The photographer who illustrated last week's bombshell Vanity Fair profile of President Donald Trump's inner circle revealed that his photo shoot was scrambled by the Jeffrey Epstein scandal.
The West Wing profile featured remarkably candid quotes from White House chief of staff Susie Wiles and unvarnished portraits by Christopher Anderson, and he gave the magazine a behind-the-lens account of his tightly choreographed day at the White House, reported The Daily Beast.
"There were interesting moments during the day," Anderson said. "For instance, at one point our schedule — we spent the entire day there and we had scheduled moments with each one of the players throughout the day in their office to take the pictures — and at one point in the middle of the day the schedule got completely thrown off because we were told that the Cabinet had been called to the Situation Room."
At first, he assumed a military operation was underway, but Anderson soon realized it was a political battle related to the Epstein case.
"It was, you know, we wonder if the Situation Room is used when things like going to war are taking place," Anderson said. "So we, together with the Vanity Fair team, were speculating while we were waiting for what could possibly be happening. We later found out that day that it was Congresswoman Lauren Boebert who had been called into the Situation Room to put pressure on her about not pushing to release the Epstein files, so to speak. That was an interesting one."
The photographer's account confirms a reported pressure campaign against the Colorado congresswoman and other renegade Republicans who intended to sign a discharge petition to Republican “rebels” who were backing a discharge petition to
The 79-year-old president, a longtime associate of Epstein, invited Boebert to the White House meeting, which the White House described as a briefing, along with Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel.
Anderson's account shows the meeting was focused on her decision to sign the discharge petition circulated by Reps. Thomas Massie (R-KY) and Ro Khanna (D-CA) to force the Department of Justice to release investigative files about Epstein and his network.
However, the effort ultimately failed, and the House voted 427-1 to pass the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which Trump signed into law the next day after it also passed the Senate.
The DOJ has been releasing documents since Friday in effort to comply with the law.