Letters from an American - November 12, 2025

Episode Date: November 13, 2025

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November 12, 2025, it turns out Representative Eric Swalwell, a Democrat of California, and House Democrats were right to call it the Epstein shutdown for the last several weeks on social media and in interviews. As Mark Elias of Democracy Docket put it today, while it was clear what the Democrats wanted from the shutdown, lower costs, for health care insurance premiums, affordability, and for Trump to stop breaking the law, it was never clear what the Republicans wanted. They seemed simply to be doing as Trump demanded. Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican of Louisiana, kept House members from conducting any business at all. The House last voted on September 19th, gathering in Washington, D.C. again only after the Senate on Monday

passed a measure to reopen the government. The hiatus gave Johnson an excuse not to swear in Representative-elect Adelaida Grijalva, a Democrat of Arizona, whose voters elected her on September 23rd. Grahalva had promised to be the 218th and final vote on a discharge petition that would force the House to vote on a measure that would require the Department of Justice to release files relating to the government investigation

into sex offender, Jeffrey Epstein. Elias notes that he, like many of us, considered as plausible the idea that the government shut down was a way to keep the Epstein files under wraps, but there were other plausible theories as well. Maybe Trump and his cronies wanted to gut the federal workforce. Maybe they wanted to undermine the Affordable Care Act.

Maybe Trump simply wanted to run the country without the interference of Congress. Today put the Epstein files firmly in the center of the story. The House got down to business this morning after a 54-day break to work on the Senate measure to reopen the government.

Democrats on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform immediately released three emails from a cache of more than 23,000 documents the committee received recently from the Epstein estate. The first email was one Epstein sent to his associate,

Ghislane Maxwell on April 2, 2011. It referred to a story in which the fictional detective Sherlock Holmes solved a case by noting that a dog didn't bark at a crime scene because it knew the perpetrator. The reference has come to mean an expected action or piece of evidence whose absence proves guilt. Epstein wrote, I want you to realize that that dog that hasn't barked is is Trump. A victim spent hours at my house with him. He has never once been mentioned. Police chief, et cetera.

I'm 75% there. Maxwell replied, I have been thinking about that. The second email the Democrats released was from January 2019, from Epstein to Trump biographer Michael Wolfe. In it, Epstein said of Trump, of course he knew about the girl. as he asked Gilane to stop.

In a third email thread from December 2015, after Trump had declared his candidacy for the 2016 presidential election, Wolf told Epstein that CNN would ask Trump about his relationship with Epstein. Epstein asked what Wolf thought Trump should answer. Wolf wrote, I think you should let him hang himself.

If he says he hasn't been on the plane, been on the plane or to the house, you can hang him in a way that potentially generates a positive benefit for you. Or, if it really looks like he could win, you could save him, generating a debt. As legal analyst Asha Rangappa noted, this exchange suggests that Epstein would have leverage over Trump if Trump tried to say he had not been at Epstein's house or on his plane. In other words, that Trump was there, and Epstein had receipts. After the Democrats released these three emails, Johnson called the release another publicity stunt by the Democrats

and claimed they're trying to mislead people. Committee Chair James Comer, a Republican of Kentucky, issued a statement accusing the Democrats of cherry-picking documents and politicizing information. The committee then released an additional 20,000 pages, of documents received from the Epstein estate. Those were hardly better. In a 2015 email, Epstein gave tips on stories about Trump and girls

to then New York Times financial reporter Landon Thomas Jr. When others asked Thomas for stories, Epstein wrote, Have them ask my housemen about Donald almost walking through the door, leaving his nose print on the glass as young women were supposed. swimming in the pool, and he was so focused he walked straight into the door. In another email, Epstein offered photos of Donald and Girls in Bikini's in My Kitchen. And Thomas urged, I'm serious, man, for the good of the nation, why not try to get some of this out there?

