Federal judges in New Jersey declined Tuesday to appoint Alina Habba, President Donald Trump’s pick for U.S. attorney in the state, to continue serving in that role, delivering a resounding rebuke to one of his administration’s most polarizing Justice Department appointees and teeing up a showdown over who would lead the office.

The Department of Justice has contacted Ghislaine Maxwell, a convicted associate to Jeffrey Epstein. Also, the House GOP is seemingly split over how to handle the controversy over the Epstein files. NBC News Correspondents Monica Alba and Sahil Kapur and MSNBC Legal Correspondent Lisa Rubin report the latest.

Epstein died of an apparent suicide in his jail cell while awaiting trial in 2019. His alleged accomplice and sometimes girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell, a British socialite, was later charged and convicted of sex trafficking in 2020. Bondi has said her office will meet with Maxwell to get to the bottom of the alleged scheme between Epstein and her.

The White House said that Republicans remain behind the President, despite criticism from some Trump supporters over the handling of the DOJ files of notorious sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Plus, former President Biden’s son Hunter blamed Ambien for his father’s disastrous debate performance.

Intense clashing over the handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files has influenced betting markets about who could leave the Trump administration in 2025.

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President Trump and his allies are desperate to move past the Jeffrey Epstein controversy — but their own words and actions are having the opposite effect. Trump’s decision to sue The Wall

He says it’s a documentary. But the 15 hours of footage Bannon shot with Jeffrey Epstein were reportedly training for a '60 Minutes'-style redemption tour that never happened — and paid for by Epstein himself.