'Eye of the storm': How Epstein booby traps and 'bungling' threaten the GOP

16 August

U.S. Rep. James Comer (R-KY) attends a dinner with Republican members of congress hosted by U.S. President Donald Trump, in the East Room of the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., July 22, 2025. REUTERS/Kent Nishimura

Republicans may have “courageously” adjourned the House early to avoid a vote on the Epstein files, but the traps they’ve have set themselves are going nowhere, said former prosecutor Elie Honig.

“Major issues remain unresolved and will play out over the coming weeks and months, whether Donald Trump and his Congressional supporters like it or not,” Honig tells the Intelligencer. “And they’ve mostly got themselves to blame.”

House Oversight Committee leader Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.) “got the cheap thrill of announcing his roll call of boldface subpoena recipients … but now Comer must actually fight the battles he picked” said Honig. If he is ready to take the likes of Bill and Hillary Clinton to court over the subpoenas, he’ll have to show that his subpoenas are genuinely likely to provide relevant information.

“Yet Comer’s stated rationales for the necessity of the subpoenas are laughable,” said Honig.

Comer wants Hillay Clinton before Congress because she once hired Epstein’s nephew. And his other subpoena target, James Comey, wasn’t even FBI director during Epstein’s arrest or prosecution.

Meanwhile, Comer’s own Republican comrades, including Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) are already drawing attention to the fact that Comey excluded from his subpoena list “disgraced former U.S. Attorney (and former Trump Cabinet secretary)” Alexandra Costa. Honig said Costa was the prosecutor “who was presented a case involving at least three dozen child victims and chose to let Epstein off the hook for petty state-level charges and a 13-month sentence, much of it served out of custody.”

And then there’s the House subpoena to the Justice Department, calling for the release of Epstein’s near-complete files, with some redactions.

“Comer might not have thought this one through,” said Honig. “His document subpoena places another Trump loyalist, Attorney General Pam Bondi, in a bind.”

The AG can produce the documents to Congress — only she hasn’t, said Honig. She may challenge the subpoena in court, but Honig said that would shatter Bondi’s claim of being all about “transparency and lifting the veil”.

And House Republicans are not alone in setting booby traps, added Honig. “The Justice Department itself got into the act when it sent the deputy attorney general, Todd Blanche, to meet face-to-face for nearly ten hours with convicted child sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell.”

There are now reports that Maxwell and the DOJ made an electronic recording of the interview, and “anything short of disclosure of the complete recording will surely feed suspicions of a cover-up,” said Honig,

Trump desperately needs the Epstein story to go away, but Honig says his own supporters’ “bungling” has assured that’s not happening.

“Don’t be lulled by the temporary calm,” Honig said. “It’s just the eye of the storm.”

Read the full Intelligencer report at this link.

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