But a story revealing this information did not appear in the New York Times before the 2016 presidential election or afterward. In one 2018 email referring to Trump's payment of hush money to adult film actress Stormy Daniels, Epstein wrote, I know how dirty Donald is. Despite how explosive these documents were, they do not appear to be the end of the story. They came from the Epstein estate, but the files from the FBI investigation into Epstein have not yet been released. Whatever is still outstanding appears to be even worse than what we have seen, as evidenced

by Trump's frantic attempts to stop the discharge petition. With the House back at work, Johnson had little choice but to swear in Grahalva. The ceremony was scheduled for 4 o'clock. In the hours before that deadline, the President tried to get one of the four Republican representatives who had signed the discharge petition to remove their signature. He appeared to focus on Nancy Mace, a Republican of South Carolina, with whom he tried to connect by phone, and Lauren Bobert, a Republican of Colorado, whom he invited to meet with him in the White House Situation Room, which is equipped to prevent recording. CNN reported that Attorney General

Pam Bondi, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanch, and FBI Director Cash Patel, joined Trump and Bobert at the meeting. When asked about the meeting, White House Press Secretary Carolyn Levitt told reporters, doesn't that show the level of transparency when we are willing to sit down with members of Congress and address their concerns? For his part, Trump took to social media to call the release documents an attempt by Democrats to bring up the Jeffrey Epstein hoax to deflect from how badly they've done on the shutdown and so many other subjects. He urged, urged any Republicans involved to be focused only on opening up our country and fixing the massive damage caused by the Democrats. Trump's efforts to get someone to take their name off the

discharge petition failed. Johnson swore Ingrahalva at 4 o'clock as scheduled and she immediately signed it. Now the petition needs to ripen for seven legislative days. Then Johnson has two legislative days to schedule a vote on a measure to require the Department of Justice to release the Epstein files it holds. Faith Wardwell and Meredith Lee Hill of Politico reported this evening that senior Republicans believe as many as 100 Republicans will support the bill when it comes to the floor. Many of them are facing constituents who voted for Trump in the belief that he would release the Epstein files as he promised and who are angry that the administration appears to be covering them up in the service of rich elites. Others likely recognize that they do not want to be

seen as participating in that cover-up, especially with the threat of even worse material waiting to drop. If the House passes the bill, it will go to the Senate, and if the Senate passes it to Trump for his signature. If he vetoes it, Congress has the option to override his veto. In the past, Trump has managed to avoid accountability for his actions by using lawsuits to delay while whipping up his supporters to take his side against what he called witch hunts or hoaxes. Republican lawmakers went along, in part because they didn't want to alienate his base. Now, though, a significant portion of MAGA has broken with him. His popularity is low. A new Associated Press, Norke poll has his approval rating at 33 percent. And last week's elections showed his coalition

is abandoning him. It's not clear that Republican senators will defend him, especially since his erratic behavior, like bulldozing the east wing of the White House, appears to be increasing. As Representative Thomas Massey, a Republican of Kentucky, who backed the House discharge petition, told CNN, This vote is going to be on your record for longer than Trump is going to be president. And what are you going to do in 2028 and 2030 when you're in a debate and they say, how can we trust you? You covered up for a pedophile back in 2025. Midday today, as new revelations from the Epstein documents were hitting social media every few minutes, Representative Swalwell posted, this is the beginning of the end.

Tonight, the House passed the Senate's continuing resolution to fund the government, ending the longest government shutdown in U.S. history, 43 days. The vote was 222 to 209, with all but two Republicans voting in favor and all but six Democrats voting against it, saying they would not support a continuing resolution that did not extend the premium tax credits for health care insurance purchased on the Affordable Care Act markets. Republicans neglected to extend those credits in their budget reconciliation bill of July, the one they call the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, and without them, millions of Americans will be unable to afford health care coverage, and premiums will skyrocket for millions more. The measure funds the government through January 30, 2026,

overturns the layoffs of federal employees administration officials made during the shutdown, and guarantees workers pay, and appropriates money to pay for supplemental nutrition assistance program benefits through September 26, taking them out of Trump's hands as a pressure point in January. Failing to get an extension of the health care premium tax credits into the continuing resolution, House Democrats filed a discharge petition to force the House to vote on a measure that would extend the credits for three years. There are only two ways this fight will end, Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, a Democrat of New York, told his colleagues. Either Republicans finally decide to extend the Affordable Care Act tax credits this year,

or the American people will throw Republicans out of their jobs next year and end the speakership of Donald J. Trump once and for all. Letters from an American was written and read by Heather Cox Richardson. It was produced at Soundscape Productions, Dead in Massachusetts. Recorded with music composed by Michael Moss.