‘Gang of Four’ hold firm on Epstein files vote amid Trump pressure
Updated / Saturday, 15 Nov 2025 10:16

US President Donald Trump speaks to members of press aboard Air Force One
Washington Correspondent
Lauren Boebert got the treatment this week. The Republican Congresswoman from Colorado is one of the most outspoken pro-Trump figures on Capitol Hill, her sometimes outlandish positions earning her a solid following among the MAGA base.
But when she was summoned to the White House on Wednesday, it was not for praise. It was to exert extraordinary pressure on her to change her vote on an issue that has grown increasingly sensitive for President Trump, the Epstein files.
According to reporting by CNN and others, Boebert was brought into the Situation Room, the most secure chamber in the White House, where military operations are overseen and national security matters discussed. Members of Congress, especially backbenchers, are rarely, if ever, admitted.
No one in Washington punditry this week could recall any precedent for a single House member being brought into the Situation Room for a briefing.
And what a briefing it appears to have been.
On the other side of the table sat Attorney General Pam Bondi, FBI Director Kash Patel, and Todd Blanche, Bondi’s deputy and formerly Donald Trump’s personal lawyer during the Stormy Daniels case.

Jeffrey Epstein and Donald Trump photographed together (file image)
Blanche had also been entrusted with an extraordinary mission earlier this summer: to interview Ghislaine Maxwell in prison to determine what she might say about Donald Trump’s relationship with her late partner in crime, Jeffrey Epstein.
This week, Maxwell was reported to be receiving favourable treatment in the low-security facility where she was transferred following that interview, a prison some have dubbed “Club Fed”. She is also reported to be preparing a request for President Trump to commute her sentence.
It was an unusually heavyweight delegation of Trump administration figures. Their mission: to persuade Boebert to remove her name from a discharge petition forcing a House vote on a bill to compel the release of the Epstein files