Washington Examiner: “The episode highlights growing tensions within the GOP over transparency around Epstein-related documents…”
New audio reported by the Washington Examiner reveals that MAGA extremist Rep. Mike Collins believes Trump is “in” the Epstein files and wants them “made public.”
The reporting underscores another major rift in the already “splintered” GOP U.S. Senate primary as Collins and “MAGA warrior” Rep. Buddy Carter take different approaches to talking about the files. Carter says he is in “lockstep” with Trump and supports his handling of the issue, despite “growing tensions within the GOP over transparency around Epstein-related documents.”
Read for yourself:
Washington Examiner: Republican Mike Collins caught on hot mic saying Trump is ‘in’ the Epstein files
By Samantha-Jo Roth | August 26, 2025
KEY POINTS:
- Rep. Mike Collins (R-GA) said he believes President Donald Trump is mentioned in the Epstein files and wants the case files of the convicted sex offender made public.
- The Georgia Senate candidate was pressed by an attendee at an Aug. 13 Muscogee County GOP meeting on whether Trump was in the files.
- Collins replied that he believed the president was “in there,” but only because Trump “was the one that was telling the FBI about it,” and had previously barred Jeffrey Epstein from Mar-a-Lago, according to an audio recording of the exchange posted to YouTube.
- The second-term congressman and trucking executive said he supports making the records public. “We need to release it. I have no problem releasing it,” he said, cautioning that legal complications involving judges and grand jury material have slowed the process.
- The episode highlights growing tensions within the GOP over transparency around Epstein-related documents, which Trump has resisted despite earlier promises.
- Sen. Jon Ossoff (D‑GA), a top Democratic target in 2026, has hammered Trump on the issue. In a July speech in Savannah, Ossoff said: “He promised to release the Epstein files. Did anyone really think the sexual predator president, who used to party with Jeffrey Epstein, was going to release the Epstein files?”
- That clash has spilled into Georgia’s Republican Senate primary, where Collins, Rep. Buddy Carter (R-GA), and former University of Tennessee football coach Derek Dooley are competing for Trump’s endorsement […]
- Carter has sided with the president. In a WJCL interview last month, he said, “I support the president, and I trust the president […]”
- [Dooley] has so far avoided the topic, highlighting how the Epstein files are landing unevenly across the GOP primary field.
- In February, [Collins] tweeted: “Release the Epstein files. Release the Las Vegas shooter files. Release the JFK files.”
- He also marked the anniversary of Epstein’s 2019 indictment in July 2024 by writing that “the government continues to withhold his list of clients and visitors to his island.”
- Just weeks ago, Collins’s leadership PAC fundraised off the House Oversight Committee’s subpoenas by telling donors: “This is bigger than Russiagate. Congress is finally investigating the EPSTEIN FILES.”