For the second time in a month, Reagan Reese — White House correspondent for The Daily Caller — asked a tough question about Jeffrey Epstein. And for the second time, she got completely stonewalled.

During Thursday’s White House press briefing, Reese asked press secretary Karoline Leavitt about the statements from FBI Director Kash Patel and FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino that they now believe Epstein died by suicide in a Manhattan jail in 2019. (Both men have trafficked in various Epstein conspiracy theories, and a clip of Bongino in 2019 questioning whether Epstein killed himself has been circulating in recent days.)

Reese asked Leavitt point-blank whether he believes his FBI leadership’s explanation of the death of Epstein.

“Last week, the president told [Fox News anchor] Bret Baier that he trusts his people, but thinks that the official narrative on his assassination attempts are, ‘a little bit odd,’” Reese said. “FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino said days later that there’s no conspiracy to find, and as he put it, ‘the there-there that you’re looking for is not there.’ My question is: Is the president personally satisfied with the investigations and to the attempts on his life, and does he agree with the deputy FBI director, or does he think there’s more to it?”

Leavitt’s answer was very brief and wholly unsatisfying.

“Well, in the lead up to your question, you answered your own question with the president’s own words,” Leavitt said. “And I’ll leave it at that.”

A month earlier, on April 22, Reese asked President Donald Trump himself for an update on the release of the long-promised Epstein files — and got another non-answer.

“Mr. President, when can we expect the Epstein documents to be released?” Reese asked.

“Which documents?” Trump replied.

“The Epstein Files,” Reese said.

“I don’t know,” Trump said. “I’ll speak to the attorney general about that. I really don’t.”

A month has now gone by. No files. No timetable. No progress.

Reese has done good work pushing for answers that this White House clearly does not want to give. And she is not alone. Conservative influencer Rogan O’Handley (known to his fans as DC Draino) surely caught Leavitt off guard — during a “new media” briefing dominated by pro-Trump personalities lobbing softballs — by confronting her about the Epstein files.

“Do you have any updates from the DOJ or the FBI on when those files are expected to be released?” O’Handley asked. “And also, when we might start seeing some arrests of the client list?”

“I can assure you that the attorney general and her team at the Department of Justice are working on this diligently,” Leavitt said. “For a specific timeline, I’d have to check in with them, and we can certainly do that for you, Rogan, in the effort of transparency.”

That promise was made on April 29. Nothing even remotely resembling a timeline has emerged since then.

Fox News hosts and anchors have repeatedly asked the questions as well. Maria Bartiromo, this past Sunday, broached the topic of Epstein’s death, which elicited comments from Bongino and Patel. Baier confronted Trump on the subject in his May 15 sitdown with the president. Attorney General Pam Bondi has faced numerous Epstein-related queries from Fox News personalities and they even confronted her after she flat-out lied about releasing an Epstein client list she claimed was sitting on her desk.

So even the most vocal critic would be hard-pressed to say conservative media has dropped the ball when it comes to pressing the Trump administration on Epstein. And their persistence should be applauded across the political spectrum. Yes, the Epstein matter is likely not important to many Democrats and even independents — at least, not as important as more pressing, kitchen-table issues. But what is important is that the Trump White House is being held to account for something. Tough questions on Epstein are far preferable to the type of cream puffs that many pro-Trump personalities have asked.

Conservatives — even some of the most hardcore MAGA-types around — have not been satisfied with what they’ve heard from the White House on this topic. Glenn Beck called out Bongino’s 180 on Epstein’s death and said he doesn’t believe what Bongino and Patel are claiming. Steve Bannon and Rudy Giuliani said they don’t buy it either.

That type of commentary from some of Trump’s biggest boosters proves that Reagan Reese served her audience well by asking about Jeffrey Epstein on Thursday. The Daily Caller’s readers, just like Glenn Beck and Steve Bannon’s viewers, want to know what’s going on with the Epstein case. And Reese — like a good journalist of any ideological stripe — asked about what her readers want to know.

But now comes the hard part: Getting answers. Because while Reese and many of her ilk have not let the Epstein topic go, they haven’t really made any progress either. It’s clear that while many have done a fine job on this, they need to do more.

Conservative media has, rightly, spent the week denouncing legacy media for falling short on their coverage of former President Joe Biden’s decline. But if they don’t ramp up the pressure, they risk making the same mistake on Epstein. Legacy media asked the questions about Biden’s mental acuity. But, in many cases, they only asked them a few times — and asked them in a manner that assumed they were getting transparency from the White House. That was a major mistake — a mistake which right-leaning media would do well to avoid.

The way they can avoid that mistake is by asking the Epstein questions more frequently, and more pointedly. Reese’s monthly Epstein queries should soon become weekly queries, and then daily queries — if the administration continues to dodge. And should there be no Epstein files release or even a timeline in the near future, conservative reporters ought to probe a little deeper on Trump’s ties to Epstein.

Last month, CNN’s Donie O’Sullivan spoke with several pro-Trump briefing room personalities — including Lindell TV’s Cara Castronuova. Castronuova made clear that while she is an unapologetic Trump fan, she would absolutely ask him a tough question on an issue where she has a difference of opinion with the White House.

“There’s, I’m sure, things that will happen that I disagree with,” Castronuova said. She vowed, “I will be able to hold — 100% — him to account.”

Now’s the chance for her — and her pro-Trump briefing room colleagues — to prove it.

——

Joe DePaolo is the Co-Managing Editor of Mediaite.

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.