GEOFF BENNETT: The Jeffrey Epstein scandal surrounding President Trump is intensifying, fueled in large part by growing Republican defiance.

Today, Todd Blanche, the second highest ranking Justice Department official, met with Ghislaine Maxwell at a U.S. attorney's office in Tallahassee to discuss the Epstein case.

Maxwell is currently serving a 20-year sentence after being convicted for her role in helping Epstein recruit, groom, and abuse underage girls.

Here to discuss the latest developments is Carrie Johnson.

She's the national justice correspondent for NPR.

Always good to see you.

CARRIE JOHNSON, National Justice Correspondent, NPR: Thanks, Geoff.

GEOFF BENNETT: So let's start with this meeting today between Todd Blanche and Ghislaine Maxwell.

Everything about this meeting is highly unusual, starting with the fact that the deputy attorney general, the person who runs the day-to-day operations at the DOJ, would even take a meeting like this.

What more should we know about it?

CARRIE JOHNSON: Well, Ghislaine Maxwell was convicted in serving a 20-year prison sentence.

Her case is actually on appeal, and the Justice Department is contesting her appeal.

And yet we have the second highest in command at DOJ traveling down to Florida and conducting an hours-long meeting with this defendant.

It's really unusual, and it may be the start of conversations that lead somewhere with respect to her case and its resolution.

GEOFF BENNETT: Well, it's hard to see how Maxwell would provide or the DOJ would release any information that would be negative about Donald Trump.

What could she potentially tell them?

Or should we see this meeting as part of an effort to give the impression that the Trump administration is really sleuthing this entire thing out?

CARRIE JOHNSON: You know, one of the interesting things about this is that she and the Justice Department apparently never have had plea negotiations in advance of her trial.

And so this may be the first time she's really sitting down with senior government officials to share some of what she may know.

And there's a lot of interest on Capitol Hill and elsewhere about other people who were engaged in activities with Jeffrey Epstein and uncharged individuals.

The Justice Department and the FBI have said they conducted a thorough review of all of these files and they didn't find any other areas of investigation or any other people to charge.

They said that earlier this month, and yet here we have the deputy attorney general meeting with Ms. Maxwell.

And I think some of those conversations or information is on the table now.

GEOFF BENNETT: And, of course, yesterday, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal reported that the president was briefed back in May that his name was mentioned multiple times in the Epstein files by the A.G., Pam Bondi.

We should mention that being named in the files doesn't necessarily mean that there's any wrongdoing.

But how does that help us understand Bondi's decision to not release more details about the Epstein files?

CARRIE JOHNSON: Yes, one of the situations the DOJ and the White House are confronting here is that their messaging has been mixed over time.

Trump and the attorney general and others in the administration at the FBI and elsewhere have said publicly in the past that they want to release all the information about Epstein.

And then they have this meeting with the White House in May where Trump's name comes up, and then they changed kind of their public tune and said they weren't going to release any additional information.

And that's the problem they're trying to grapple with now.

It's a communications problem and a legal problem too.

GEOFF BENNETT: On another matter, Carrie, the Senate today moved closer to final confirmation for two close Trump confidants, one being Jeanine Pirro to be U.S. attorney for Washington, D.C., the other Emil Bove to be a federal appeals court judge.

Both are controversial picks.

What stands out about these two selections?

CARRIE JOHNSON: Jeanine Pirro was a prosecutor in New York, but she hasn't actually prosecuted case for more than 20 years.

She's better known as a FOX News personality.

And in her questionnaire to the Senate, she basically said she was not aware that President Trump had issued pardons to rioters who assaulted police on January 6, 2021.

That raised a lot of hackles among Democrats.

As for Bove, he's basically been the right-hand man inside the Justice Department this year at the center of a lot of controversies, from firing January 6 prosecutors, to the decision to walk away from the case against New York City Mayor Eric Adams, to a whistle-blower complaint about the department's handling or mishandling of immigration and deportation cases.

Bove is on a glide path to confirmation, it seems, with only two Republicans voting against him today in a procedural vote.

That means very soon he could have a lifetime-tenured job as a federal appeals court judge.

GEOFF BENNETT: NPR's Carrie Johnson.

Carrie, thanks for being here.

CARRIE JOHNSON: Thank you.