U.S. House Speaker Johnson says Epstein case 'not a hoax'

(Patria) - House Speaker, Republican Mike Johnson, stated that the Jeffrey Epstein scandal is "not a hoax" as the case continues to cause unrest within President Donald Trump's party, Reuters reported.

Trump condemned the scandal surrounding his late friend, disgraced financier and convicted sex offender, as a "Jeffrey Epstein hoax" and unsuccessfully urged his Republican colleagues to drop the issue.
"It's not a hoax. Of course it's not," Johnson said in an interview with CBS News.
Johnson said on Tuesday that he would send lawmakers home a day early for a five-week summer break to avoid a political fight over whether to release additional Epstein files, who hanged himself in a New York jail in 2019, according to New York's chief medical examiner.

Despite this, a Republican-controlled House Oversight subcommittee on Wednesday approved a subpoena seeking all Justice Department files on Epstein. Three Republicans joined five Democrats to support this effort, a sign that Trump's party is not ready to back down on the issue.

"We want full transparency. We want everyone who was involved in any way in Epstein's evils - let's call it what it was - to be brought to justice as soon as possible. We want the law to be fully enforced against them," Johnson told CBS in an interview conducted on Wednesday.

Wednesday's revelation about Trump's appearance in Justice Department filings threatened to deepen the political crisis that has gripped his administration for weeks.

The Wall Street Journal reported that U.S. Attorney Pam Bondi told Trump in May that his name appeared in investigative files related to Epstein.