Bulwark Takes - BREAKING: Congress Subpoenas Maxwell. Now What?

Episode Date: July 22, 2025

Sam Stein takes on breaking news about Ghislaine Maxwell: the DOJ suddenly wants to talk, Congress just voted to subpoena her, and MAGA influencers are fed up with Trump’s distractions. Is Maxwell about to flip, or is this all just a pardon play?

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If you have questions or concerns about gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connex Ontario at 1-866-53126 to speak to an advisor free of charge. Ben MGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. Hey guys, it's me, Sam Stein managing out at the Bulwark. I am randomly in the MSNBC green room. Um, found the best backdrop I could get. I'm commenting because there's some really, um, hot breaking news on Jelaine Maxwell, uh, who is Jeffrey Epstein's

co-conspirator, uh, she has been incarcerated for some time now and kind of this like looming figure over this controversy, which as you know, has been just unspooling across Washington, DC and really, uh, rankling the white house and congressional Republicans, uh, this morning, uh, fairly This morning, a fairly abrupt tweet or statement, I should say, from Todd Blanch, who's at the Department of Justice. He's the deputy attorney general. He put out this, I'm going to read it. This Department of Justice does not shy away from uncomfortable truths. We can get back to that one. Not from nor from the responsibility to pursue justice wherever the facts may lead.

The joint statement by the DOJ and FBI of July 6th remains as accurate today as it was when it was random. I'm going to pause for a second there. What he's referring to is that statement from the DOJ and FBI that they looked into the Epstein matter, but nothing new. Back to Todd Blinch, namely that in recent thorough review of the files maintained by the FBI in the Eppsi case, no evidence was uncovered that could predicate an investigation against uncharged their parties. President Trump has told us to release all credible evidence. And here comes the key part. If Jelaine Maxwell has information about anyone who has committed crimes against

victims, the FBI and the DOJ will hear what she has to say, therefore at the direction of attorney general Bondi, Pan Bondi, I have communicated with counsel for Ms. Maxwell to determine whether she would be willing to speak with prosecutors from the department. I anticipate meeting with Ms. Maxwell in the coming days. Until now, no administration on behalf of the department has inquired about her willingness to meet with the government. That changes now

Well, let me just say very bold time Blanche very bold to actually pick up the phone and talk to the attorney and someone who has Incredible information all this smaller. I'm so glad you did that It raises the question of why you wouldn't do this action prior to issuing a report that you had made a comprehensive review of all the evidence and determine there was nothing more to investigate. Uh, in theory, I would imagine that talking to Jelaine Maxwell and seeing what she might have to say would probably be an investigative step, uh, to take, but you know, we don't

know, uh, perhaps that's just not something that you do. I certainly don't know for, for example, I've never investigated anything like that in my time. Um, that said, there's a few more things to get to Maxwell's attorney, David Oscar Marcus, uh, has responded and saying that they can confirm that they are in discussions with the government and that Jelaine will always, Jelaine will always testify truthfully and quote, we are grateful to president Trump for his commitment to uncovering the truth in this case, and then something else

happened involving Jelaine Maxwell. And this one was kind of crazy. Um, the Congress from Tom Bichette Tim Bichette, sorry, decided this morning to offer a Jelaine Maxwell subpoena for when the house oversight committee was gathering and the subpoena, the idea would be they're going to vote on the idea to subpoena her, however, come before the committee. Well, wouldn't you know it? The hearing began and they passed it on a voice vote. So that means that they've approved of a motion to subpoena Jelaine Maxwell.

Things are moving so fast here. I'm not entirely sure where that leaves us because in theory it would be up to, I guess, the chair of the oversight committee chairman Comer to schedule that subpoena. That's subpoena, uh, house is about to go on recess. So it's not going to happen anytime soon, but, um, I guess we could end up having a situation where Jalaine Maxwell, not only is talking to the department of, uh, uh, justice, but also going up to the Hill and testifying. I can't imagine that they would do this in public, but God, that would be incredible if they did. Uh, and what she has to say is obviously of immense intrigue for everybody who's been following this case.

