critical of the president. 

“I think when you’re 97 percent negative to Trump and then Trump wins in a landslide, that means obviously your news is not credible, and you’re not credible as a reporter,” Trump said, saying that the reporter should look at Democrats, particularly Harvard professor Larry Summers and Democratic benefactor Reid Hoffman. 

“Those are the people, but they don’t get any press, they don’t get any news, and you’re not after the radical left because you’re a radical left network,” Trump added. “But I think the way you ask the question with the anger and the meanness is terrible. You ought to go back and learn how to be a reporter.” 

Earlier in the meeting, Trump became enraged after Bruce asked both him and MBS about U.S. intelligence reports that the Saudi crown prince ordered the killing of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi.

ABC’s parent company, Disney, paid $16 million to Trump in December to settle a defamation lawsuit, but it doesn’t appear to have earned the network any goodwill with the president. Instead, it has only emboldened Trump to ignore any questions he doesn’t like. With Carr’s help at the FCC, the Trump administration has gone after more TV networks, even trying to muzzle late-night host Jimmy Kimmel.

Trump may have been trying to distract the public from Epstein and threaten any other reporters who wanted to ask about the billionaire child sex predator. What he really did is show he’s willing to undermine the freedom of the press for his own benefit.  

The Senate voted unanimously Tuesday to release the Epstein files, sending the measure to Donald Trump’s desk.

Trump has said he will sign the bill. Shortly before the Senate announced the bill had passed, he posted on Truth Social that he didn’t care when the chamber voted on the measure.

“I just don’t want Republicans to take their eyes off all of the Victories that we’ve had,” he wrote, citing his tariff policy, his immigration policies, and his budget policy, among others.

After months of dragging their feet, House Republicans—minus one—voted earlier Tuesday to release the Epstein files.

The majority of the caucus sided with Democrats, voting in favor of the Epstein Files Transparency Act (H.R.4405), advancing the effort to the Senate, where its fate has yet to be decided. But Republican Representative Clay Higgins struck out on his own.

The final vote was 427–1. Five representatives did not vote. Lawmakers standing on the Democratic side of the chamber broke out in cheers and applause after the measure passed.

Hours after the bill passed that vote, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer made a motion to pass the motion by unanimous consent once it is transmitted from the House. There were no objections, meaning the bill will automatically go to Trump now.

Higgins wrote moments before the vote that he had been a “no” vote on the matter “since the beginning.”

“What was wrong with the bill three months ago is still wrong today. It abandons 250 years of criminal justice procedure in America,” Higgins argued on social media. “As written, this bill reveals and injures thousands of innocent people—witnesses, people who provided alibis, family members, etc.

“If enacted in its current form, this type of broad reveal of criminal investigative files, released to a rabid media, will absolutely result in innocent people being hurt. Not by my vote,” the Louisiana lawmaker continued. “The Oversight Committee is conducting a thorough investigation that has already released well over 60,000 pages of documents from the Epstein case. That effort will continue in a manner that provides all due protections for innocent Americans.

“If the Senate amends the bill to properly address [the] privacy of victims and other Americans, who are named but not criminally implicated, then I will vote for that bill when it comes back to the House,” he added.

But the victims of Jeffrey Epstein’s child sex trafficking ring are not aligned with Higgins’s opinion. Speaking with reporters before the vote on the steps of the U.S. Capitol, a group of survivors demanded that Congress unequivocally pass the bill and unlock public access to the Epstein case files.

Jeffrey Epstein, a New York socialite who orchestrated an international child sex trafficking ring to service the sick desires of the ultrawealthy, is believed to have abused hundreds of young girls.

His network included an array of high-profile, powerful individuals, including former treasury secretary and ex–Harvard University President Larry Summers, Victoria’s Secret chief executive Les Wexner, Wall Street titan Leon Black, British ex-Prince Andrew (now Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor), and President Donald Trump.

The House Oversight Committee released more than 20,000 documents Wednesday that it had obtained from Epstein’s estate. The documents included multiple mentions of Trump and his ascent to the White House, including one exchange in which Epstein noted: “Of course [Trump] knew about the girls.”

