Jonathan Lemire: “Since his return to office, President Donald Trump has missed few chances to flex the power he wields over the nation’s most formidable institutions and its wealthiest people. So when the White House announced that Trump would host the latest in a series of dinners with top business executives, this time including JPMorgan Chase head Jamie Dimon and the chief executive of Nasdaq, reporters in the White House press pool prepared to watch Trump show off.”

“Nope. Last night’s dinner was closed to the press. No reporter was even given a glance. And later, when the White House held a signing ceremony for the president to officially end the longest federal-government shutdown in history, the reporters present were quickly whisked out of the Oval Office. Today, too, he didn’t talk to the press after signing an executive order alongside the first lady in the East Room. The president, to be clear, had not suddenly become camera-shy. But he had indicated to aides that he didn’t want to face reporters’ questions, because every inquiry was going to be about the one subject that Trump, for all his power, simply can’t make go away.”

President Trump went after what he called “weak Republicans” for backing an effort to compel the Justice Department to release files on convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, Deadline reports.

Said Trump, on Truth Social: “The Democrats are doing everything in their withering power to push the Epstein Hoax again, despite the DOJ releasing 50,000 pages of documents, in order to deflect from all of their bad policies and losses, especially the SHUTDOWN EMBARRASSMENT, where their party is in total disarray, and has no idea what to do. Some Weak Republicans have fallen into their clutches because they are soft and foolish.”

“There is no question that what we have seen over the last six months is a massive cover up effort by Donald Trump to prevent the release of the DOJ’s Epstein files.”

— Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY), on CNN.