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TIMES EXCLUSIVE
By and
Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, White House reporters for The Times, are the authors of the forthcoming “Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump.” This article is drawn from reporting done for that book.
Now, however, Trump’s most senior advisers had gathered — without him — to figure out how to gain some measure of control over a very different kind of crisis threatening to engulf the presidency: the Epstein files.
Ten days earlier, the Justice Department and the F.B.I. had jointly released a memo that bluntly stated that their review had found no “client list” of powerful men for whom the notorious pedophile Jeffrey Epstein had allegedly procured underage girls and young women. Intended to put to rest years of speculation and end the pressure campaign to release the voluminous material in the department’s possession, the memo instead had the opposite effect, setting off a backlash that was notably loud among the MAGA base.
And it was about to get worse: The Wall Street Journal was preparing a damaging article about Trump’s relationship with Epstein. The president’s desperate attempts to kill the story had failed. His team now had to get everyone onto the same page about how to counter the growing swarm of attention. They needed a gesture of transparency to appease an increasingly angry base, but also a way to convey the message that the president was sympathetic to his supporters’ concerns. Which itself was a problem, because he clearly wasn’t.
Vice President JD Vance took a seat at the head of the table in the John F. Kennedy Conference Room of the Situation Room complex. “This is a huge problem,” he told the group. Arrayed around him were the White House chief of staff, Susie Wiles; the White House counsel, David Warrington; the press secretary, Karoline Leavitt; the deputy chief of staff Taylor Budowich; the communications director, Steven Cheung; the deputy attorney general, Todd Blanche; the associate attorney general, Stanley Woodward Jr.; and the deputy chief of staff James Blair. Attorney General Pam Bondi and the F.B.I. director, Kash Patel, joined on speakerphone.
The vice president appeared panicked to others in the room about the way the subject of Epstein was already dividing the MAGA coalition. Some senior officials had the impression that Vance had bought into the darkest theories about Epstein and a cabal of predators hidden within the country’s ruling class. Wiles would tell others that the vice president had proved himself to be a major conspiracy theorist. Another top official said later that Vance had been pounding on the Epstein issue since the release of the memo. He was privately pressing for the administration to release all the Epstein files, everything in the Justice Department’s possession, even encouraging a congressional investigation.
Vance had also floated to colleagues an extraordinary P.R. gambit — that the White House enlist Tucker Carlson to interview Epstein’s longtime girlfriend and co-conspirator, Ghislaine Maxwell, in prison. It might help the president if Maxwell was willing to state that Trump had not been part of any wrongdoing with Epstein.
Vance told the group he believed all the files should be released as soon as possible. He argued that Congress was going to force the release of the files eventually. It was already clear that a bipartisan coalition in favor of such action was forming on Capitol Hill, and the momentum was going in one direction. If the administration got out ahead of this and released everything voluntarily — including whatever material existed about the president — it would at least get credit for transparency. The alternative was to let the story drag on for months as information dripped out, each new revelation renewing the cycle of suspicion and fury. Better to rip the bandage off and move on.
Even the unsubstantiated allegations and anecdotes about Trump should go out, Vance argued. They were going to surface regardless, and if the administration published them first, it would demonstrate good faith and take the oxygen out of the conspiracy theories. His arguments fell on skeptical ears, but some advisers thought it would be a good idea to have Justice Department officials call a news conference to explain their position on the Epstein affair — going beyond the memo that precipitated the crisis.
At this point in the meeting, Blair spoke up. “With all due respect,” he said, “the communications strategy of this group got us here. I don’t know that it’s going to get us out. And if you’re going to go in front of the press, you’ve got a lot of work to do.” He began to ask pointed mock questions, demonstrating how difficult a news conference might be.
As the president’s former defense attorney, Blanche had a unique vantage point in the discussion. He was better equipped than anyone else in the room to weigh the ideas being discussed against Trump’s personal and political interests. Blanche laid out what he saw as their best options.