For months, just four House Republicans had penned their signatures on a discharge petition demanding transparency into the investigation of Epstein and his potential associates. Those conservative lawmakers include Representatives Thomas Massie, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Nancy Mace, and Lauren Boebert.

At least two members of that cohort—Mace and Boebert—were personally courted by Trump last week in a last-minute bid to convince them to change their minds about the petition, despite the fact that Trump has repeatedly washed the publicity effort as a Democrat-invented “hoax.”

In the end, Massie was the lone Republican to co-sponsor the Epstein Files Transparency Act.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, who for months parroted Trump’s talking points, sang a very different tune on Tuesday. “Now, at least in recent days, at least every member of the chamber … is in for complete transparency,” he said ahead of the vote.

This story has been updated.

House Speaker Mike Johnson has tapped Senate Majority Leader John Thune to take up the torch of blocking the release of the government’s files on Jeffrey Epstein.

During a press conference Tuesday, Johnson announced that he would support the House petition to release the government’s files on the alleged sex trafficker—but not without throwing one final wrench in the plans of lawmakers who support the measure.

The staunch Donald Trump ally hinted that Republicans would likely attempt to stall the measure in the Senate, saying that he had been in contact with his upper-chamber counterpart to express his lingering concerns about the bill.

“And of course they share those concerns, as well,” Johnson said. “And so I am very confident that when this moves forward in the process, if and when it is processed in the Senate—which is no certainty that that will be—they will take the time methodically to do what we have not been allowed to do in the House: to amend this discharge petition, and to make sure that these protections are there.”

It’s worth noting that if Johnson had simply put this legislation to a vote, instead of requiring lawmakers to seek a discharge petition, he could have potentially amended the bill.

Among supposed concerns about not protecting the identities of victims, or not adequately preventing the release of child sexual abuse materials, Johnson has expressed fears that the release could potentially disclose “non-credible allegations” and risk “creating new victims.”

Representative Thomas Massie, one of the lawmakers behind the petition, said Tuesday Johnson’s so-called concerns were a “red herring” and warned they could simply be another “delay tactic.”

The Kentucky Republican also criticized Johnson’s claim about “non-credible allegations” in a post on X.

“Do not let the Senate add an amendment to avoid disclosing those rich and powerful men who have evaded justice for so many years. Is Johnson calling all victims ‘non-credible?’” Massie wrote.

Johnson’s 180 on the Epstein petition itself isn’t particularly surprising, considering that Trump has also changed his tune, in order to emphasize the convicted sex offender’s ties to Democratic figures. Meanwhile, the Republican Party has fractured over some members’ blatant unwillingness to move forward with the files’ release.

Ahead of the vote, victims rallied for the files’ release, with one calling Trump a “national embarrassment.”

President Trump gave a lavish welcome to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on his visit to the U.S. Wednesday, complete with a red carpet reception at the White House.

Bin Salman technically isn’t Saudi Arabia’s head of state, as that title belongs to his father, King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, but that didn’t stop Trump from bringing out military cavalry, sparing no exceptions to the pomp that normally accompanies a state visit.

MBS, as he is commonly known, has not visited the United States since Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a critic of the crown prince and a Washington Post columnist, was murdered at a Saudi consulate in 2018 and then dismembered with a bone saw. At the White House, Trump glossed over that scandal, saying, “What he’s done is incredible, in terms of human rights and everything else.”

When a reporter asked about the U.S. intelligence’s conclusion that MBS had personally ordered Khashoggi’s killing, Trump asked who the reporter was with and rushed to defend the crown prince.

“He knew nothing about it. You don’t have to embarrass our guest by asking something like that,” Trump said, later adding, “A lot of people didn’t like that gentleman that you’re talking about, whether you like him or didn’t like him, things happen.”

MBS is in Washington for defense and business deals, including the sale of F-35 jets to the country, opposed by Israel, which insists on Saudi Arabia normalizing relations with it beforehand. Saudi Arabia says it wants Israel to make clear and definitive steps toward establishing a Palestinian state before it joins other Arab countries in the Abraham Accords.

In the meantime, though, Trump just cares that Saudi money gets spent in the U.S. and on his family’s businesses. Saudi Arabia’s poor human rights record doesn’t matter to the president, as long he sees oil and dollar signs.