Um, there is some concern I would see, be honest about people who think she's just part in shopping, uh, and that she's going to dangle out some information and hopes that Trump gives her a pardon and obviously if you want to dangle on information in hopes of getting a part of Donald Trump, you're not going to say anything that would. Uh, implicate Donald Trump. So we'll have to see about that. But a lot of developing stuff happening on the storyline.

All of this I should note is taking place amid what is best described as a real pickle for House Republicans over what to do about this. They have been sort of batting back and forth whether or not to allow a vote to release, uh, any more information on Jeffrey Epstein. Um, the consensus this morning, uh, from house speaker Mike Johnson was that they were not going to do this, that they were absolutely going to, you know, go on break for August, come back and figure it out.

Um, the basic gist from Johnson was that they wanted to let August recess happen to give the Trump administration some time to get the docs out. But the Trump administration has decided it doesn't really care for all the docs. Obviously president has rejected the idea of getting special counsel. And then of course he's only requested grand jury testimony. He has not requested any of their fundamental documents that would happen. So that's taking place in, in the meantime, house Republicans are just getting pummeled as we've talked about, uh, over this for, uh, by the

MAGA influencers, by the online community. I would encourage folks to look one last thing before I let you go. I would encourage folks to take a look at Will Summer and his latest from false flag to give you a real sense of what's going on here. One is he took, he took a low dive into what is clearly an effort to distract from the main storyline by Donald Trump. What you see is the stuff like, you know, let's arrest Barack Obama. Let's deport Rosie O'Donnell, change the name of the Washington

commanders back to the Washington Redskins. It's all, you know, all distraction. So Will was kind of looking into is the distraction campaign working. Uh, and what he determined is that for some shirt, like, you know, Benny Johnson, Charlie Kirk, et cetera, like they're, they're willing to like throw three siren emojis up on a post and say, yeah, let's arrest Barack Obama. And you know, everyone's posting AI images of Obama in jumpsuit and whatever. But for like the true, you know, Epstein heads for the people who care about

this stuff, like they see through it. Uh, and a lot of posts on some of the, you know, forums where these people congregate, they're just like, okay, cool arrest arrest Obama, but can we also like see the EPSTEAM files? And so that to me is like indicating that the Republicans have a problem and maybe they know it. I just don't know. The second thing that I think will, and this kind of got lost in the mix is, you know, part of the problem that Trump has here is that there's just this like bifurcated Byzantine, Balkanized conservative media ecosystem where people have different audiences and

forums and channels. And it's not like centralized top down right wing media echo chamber. And so Trump gets a little bit more trouble controlling the narrative. Uh, you can put out, uh, you can demand that people stop covering it and maybe Foxwell for a beat, but others aren't. Which brings us back to Julian Maxwell. The Todd Lynch thing is so clear, an effort to try to make it seem like they are moving with the tide series.

Why that Trump said we will release grand jury interviews. It's why, you know, they put out the statement this morning. They're going to talk to Jelai Maxwell. They wanted to appear like they are looking for information that they are interested in uncovering more information. But at the same time, when you have them going on recess for all of August, and when you have Trump saying, you know what, maybe I don't want a special counsel. And when you have him resisting more than just grand jury interviews, you're going to have that tension of, wait a second, they're on the one hand saying we're all for transparency, but the other hand fighting transparency.

And until they resolve that central question, you have a sense that this stuff is going to stay a problem for them. Now maybe overtaking by other events that always happens. These things don't last forever scandals certainly buy down. But we have that central tension. That's a problem. So especially when you have Julian Maxwell potentially testifying for the house. The likelihood is that this story stays in the spotlight. And I have to imagine that these house members when they go home for August recess, they might actually get confrontations with the rotors over the stuff. All right, I'll wrap it there. That's the latest news from this morning.

Again, more Jeffrey Epstein drama. It never ends. We'll keep covering it. Thank you so much for paying attention to this stuff and we'll talk shortly.