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Republican senators offered a range of responses when pressed on how the Trump administration has been handling the Epstein files controversy, with some calling it a distraction and others arguing the American people are "entitled" to answers.
Attorney General Pam Bondi announced the "first phase" of declassified files related to Jeffrey Epstein Feb. 27, noting the move was following through on President Donald Trump's commitment to "lifting the veil" on Epstein and his co-conspirator's actions. Bondi also said the same month she was in possession of an Epstein "client list."
However, the February declassification contained mostly information and files that had already been publicly available, and the Justice Department subsequently indicated that no "client list" exists. Since then, a series of events, including a clash between FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino and Attorney General Bondi, have led to mounting pressure on the Trump administration to release more files.
'NOT GOING AWAY': INSIDE THE EPSTEIN DRAMA THAT'S THROWN HOUSE GOP INTO CHAOS
"This is factual. Epstein trafficked a lot of young women, some of whom were minors. The American people are entitled to know who - if anyone - he trafficked these young women to, besides himself, and why they weren't prosecuted," John Kennedy, R-La., said.
"Now that's a very simple question that's at the bottom of all of this. The Department of Justice is going to have to answer that question to the satisfaction of the American people."
TABLES TURN AS HOUSE GOP BLASTS DEMS FOR SUDDENLY DEMANDING EPSTEIN TRANSPARENCY FROM TRUMP ADMIN
Kennedy's call for transparency comes after the president described the Epstein situation as a "hoax" while blasting Democrats and other "weaklings" who continue to buy into it.
"Their new SCAM is what we will forever call the Jeffrey Epstein Hoax, and my PAST supporters have bought into this 'bull----,' hook, line, and sinker," Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform last month amid mounting reports of internal division within the administration over its handling of the Epstein case
When asked about how the Trump administration was handling the Epstein furor, Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., said he thought the situation was being used by Democrats to create a "distraction" from the ongoing investigations into former President Biden and others, like the probe related to Biden's use of an autopen tool to sign important documents and the investigation into whether Obama-era officials manufactured evidence to accuse Trump of Russian collusion.
"Look what's being investigated right now through the Biden administration. … So, what are they going to talk about now?" Mullin asked. "This is nothing but a distraction from the actual facts that is coming out about the Biden administration. Of course, the Democrats say, 'Well, we're just about transparency.' Well, where was the transparency the last four years?"
Democrats have suggested Trump could be implicated in the files, but Mullin said that if such a circumstance were true, the information would have been leaked by the Biden administration.
Mullin's counterpart in the Senate, Republican Oklahoma Sen. James Lankford took more of a middle ground in his response about how the administration has been handling the Epstein files.
"The challenge is there are people that are victims that are in it, and there are folks that are not criminals that are in it as well," Lankford said. "And the challenge the Department of Justice has is you've got a girl that was 14, 16 years old and was abused. Well, now she's, let's say 26 or 30, married and has children.
"Maybe her family knows about this, maybe they don't. I don't know the situation, but we gotta figure out a way to be able to protect those folks that are genuine victims on all this as well as getting out as much information as you possibly can."
For Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, the debate about the Epstein files was not something she was interested in talking about when approached by Fox News Digital.
"I'm going," Collins responded when pressed on the matter outside the Capitol complex.
