The Republican leadership in America’s House of Representatives sent the chamber into an early recess to avoid a vote on releasing documents related to Jeffrey Epstein, a dead financier who trafficked underage girls for sex. A sense of crisis has gripped the White House, as normally loyal MAGA supporters of Donald Trump become incensed at the withholding of material on Epstein that may prove embarrassing to the president. Mr Trump has said he wants transparency, though he is suing the Wall Street Journal and Rupert Murdoch, whose company owns the paper, for running a story that claims he wrote a bawdy note to Epstein in 2003, three years before the first criminal charges were laid.