Option 1 was to petition Federal District Courts in Florida and New York to unseal the grand jury testimonies — the secret transcripts of prosecutors’ presentations of witnesses and evidence in their efforts to obtain indictments in past Epstein-related cases. As those were almost certain to contain no significant new information, everyone agreed that this option was a good idea, and not only because a release was unlikely to damage the president.
Under the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, the secrecy of grand jury materials is regarded by most federal judges as almost always inviolate, and the bar for any release is exceptionally high. If the courts refused to unseal them — as Blanche predicted — they could shift the blame for withholding the Epstein material away from the Trump administration and onto the judges. And all the better if the judges had been appointed by Democratic presidents. Blanche’s suggestion would make it appear that the White House wanted the materials released, when it was almost certain not to happen.
Option 2 was to have Justice Department lawyers question Maxwell and publicly release the transcript — a twist on the idea proposed earlier by Vance. Blanche offered to interview Maxwell himself.
“What if we got her to talk to Congress?” Vance suggested.
Blanche raised the possibility that Maxwell’s lawyer might expect something in return for her candor.
Warrington, the White House counsel, responded by laying out the available choices, without advocating any of them. Maxwell could be given a pardon, he said, or she could have her sentence reduced.
At that, several around the table spoke up to register their strong disapproval.
“Pardoning Maxwell, a trafficker of young girls, would create a huge P.R. problem,” Cheung said. He predicted that in the wake of a pardon, the Epstein accusers would be fanning out on TV, telling their stories and ripping the administration to shreds.
Blair was also adamantly opposed to a pardon. “We can’t offer Ghislaine Maxwell anything,” he said. “A, I don’t know why we would. And B, if we give Ghislaine Maxwell any sort of break whatsoever and then she turns around and says nice things about us, or says nice things about us and we give her a break, it will undermine the entire point of her saying good things. That will feed the conspiracy theory, period. If there’s nothing for her to say that hurts us, we shouldn’t have to offer her anything.”
Inside the White House Freakout Over the Epstein Files
The president’s top advisers gathered in a series of Situation Room meetings as they struggled to contain a scandal engulfing Donald Trump himself.By and
Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, White House reporters for The Times, are the authors of the forthcoming “Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump.” This article is drawn from reporting done for that book.
- June 10, 2026Updated 2:46 p.m. ET
Now, however, Trump’s most senior advisers had gathered — without him — to figure out how to gain some measure of control over a very different kind of crisis threatening to engulf the presidency: the Epstein files.
Ten days earlier, the Justice Department and the F.B.I. had jointly released a memo that bluntly stated that their review had found no “client list” of powerful men for whom the notorious pedophile Jeffrey Epstein had allegedly procured underage girls and young women. Intended to put to rest years of speculation and end the pressure campaign to release the voluminous material in the department’s possession, the memo instead had the opposite effect, setting off a backlash that was notably loud among the MAGA base.
And it was about to get worse: The Wall Street Journal was preparing a damaging article about Trump’s relationship with Epstein. The president’s desperate attempts to kill the story had failed. His team now had to get everyone onto the same page about how to counter the growing swarm of attention. They needed a gesture of transparency to appease an increasingly angry base, but also a way to convey the message that the president was sympathetic to his supporters’ concerns. Which itself was a problem, because he clearly wasn’t.
Vice President JD Vance took a seat at the head of the table in the John F. Kennedy Conference Room of the Situation Room complex. “This is a huge problem,” he told the group. Arrayed around him were the White House chief of staff, Susie Wiles; the White House counsel, David Warrington; the press secretary, Karoline Leavitt; the deputy chief of staff Taylor Budowich; the communications director, Steven Cheung; the deputy attorney general, Todd Blanche; the associate attorney general, Stanley Woodward Jr.; and the deputy chief of staff James Blair. Attorney General Pam Bondi and the F.B.I. director, Kash Patel, joined on speakerphone.
