New Book Details White House Situation Room Crisis Talks Over Epstein Files

President Donald Trump's inner circle held multiple damage-control meetings over the Epstein files inside the White House Situation Room after the DOJ and FBI said on July 7, 2025, that they found no evidence of a client list, according to a June 10, 2026 New York Times Magazine excerpt.

The account by Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, drawn from their forthcoming book Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump, says Vice President JD Vance presided over a July 17 meeting in Washington as aides tried to calm a furious MAGA backlash. CNN separately reported in August 2025 that a follow-up meeting involving Vance, Bondi, Patel, Wiles and Blanche was moved at the last minute from Vance's D.C. residence to the White House amid intense media scrutiny.

The trouble began months earlier. In February 2025, Attorney General Pam Bondi appeared on Fox News and seemed to suggest an Epstein client list existed and could soon come out, saying, "It's sitting on my desk right now to review."

That set expectations high among Trump supporters who had long demanded more disclosure. But on July 7, the DOJ and FBI released a memo stating they found no evidence of a "client list," sparking anger within the president's own coalition.

According to Haberman and Swan, Vance took a leading role in the July 17 Situation Room meeting and warned colleagues, "This is a huge problem." The report says aides discussed a plan to make what the authors described as an "empty gesture of transparency" to ease pressure from the base.

The book excerpt also describes an unusual public-relations idea: Vance floated enlisting Tucker Carlson to interview Ghislaine Maxwell in prison, with the hope that she would publicly clear Trump of Epstein-related allegations.

Inside the administration, the memo reportedly caused sharp infighting. Then-FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino erupted at Bondi on the day the memo came out, yelling, "You f*****d this thing up from the start," according to the book excerpt. Kash Patel and Bongino later told a White House official that Bondi needed to resign.

Axios, citing the same book, reported another stark warning from Bongino about the political stakes: "This is going to be President Trump's Iran-Contra."

The Times excerpt says Trump himself resisted disclosure. Haberman and Swan wrote that "Trump made clear to his aides that he had no interest in releasing anything related to Epstein." They also reported that Trump called Rupert Murdoch and the Wall Street Journal's editor-in-chief to try to stop a damaging story about his relationship with Epstein.

The story immediately drew fierce reactions from Democrats and anti-Trump conservatives. Rep. Melanie Stansbury noted that Chairman Comer had agreed to make Blanche appear before the Oversight Committee, adding, "With explosive reporting from @nytimes on the White House coverup and multiple Situation Room meetings — this is looking more like a Watergate-style coverup every day."

Bill Kristol focused on Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, writing, "One point very much worth noting: Todd Blanche was a central participant in the Epstein coverup. As Deputy Attorney General, he was acting in Trump's interest – not in the interest of the survivors, not in the interest of the law or of the truth," according to The Daily Beast.

The political fallout had already reached Congress. On November 19, 2025, the Epstein Files Transparency Act became law, requiring the attorney general to make all Epstein files public in a searchable and downloadable format within 30 days.

Some Republicans who pushed for disclosure paid a political price. Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina gave up her House seat to run for governor, but finished fifth in the June 9 Republican primary after Trump endorsed a rival – a loss she attributed directly to her Epstein vote. Mace wrote, "I knew what I was putting on the line when I voted to release the Epstein files. I'm a survivor, and I would do it all over again."

Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, who co-led the push to force the files' release, lost his seat in what became the most expensive House primary in U.S. history – over $34 million in total spending – after Trump recruited and endorsed a challenger against him. Massie later said his "biggest crime" was his bipartisan effort to release the Epstein files.

Haberman and Swan's book, due June 23, 2026, from Simon & Schuster, is based on roughly 1,000 interviews.