AMNA NAWAZ: Welcome to the "News Hour."

Divisions inside the Republican Party about the Justice Department's investigation into Jeffrey Epstein boiled over on Capitol Hill today.

GEOFF BENNETT: House Speaker Mike Johnson said the House won't take action before leaving town for the August recess at the end of the week.

The controversy is fracturing the party and renewing calls for transparency.

Our congressional correspondent, Lisa Desjardins, has more.

LISA DESJARDINS: At the Capitol, a sudden rush to exit this week.

Speaker Johnson explained why the House is leaving early.

REP. MIKE JOHNSON (R-LA): There's no purpose for Congress to push an administration to do something that they're already doing.

LISA DESJARDINS: But pledges from President Trump and A.G. Pam Bondi to release more information about Jeffrey Epstein, his alleged sex trafficking organization and his death have yet to be fulfilled, bringing new reminders of Mr. Trump's former friendship with Epstein.

Trump has said he knew nothing of Epstein's alleged crimes.

But this bill from Republican Thomas Massie to release all records while protecting victims' identities would force a tough vote that the White House does not want now.

The issue ground the House Rules Committee to a halt last night after Democrats tried to force a vote on releasing Epstein information.

REP. JIM MCGOVERN (D-MA): Well, we could do it right now.

LISA DESJARDINS: And now the House will leave early for August recess.

REP. THOMAS MASSIE (R-KY): I don't think this issue is going away over August.

LISA DESJARDINS: Massie, known as a sharp thorn in leadership's side, is blunt.

REP. THOMAS MASSIE: I mean, people have wanted these files for years.

And then the president's staff, administration, his own children, his vice president have promised that these files would come out.

And now we're being told it's a hoax?

It just doesn't wash. LISA DESJARDINS: But some like fellow Republican Ralph Norman now say they can wait.

REP. RALPH NORMAN (R-SC): The information will come out.

The Republicans are going to push it.

And it's going to be a good -- what American people will see.

It just takes some time.

But it's going to be out there.

LISA DESJARDINS: Johnson urges trust in the White House with a specific standard for what is released.

REP. MIKE JOHNSON: The president himself has said that he wants maximum transparency and all credible evidence to be turned over to the American public, so that everyone can make their own decisions.

LISA DESJARDINS: Meanwhile: REP. PETE AGUILAR (D-CA): Put up or shut up.

Follow through or don't follow through.

LISA DESJARDINS: Democrats are relentlessly pushing the issue.

REP. TED LIEU (D-CA): We should release Epstein files.

It is what Donald Trump campaigned on.

It's what Attorney General Pam Bondi talked about this February when she said the Epstein client list was -- quote -- "sitting" on her desk right now.

Why don't we have that client list?

LISA DESJARDINS: Amid the debate, some news.

Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche posted on social media that he intends to interview Epstein's co-conspirator, Ghislaine Maxwell, to follow all leads and ask what she knows.

Maxwell's serving a 20-year prison sentence for child sex trafficking and other crimes.

In the Oval Office today, just one reporter asked the president about Epstein.

He said he wasn't aware of the Maxwell interview.

DONALD TRUMP, President of the United States: I didn't know that they were going to do it.

I don't really follow that too much.

LISA DESJARDINS: Instead, Trump repeatedly changed the subject to Democrats, launching into wild accusations about former President Barack Obama.

DONALD TRUMP: He's guilty.

It's not a question.

I like to say, let's give it time.

It's there.

He's guilty.

This was treason.

LISA DESJARDINS: Charging with no proof that Obama conspired to steal past elections.

The man in the Oval Office now, under fire, is again targeting his political rivals, including those past.

For the PBS "News Hour," I'm Lisa Desjardins.

GEOFF BENNETT: And here to discuss the legal implications of all the Jeffrey Epstein developments is Arlo Devlin-Brown.

He's a former federal prosecutor and headed the unit at the U.S. attorney's office in Manhattan that later prosecuted Epstein.

Thank you for joining us.

ARLO DEVLIN-BROWN, Former Federal Prosecutor: Thank you.

GEOFF BENNETT: So the Justice Department said it reached out to Jeffrey Epstein's former associate Ghislaine Maxwell for a meeting amid the administration's handling of the Epstein documents, the backlash to all of it.

What kind of information might she have that didn't come forward in the trial?

ARLO DEVLIN-BROWN: So it's really hard to know.

It could be they're looking to see what information she has.

And I guess also important is what information doesn't she have, since the DOJ is also looking to see if its prior investigation, which found that no other people were responsible for crimes against the victims, to make sure that was complete.

GEOFF BENNETT: Is it in her interest to cooperate?

How might she benefit from this?

ARLO DEVLIN-BROWN: Well, she could benefit two ways.

One is, the DOJ could move to the district court that had overseen her trial and ask that she be resentenced, claiming that she has provided substantial assistance to an investigation.

In that case, it would be totally up to the judge whether to resentence her and how much to adjust the sentence.

She, of course, has another avenue, which is to go through the clemency process and make a request to have her sentence commuted.

And that's obviously entirely within the president's discretion.

GEOFF BENNETT: And if Maxwell doesn't have new information to share, how might that still be valuable to President Trump?

ARLO DEVLIN-BROWN: Well, you could see the Department of Justice taking the position here that they went to this length to interview her.

She didn't have to speak.

She gave them all sorts of information that she knew about and that she credibly said that there were no other people that she was aware of anyway who were responsible for sexual misconduct against the victims.

In that scenario, you could see a situation where the DOJ said, that's extraordinarily helpful to us in light of the public interest in this matter.

And, therefore, we are going to take some action to get you resentenced for.

President Trump could take some action and commute her sentence.

GEOFF BENNETT: Meantime, President Trump called on the attorney general, Pam Bondi, to release what he called pertinent grand jury testimony related to Epstein.

She has taken steps to seek that release.

Is that testimony expected to yield anything new or noteworthy?

ARLO DEVLIN-BROWN: No, I don't think that's going to be helpful.

And the reason is, the only grand jury testimony that would have occurred would have been testimony against the people that the grand jury was being asked to indict.

So it would have been focused on Epstein himself and then Ms. Maxwell.

And, second, it's typically the practice in federal courts for the evidence to be summarized, often by a single witness from law enforcement.

So it's not like you're going to have dozens of people who have testified before those grand juries.

It's maybe even one person.

GEOFF BENNETT: How unusual a move is it to make grand jury testimony public?

ARLO DEVLIN-BROWN: It's very unusual.

There are occasions where the defense counsel seeks it for various reasons relating to their legal situation.

But the government almost always resists those efforts and fights to keep it secret, because one of the things that the DOJ likes to tell witnesses who are appearing in the grand jury is that this is a secret process and can't be revealed to the media or to anyone outside of the court's permission.

GEOFF BENNETT: There are still many files related to the Epstein case that have not been publicly released.

Based on your experience in similar investigations, what kinds of information might be in those files and might the DOJ find a way to release them?

ARLO DEVLIN-BROWN: Yes, so the grand jury testimony or other material that was subpoenaed to the grand jury, that, the DOJ requires a court order to release, and the court may or may not do that.

But there's a host of other material that is not grand jury material.

For example, there were searches of Mr. Epstein's properties that yielded, as we have seen, lots of documents and other material.

The DOJ could release that information if it wanted to, likely without the need for any sort of court authority.

GEOFF BENNETT: Former federal prosecutor Arlo Devlin-Brown, thanks again for being with us.

ARLO DEVLIN-BROWN: Thank you.