WASHINGTON — A Republican-led House committee subpoenaed convicted sex offender and Jeffrey Epstein accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell on Wednesday to testify next month while The Wall Street Journal separately published its latest piece drawing a link between President Donald Trump and the disgraced financier.

The Oversight Committee’s deposition of Maxwell is set in the subpoena to take place on Aug. 11 at the Federal Correctional Institution Tallahassee, where she is being held. The Journal reported that Justice Department officials in May told Trump that his name appears in documents related to Epstein, who died in 2019.

Attorney General Pam Bondi and a deputy “informed the president at a meeting in the White House that his name was in the Epstein files” along with “many other high-profile figures, the Journal reported Wednesday, citing unnamed officials.

Being mentioned in the records isn’t a sign of wrongdoing, the Journal wrote. The officials told Trump that the files contained what officials “felt was unverified hearsay about many people” who had socialized with Epstein in the past, including the president. The newspaper said that one official told it that “hundreds” of names are in the documents.

Senior Justice Department officials told Trump they didn’t plan to release more documents related to the disgraced financier, because some of the material contained child pornography and personal information about victims, the paper reported. Bondi has subsequently offered that explanation publicly.

“The fact is that the president kicked him out of his club for being a creep. This is nothing more than a continuation of the fake news stories concocted by the Democrats and the liberal media, just like the Obama Russiagate scandal, which President Trump was right about,” White House communications director Steven Cheung said in a statement.

Trump and his allies have by turns sought to quell intraparty angst over the administration’s handling of the files and attempted to shift public attention away from the matter.

A rare chasm that first erupted among Trump’s Make America Great Again faction earlier this month has mushroomed through July, forcing Republicans to devote a significant amount of attention to the issue to the detriment of any promotion around the tax and spending bill that the president muscled through Congress earlier this month.

Trump and his top officials have been trying to placate critics — including those within Trump’s own political base — who say key details of Epstein’s sex-trafficking operation have been improperly withheld, including names of individuals who may have committed crimes against children.

Polls show the Epstein issue emerging as a political albatross for Trump just as he passes the six-month mark of his second term.

An Economist/YouGov poll conducted between July 18 and July 21 showed that 56% of U.S. adults disapprove of Trump’s handling of the Epstein investigation. Just 45% of Republicans approve of his approach to the matter, the poll found.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, in an interview Wednesday with Bloomberg editors and reporters, blamed the focus on the so-called Epstein files on Democrats and said the divide over Epstein would not have “any lasting impact inside the House.”

The Oversight Committee’s chairman, James Comer, a Kentucky Republican, wrote in the subpoena that it is “imperative that Congress conduct oversight” of the federal government’s handling of the case.

“In particular, the committee seeks your testimony to inform the consideration of potential legislative solutions to improve federal efforts to combat sex trafficking and reform the use of non-prosecution agreements and/or plea agreements in sex-crime investigations,” Comer wrote.

Controversy over the Epstein case was further fanned last week after the published a separate article alleging that Trump once sent a suggestive birthday letter to Epstein. The president has said the letter was fake and has filed a defamation lawsuit.

The Justice Department is cooperating and will help facilitate the deposition at the prison, the committee said in a statement.

Johnson told reporters later Wednesday, before the subpoena announcement, that he supported the Oversight panel moving to interview Maxwell.

“Can she be counted on to tell the truth?” Johnson said. “That’s the question. Is that credible evidence? I don’t know.”

Also on Wednesday, the Oversight subcommittee on Federal Law Enforcement voted 8-2 to approve a Democrat-led motion to subpoena the full Epstein files. Republicans Clay Higgins of Louisiana and Andy Biggs of Arizona were the only Republicans on the committee to oppose the motion.

Republicans successfully amended the motion to also subpoena documents related to communications from the Biden administration, Bill and Hillary Clinton, Former FBI Director James Comey and others.

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(With assistance from Maeve Sheehey.)

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