Washington — Rep. Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican, filed a discharge petition on Tuesday to try to pressure a Home vote on compelling the discharge of recordsdata associated to late intercourse offender Jeffrey Epstein, resurfacing the saga upon Congress’ return.
Massie and Rep. Ro Khanna, a California Democrat, launched laws in July that might require the Justice Division to launch the Epstein recordsdata inside 30 days. They deliberate to pressure a vote on the invoice as soon as lawmakers returned from their prolonged August recess.
Though management controls the Home’s agenda and what laws receives a vote, particular person lawmakers can “discharge” laws that has been sitting in committee. A discharge petition permits 218 members, a majority of the decrease chamber, to supply their signatures and successfully bypass management to carry a invoice earlier than the total Home for a vote.
Khanna advised NPR Information on Tuesday that he is “very assured” all 212 Democrats will assist the petition, together with greater than the six Republicans wanted to pressure a vote within the Home.
Earlier than lawmakers left Washington, Home Democrats and a few Republicans had pushed for a ground vote to pressure the discharge of the recordsdata, however Home Speaker Mike Johnson opted to ship the Home residence early amid the stress. As lawmakers returned to Washington on Tuesday, Home Republican management added a invoice to the Home schedule for the week that might direct the Home Oversight Committee to “proceed its ongoing investigation into the attainable mismanagement of the Federal authorities’s investigation of Mr. Jeffrey Epstein and Ms. Ghislaine Maxwell,” Epstein’s co-conspirator who’s serving a 20-year jail sentence.
Massie criticized the transfer, calling it a “meaningless vote to supply political cowl for these members who do not assist our bipartisan laws to pressure the discharge of the Epstein recordsdata.”
Kent Nishimura / Bloomberg through Getty Photographs
Johnson advised reporters in response that he would describe “just about every thing Thomas Massie says associated to this subject as meaningless.” And the speaker defended how the administration and Congress have approached the paperwork to this point, telling CBS Information that “there’s been a variety of issues that transpired over the August district work interval.”
“The Oversight Committee is effectively underway, the administration is complying. The Division of Justice complied with all of the subpoenas they acquired and are processing 34,000 paperwork already,” Johnson mentioned. “And we’ll transfer that alongside as shortly as attainable so that each one of that is pushed out to the general public so the American folks could make their very own choices.”
Epstein was convicted of intercourse trafficking and died in federal custody in 2019 in what quite a few investigations deemed a suicide. However the push to launch the Epstein recordsdata reached a fever pitch, together with amongst President Trump’s base, after the Justice Division issued the findings of an inner evaluate in July that discovered no “consumer checklist” or proof that Epstein had blackmailed distinguished figures. And the event has prompted requires extra transparency from each side of the aisle.
Members of the Home Oversight Committee are assembly with survivors of Epstein’s abuse Tuesday. And Massie and Khanna are set to host a information convention on the Capitol on Wednesday alongside survivors.
The developments come after the Trump administration launched transcripts of a two-day interview with Maxwell late final month. The Oversight Committee has additionally mentioned it plans to make public information it acquired from the Justice Division associated to Epstein after redactions have been made.
Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, a Kentucky Republican, advised Fox Information on Sunday that “we’ll make this info public — that is what the American folks need,” whereas noting that “it’s extremely sophisticated as a result of there are victims of the Epstein recordsdata, and we wish to hearken to these victims and their households and their attorneys to see how greatest can we current this info.”
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