Speaker of the House Mike Johnson has been reported by Politico on Tuesday as urging the Department of Justice to make public all remaining materials linked to the investigation of Jeff Epstein and his infamous activities. However, the details are a bit more intricate.

Politico writes:

Speaker Johnson is advocating for the DOJ to disclose all information concerning Jeffrey Epstein, the shamed financier who was charged with sex trafficking and later died in jail. Additionally, he seeks clarification from Attorney General Pam Bondi on her past comments related to the issue.

This month, the Trump administration refused to unveil further information about Epstein’s demise. The Justice Department and FBI have determined there’s no proof that Epstein maintained a client list or was murdered while in custody. On Tuesday afternoon, Republicans thwarted a House vote that Democrats framed as a challenge to compel the White House to release the documents.

In an interview published shortly after the vote, Johnson told conservative commentator Benny Johnson that he is “for transparency.”

The interview with Bennie Johnson, in which the Speaker made this statement, appears on the Speaker’s YouTube channel. It’s dated as having been issued on Tuesday, but the actual interview took place after the One Big Beautiful Bill vote.

In that interview, which reportedly took place not long after the OBBB vote, Bennie Johnson asked:

This is sort of on the heels of something else that a lot of people are asking questions about. And because we’ve been lied to by our federal government for so long, I feel like there’s some kind of pain point, right, and a pressure cooker that gets heated up on issues like the Epstein issue. And obviously that’s something that’s taken over a lot of the online dialogue. I have a question here about it that concerns either testifying or testimony for Ghislaine Maxwell potentially before Congress or if you would support members like Marjorie Taylor Greene or Anna Paulina Aluna on the release of subpoena, subpoenaing the Epstein documents from DOJ whether you would support either of those.

The Speaker replied:

Yeah, I haven’t talked with Marjorie or Anna about that specific subject, but I’m for transparency. We’re intellectually consistent in this. We… look, (President) Reagan used to tell us that we should trust the American people. Well, I believe in that principle. I know President Trump does as well, and I trust him. I mean, he put together a team of his choosing, and they’re doing a great job. It’s a very delicate subject, but we should put everything out there and let the people decide it. I mean, the White House and the White House team are privy to facts I don’t know, I mean, this isn’t my lane. I haven’t been involved in that. But I agree with the sentiment that we need to, we need to put it out there. And you know, Pam Bondi, I don’t know when she originally made the statement, I think she was talking about documents as I understood it that were on her desk. I don’t know that she was specific about a list or whatever, but she needs to come forward and explain that to everybody.

This doesn’t really seem like a full-throated demand for the release of all of the Epstein files. Nor does it seem like there’s a great deal of distance between the Speaker and President Trump on this.