Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s nasty and public falling out with Donald Trump came as she was vocally pushing for the release of the Epstein files.
But in a new New York Times profile, the outgoing GOP congresswoman turned Trump critic shared new details on how her drive to expose the pedophile and his accomplices drove a wedge between them.
And she revealed the president’s explosive claim he yelled as he sought to persuade her to stop her crusade.
Greene first spoke to Epstein survivors during a closed-door hearing in September. After the meeting, she threatened to identify some of the men who abused them.
The move prompted an angry call from the president, who yelled at her as she listened to him on speakerphone, she claimed.
It was loud enough that everyone in the suite of rooms could hear him, according to a staffer.
When Greene “expressed her perplexity over his intransigence,” according to Greene, the president responded, “My friends will get hurt.”
The congresswoman told The Times that she urged the president to invite some of Epstein’s victims to the Oval Office, but he told her they had done nothing to “merit the honor.”
It was the last time Trump and Greene ever spoke. In the end, she backed the discharge petition to force the release of the files in defiance of Republican leadership.
Greene described the handling of Epstein and the apparent efforts to cover up his crimes as being “everything wrong with Washington.” She described it as, “Rich, powerful elites doing horrible things and getting away with it. And the women are the victims.”
The Justice Department is now in the process of releasing documents after failing to meet the December 19 deadline to release all the files.
It has released troves of documents since the missed deadline and has indicated that there is a lot more to come after discovering upwards of a million more documents in the Manhattan federal prosecutor’s office.
Trump complained that the DOJ was being “forced to spend all of its time on this Democrat inspired Hoax” in a post on Friday.
In The Times profile, Greene said that some of her actions got under Trump’s skin, but “it was Epstein. Epstein was everything.”
Trump indicated during the 2024 campaign that he was willing to release the Epstein files before reversing course after returning to office.
Greene reflected on his attitude toward the files and acknowledged that it did not register with her at the time, but looking back, Trump never really relished the subject of releasing the files.
