President Donald Trump abruptly reversed his opposition to releasing the Jeffrey Epstein files, and CNN's Maria Cardona believes he's only "faking" support for a congressional vote on the matter.
Trump has been unable to turn the page on the long-simmering scandal involving the late sex offender — a longtime friend of his — and House Republicans have refused to bow to his pressure campaign to vote against a procedural motion compelling the Department of Justice to release federal records on his trafficking network.
"The bottom line is that thisshould be about the survivors," Cardona told "CNN This Morning." "This shouldn't be political. Icompletely agree with [fellow panelist Garrett Graff]and everyone who's been talkingabout how we can't lose sightof that. But the problem is, it hasbecome political, not because of Democrats."
"This is not a Democrat hoax," she added. "This has becomepolitical because Republicansmade it an issue during theircampaign. During the 2024campaign, they ran on it andthey said, let's remember, [Attorney General] Pam Bondi said, 'It's on my desk,I'm about to release it rightnow.'"
Cardona pointed out that Trump, as chief executive, could authorize Bondi to release DOJ files on his disgraced former friend without Congress's intervention, but he hasn't done that and fought against congressional efforts to shake them loose until it became clear the vote would pass.
"The reason why I think that Donald Trump's kind of, youknow, faking the fact that hewants this out is because hecould put it out now if hewanted to," Cardona said. "Why wait for thisvote? That will be incrediblyembarrassing to him when massivenumbers of Republicans are goingto vote for it, when we knowthat this is not something thathe wants out there.
"If he reallywanted it out there, he couldhave done it four months ago, andhe could do it right now."