The vice president appeared panicked to others in the room about the way the subject of Epstein was already dividing the MAGA coalition. Some senior officials had the impression that Vance had bought into the darkest theories about Epstein and a cabal of predators hidden within the country’s ruling class. Wiles would tell others that the vice president had proved himself to be a major conspiracy theorist. Another top official said later that Vance had been pounding on the Epstein issue since the release of the memo. He was privately pressing for the administration to release all the Epstein files, everything in the Justice Department’s possession, even encouraging a congressional investigation.
Vance had also floated to colleagues an extraordinary P.R. gambit — that the White House enlist Tucker Carlson to interview Epstein’s longtime girlfriend and co-conspirator, Ghislaine Maxwell, in prison. It might help the president if Maxwell was willing to state that Trump had not been part of any wrongdoing with Epstein.
Vance told the group he believed all the files should be released as soon as possible. He argued that Congress was going to force the release of the files eventually. It was already clear that a bipartisan coalition in favor of such action was forming on Capitol Hill, and the momentum was going in one direction. If the administration got out ahead of this and released everything voluntarily — including whatever material existed about the president — it would at least get credit for transparency. The alternative was to let the story drag on for months as information dripped out, each new revelation renewing the cycle of suspicion and fury. Better to rip the bandage off and move on.
Even the unsubstantiated allegations and anecdotes about Trump should go out, Vance argued. They were going to surface regardless, and if the administration published them first, it would demonstrate good faith and take the oxygen out of the conspiracy theories. His arguments fell on skeptical ears, but some advisers thought it would be a good idea to have Justice Department officials call a news conference to explain their position on the Epstein affair — going beyond the memo that precipitated the crisis.
At this point in the meeting, Blair spoke up. “With all due respect,” he said, “the communications strategy of this group got us here. I don’t know that it’s going to get us out. And if you’re going to go in front of the press, you’ve got a lot of work to do.” He began to ask pointed mock questions, demonstrating how difficult a news conference might be.
As the president’s former defense attorney, Blanche had a unique vantage point in the discussion. He was better equipped than anyone else in the room to weigh the ideas being discussed against Trump’s personal and political interests. Blanche laid out what he saw as their best options.
Option 1 was to petition Federal District Courts in Florida and New York to unseal the grand jury testimonies — the secret transcripts of prosecutors’ presentations of witnesses and evidence in their efforts to obtain indictments in past Epstein-related cases. As those were almost certain to contain no significant new information, everyone agreed that this option was a good idea, and not only because a release was unlikely to damage the president.
Under the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, the secrecy of grand jury materials is regarded by most federal judges as almost always inviolate, and the bar for any release is exceptionally high. If the courts refused to unseal them — as Blanche predicted — they could shift the blame for withholding the Epstein material away from the Trump administration and onto the judges. And all the better if the judges had been appointed by Democratic presidents. Blanche’s suggestion would make it appear that the White House wanted the materials released, when it was almost certain not to happen.
Option 2 was to have Justice Department lawyers question Maxwell and publicly release the transcript — a twist on the idea proposed earlier by Vance. Blanche offered to interview Maxwell himself.
“What if we got her to talk to Congress?” Vance suggested.
Blanche raised the possibility that Maxwell’s lawyer might expect something in return for her candor.
Warrington, the White House counsel, responded by laying out the available choices, without advocating any of them. Maxwell could be given a pardon, he said, or she could have her sentence reduced.
At that, several around the table spoke up to register their strong disapproval.
“Pardoning Maxwell, a trafficker of young girls, would create a huge P.R. problem,” Cheung said. He predicted that in the wake of a pardon, the Epstein accusers would be fanning out on TV, telling their stories and ripping the administration to shreds.
Blair was also adamantly opposed to a pardon. “We can’t offer Ghislaine Maxwell anything,” he said. “A, I don’t know why we would. And B, if we give Ghislaine Maxwell any sort of break whatsoever and then she turns around and says nice things about us, or says nice things about us and we give her a break, it will undermine the entire point of her saying good things. That will feed the conspiracy theory, period. If there’s nothing for her to say that hurts us, we shouldn’t have to offer her anything.”
