By Oregon Live. President Donald Trump’s top advisers conducted multiple meetings in the White House Situation Room without the president last summer as they tried to decide what to do about the Jeffrey Epstein files.

That’s according to The New York Times, which published a detailed report Wednesday about the White House’s struggles as it faced a ballooning political problem around Trump’s refusal to release the files pertaining to the late sex offender.

Vice President JD Vance, White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, deputy attorney general Todd Blanche and FBI director Kash Patel were among those who attended the meetings. The Times report details infighting that unfolded as officials hunkered down in the Situation Room, a place normally reserved for matters of national security, to navigate the crisis.

Vance advocated for releasing all the files, even ones that included unsubstantiated claims about Trump. But that view wasn’t popular with the Trump team. Wiles reportedly later said privately that Vance was an Epstein conspiracy theorist. Distrust between then-Attorney General Pam Bondi and the FBI’s Patel and Dan Bongino apparently boiled over.

There was “surreal” debate over an uncorroborated claim made against Trump years earlier and whether the president would be OK with releasing it. The claim was about Trump “flicking and sucking a young woman’s nipples,” The Times reported. (Read more from “Trump’s Top Advisers used the White House Situation Room — Normally Reserved for National Security — to Manage the Epstein Files Crisis” HERE)

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‘Was Never In On This’: Top Official Reportedly Stormed Out Over Epstein Cover-Up, Stayed Only to Save Trump from a Bigger Disaster

By Atlanta Black Star. One of President Donald Trump’s most loyal public defenders had spent years telling his podcast audience that the truth about Jeffrey Epstein was being hidden from the American people.

Now, according to a detailed account from The New York Times excerpted from Times reporters’ upcoming book, “Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump,” former FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino entered the FBI’s top ranks promising transparency on the Epstein case, only to become increasingly frustrated by a White House strategy he believed would convince Trump supporters that information was still being withheld.

As senior administration officials scrambled to contain the fallout, Bongino was reportedly reaching a breaking point.

The Times investigation into the Trump administration’s handling of the Epstein files portrays Vice President JD Vance as one of the strongest internal voices pushing for broader disclosure while depicting Bongino as increasingly enraged by what he viewed as a disastrous effort to shut down public demands for transparency.

The report suggests Bongino repeatedly warned White House officials that the issue was not going away, resisted being tied to the administration’s approach, and at one point threatened to walk away entirely before advisers persuaded him to stay to avoid inflicting political damage on Trump. (Read more from “‘Was Never In On This’: Top Official Reportedly Stormed Out Over Epstein Cover-Up, Stayed Only to Save Trump from a Bigger Disaster” HERE)

U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema has told the Trump administration that unless it provides statements denying the establishment of the “anti-weaponization” fund, a lawsuit would continue against the president.

The lawsuit against the fund was filed by the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, which has argued that the billion-dollar fund was just another mechanism for the president to pay off his friends and allies.

President Donald Trump has touted the need for the $1.8 billion anti-weaponization fund to compensate Americans who have been unfairly prosecuted by the government, including J6ers.

The fund was created in a settlement after the president dropped his lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service over the leak of his tax documents.

Administration lawyers argued that the issue was moot, citing testimony from acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, who told members of the U.S. House that it would not go through. However, he would not provide a written statement saying the same. (Read more from “Clinton Judge Brazenly gives White House Ultimatum over Trump’s Anti-Weaponization Fund” HERE)

A federal judge appointed by former President Barack Obama has struck down President Donald Trump’s one-time $100,000 fee for importing foreign H-1B visa workers to take American white-collar jobs.

On Monday, Judge Leo Sorokin of the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts vacated the Trump administration’s plans to impose a $100,000 fee on foreign H-1B hires, arguing that doing so is essentially a tax that Congress did not authorize.

“… the Court finds that the Policy imposes a tax on H-1B petitions without the requisite delegation by Congress,” Sorokin wrote:

Accordingly, the Court VACATES the Policy materials implementing the Proclamation’s $100,000 payment requirement. In addition to vacatur, Plaintiffs seek a “judicial declaration that the Policy is unlawful in violation of the APA and the Constitution.” Defendants’ only objection to this requested relief is that “declaratory judgment alone would not redress Plaintiffs’ alleged injuries because . . . that judgment would not affect the Proclamation nor would it enjoin any future action.” But this concern is not applicable here, where the Court has also ordered vacatur of the challenged agency action. Therefore, the Court issues declaratory judgment.

The H-1B visa program allows American companies to import hundreds of thousands of foreign workers, primarily from India, to take white-collar American jobs every year. Research has repeatedly found that the program is often used as a huge labor savings scheme for Fortune 500 corporations. (Read more from “Obama-Appointed Judge Strikes Down Trump’s $100,000 Fee for Foreign H-1B Workers” HERE)