--- title: White House Scrambles on Epstein Emails description: Trump officials met in the White House Situation Room Wednesday with Lauren Boebert about her push for the Epstein files. canonical: https://time.com/7333455/epstein-trump-boebert-situation-room/ author: Brian Bennett article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2025-11-12T21:20:30.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-03-31T13:08:50.739Z article:section: Politics og:title: Trump Presses Republicans to Block Vote on Epstein Files Release og:description: Trump officials met in the White House Situation Room Wednesday with Lauren Boebert about her push for the Epstein files. og:url: https://time.com/7333455/epstein-trump-boebert-situation-room/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltc9b09a1463674b2a/6998cb90a97fc00787a74de0/GettyImages-2246387169.jpg?branch=production&width=2400&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt Speaks To The Media og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Trump Presses Republicans to Block Vote on Epstein Files Release twitter:description: Trump officials met in the White House Situation Room Wednesday with Lauren Boebert about her push for the Epstein files. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltc9b09a1463674b2a/6998cb90a97fc00787a74de0/GettyImages-2246387169.jpg?branch=production&width=2400&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Trump Presses House Republicans to Stop Vote on Epstein Files Release  by [Brian Bennett](https://time.com/author/brian-bennett/)  ## Brian Bennett Bennett is the senior White House correspondent at TIME. Nov 12, 2025 9:20 PM UTC  White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt is seen during a press briefing at the White House in which she defended President Trump regarding newly released emails involving Jeffrey Epstein on Nov. 12, 2025. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt is seen during a press briefing at the White House in which she defended President Trump regarding newly released emails involving Jeffrey Epstein on Nov. 12, 2025.Win McNamee—Getty Images  by [Brian Bennett](https://time.com/author/brian-bennett/)  ## Brian Bennett Bennett is the senior White House correspondent at TIME. Nov 12, 2025 9:20 PM UTC President Donald Trump and his top officials spent Wednesday scrambling to defend him against damaging [emails](https://time.com/7333256/epstein-emails-trump-takeaways/) from the estate of financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and head off efforts in the House to push for the release of additional files from Epstein’s prosecution. Early on Wednesday, House Democrats released emails from Epstein that alleged Trump spent time with [one of Epstein’s victims](http://time.com/7333355/virginia-giuffre-jeffrey-epstein-donald-trump-emails/). The bombshell messages came hours before House Speaker Mike Johnson was set to swear in Rep.-elect [Adelita Grijalva](https://time.com/7323800/adelita-grijalva-congress-swearing-in-delay-mike-johnson-shutdown-epstein/) of Arizona, who is poised to be the needed 218th vote on a [discharge petition](https://time.com/7314260/epstein-files-congress-victims-release/) forcing a House vote on the Epstein files. The petition has already been signed by most House Democrats and a small group of Republicans including Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado and Rep. Nancy Mace of North Carolina. By midday Wednesday, Trump officials had met in the White House Situation Room with Boebert who has demanded Trump open up the Epstein files. The meeting inside the underground Situation Room was to talk to Boebert about her concerns around the Epstein files, said White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt. “Doesn’t that show the level of transparency when we are willing to sit down with members of Congress and address their concerns?” Leavitt said Wednesday. Leavitt refused to give more details about what officials told Boebert, or why the meeting was held in the Situation Room, which is typically used for secret national security planning. “I’m not going to detail conversations that took place in the Situation Room,” Leavitt said. Trump, who was previously a friend of Epstein’s, told reporters on Air Force One in July that Epstein “stole” female workers away from Mar-a-Lago and “we threw him out.” Leavitt said that the emails made public on Wednesday back up Trump’s claims. “These emails prove absolutely nothing other than the fact that President Trump did nothing wrong,” she said. The emails made Epstein a [major topic of conversation](https://time.com/7333256/epstein-emails-trump-takeaways/) as House Republicans were preparing to vote on a bill that would end the government shutdown. Trump described the release of the emails as a ploy by Democrats to distract from the economic damage they caused by holding up government funding over extending federal health insurance subsidies. Trump said House Republicans should not vote to release more files. “There should be no deflections to Epstein or anything else, and any Republicans involved should be focused only on opening up our Country, and fixing the massive damage caused by the Democrats!” Trump wrote on Truth Social. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/7333455/epstein-trump-boebert-situation-room/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/7333455/epstein-trump-boebert-situation-room/"},"headline":"Trump Presses House Republicans to Stop Vote on Epstein Files Release","datePublished":"2025-11-12T21:20:30.000Z","dateModified":"2026-03-31T13:08:50.739Z","description":"Trump officials met in the White House Situation Room with a House member about the Epstein files","url":"https://time.com/7333455/epstein-trump-boebert-situation-room/","keywords":["Donald Trump","News Desk"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltc9b09a1463674b2a/6998cb90a97fc00787a74de0/GettyImages-2246387169.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Brian Bennett","jobTitle":"Bennett is the senior White House correspondent at TIME.","url":"https://time.com/author/brian-bennett/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltc9b09a1463674b2a/6998cb90a97fc00787a74de0/GettyImages-2246387169.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt Speaks To The Media","caption":"White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt Speaks To The Media","creditText":"Win McNamee—Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/donald-trump/","name":"Donald Trump"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/7333455/epstein-trump-boebert-situation-room/","name":"Trump Presses House Republicans to Stop Vote on Epstein Files Release"}}]}] ```