The House is leaving Washington a day early for it's five-week August recess after tensions erupted over efforts to force release of the Jeffrey Epstein files. Why it matters: Fallout from the debate over the Epstein files has effectively frozen House business.

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Adding yet another Sunshine State connection to the whole saga, the WSJ has hired former GOP Sen. GEORGE LEMIEUX, the previous CHARLIE CRIST chief of staff when he was governor, who now works at the Florida firm Gunster Yoakley & Stewart, per POLITICO’s Josh Gerstein.

The Department of Justice’s Jeffrey Epstein investigation continued to roil Washington on Tuesday, as the department pivoted—reaching out to jailed Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell—and the House of Representatives was dismissed early for its summer recess.

Newly uncovered photos and footage cast fresh light on Donald Trump’s past ties with Jeffrey Epstein. At least two black and White photos unearthed by CNN confirm, for the first time, that Epstein attended the president’s second wedding in December 1993 to Marla Maples at the Plaza Hotel in New York.

Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said he anticipated personally meeting with Maxwell, who is serving a 20-year prison sentence for sex trafficking.

The turmoil in Congress over the Jeffrey Epstein probe isn't going away anytime soon after the House Speaker ended the legislative session early before the August break.

Trump on Tuesday said “I don’t follow it too much” when asked by reporters about the backlash to his administration’s handling of the Epstein investigatory documents.

Trump has unspooled comments on a litany of controversies, all of which seem designed to distract attention from the Jeffrey Epstein case.

U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday followed up his lawsuit against The Wall Street Journal over last week's Jeffrey Epstein story by banishing one of the newspaper's reporters from Air Force One for an upcoming Scotland trip.