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The Republican majority in the House is down to +7: Representative Mark Green of Tennessee’s 7th congressional district officially resigned on Monday.
Green was the subject of a rather messy scandal in his final term: his wife of 35 years initiated divorce proceedings last September, wrongly accusing the congressman of having an affair with a 32-year-old female Axios reporter in the filing. He was, in fact, cheating on her with a different young woman, who exonerated the reporter.
“We’ve all had to basically grieve the loss of the person that we thought was our father,” Green’s daughter Catherine told local press at the time. “My dad sells himself in politics as being a Christian, conservative family man… His actions in the last, whatever, year have not been that.”
Punchbowl’s Jake Sherman notedyesterday that Green hadn’t voted “in a few weeks.” Where’s he been? At first, Guyana, according to NOTUS’s Reese Gorman. “During his time in Congress, Green has been pitching people on a foreign business opportunity in South America,” he reported last month. “When he announced his resignation, Green was in Guyana, three sources told NOTUS, causing him to miss votes. He remains in Guyana, these sources said, also missing votes on Tuesday.” Cockburn hears that Green’s post-Congress plans involve buying property in Palm Beach.
If the Caribbean and South Florida aren’t exotic enough, Cockburn understands Green spent last weekend on a boat in Italy with his new girlfriend and her family. Who knew the people of Middle and West Tennessee could be served just as well from The White Lotus as from his offices in Nashville…
Ghislaine Maxwell to testify?
Depending on who you ask in the administration, and when you ask them, the Epstein Files are either a nothing-burger or an everything burger, and every kind of burger in between. In February, the files were said to be on Attorney General Pam Bondi’s desk “ready to review.” Last week, Bondi said there was no evidence of an Epstein List. Four days ago, it was “a matter of public concern.”
Today Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche wrote on X that the Justice Department has approached Epstein’s fixer, Ghislaine Maxwell, to ask if she’d be willing to speak with prosecutors. “This Department of Justice does not shy away from uncomfortable truths, nor from the responsibility to pursue justice wherever the facts may lead,” he wrote.
“Get it,” FBI director Kash Patel tweeted in response.
But Cockburn wonders what, exactly, we’re getting. The Epstein Files were once about getting justice for victims of sexual assault and holding the world’s most powerful men accountable. Are they about to morph into a political cover operation to save President Trump’s bacon?
Rumors are floating around Washington that Maxwell’s lawyers leaked last week’s Trump “birthday doodle” letter to the Wall Street Journal to try to strong-arm the administration into granting her a pardon. The timing certainly feels curious to Cockburn. The Justice Department is going to get to the bottom of something, but don’t be surprised if, rather than the truth, they’re just scraping a barrel.
On Our Radar
MLK DOCS 250,000 pages related to Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination were made public Monday afternoon. FBI wire-tap recordings and materials under a court seal until 2027 are not included.
GET OOT The White House barred Wall Street Journal reporters from the traveling press pool during Trump’s upcoming Scotland trip.
SCHOOL’S OUT House Speaker Mike Johnson let out his fellow representatives for summer break nearly two weeks early, driving speculation that there is an attempt to avoid a vote on releasing the Epstein Files.
Mehdi, set… fired
Cockburn’s nieces cannot get enough of what they call “brainrot YouTube debate.” This weekend they showed him one video titled “1 Progressive vs 20 Far-Right Conservatives.” The “1 Progressive” is Substack’s Mehdi Hasan, once of MSNBC. His interaction with one young man named Connor ended particularly poorly… for his opponent. Connor wears a permanent smirk while revealing his irritating verbal tics of saying “quite frankly” and espousing Falangism. “Yeah, I am!” he says, when Hasan accuses him of being a fascist.
The aftermath of the debate is not going well for Connor. He was fired from his job, then started a fundraising effort entitled “Fired for my Political Beliefs.” Then he appeared on a subsequent podcast on which he said he was “canceled for voicing… heterosexual, Christian moral belief.” Pastor Mark Robinson might agree…
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