Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-Louisiana, announced on Tuesday that the House of Representatives would recess, a day earlier than originally scheduled.
D.C. politics publication The Hill reported earlier this week that Congressional Republican leadership struggled to contain House Democrats’ attempts to get a floor vote on releasing documents relating to the Jeffrey Epstein case.
Instead, Republicans initially chose to recess the Rules committee. Congressman Ralph Norman, R-South Carolina, a member of the Rules committee, accused Democrats of grandstanding on the issue.
“Now what we refuse to do is participate in another one of the Democrats’ political games,” Johnson told reporters yesterday. “This is a serious matter. We are not going to let them use this as a political battering ram.”
“We all understand that the America First agenda and the American people are best served by putting an end to the Democrats’ sideshows, and that’s what we’re doing by not allowing the Rules Committee to continue with that nonsense this week,” he said.
Whether or not to push for the public release of additional files related to Jeffrey Epstein’s crimes and subsequent death in prison has riven the Republican Party in recent months.
Leading up to the 2024 election, Republican candidates, among them Donald Trump and JD Vance, made releasing files—including a purported “list” of people associated with Epstein—a campaign promise.
In February, Alabama Congressman Barry Moore posted that “President Trump is working with [Republicans on the House Judiciary committee] to make sure the Epstein flight logs get released unredacted.” He praised Trump for having “the courage and the willingness to put the names on the [Epstein] list and let everybody know what was going on.”
But despite handing conservative influencers binders labeled “The Epstein Files: Phase One,” which almost entirely consisted of already released materials, the Trump administration recently announced it would not be releasing any additional documents.
Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a February interview that she had an Epstein client list on her desk, but a public memo released by the Department of Justice in early July stated no such list existed and that Jeffrey Epstein had killed himself.
Responding to this development in a radio interview, Alabama Senator Tommy Tuberville baselessly claimed that the Biden administration had likely destroyed evidence tying Democratic officials and donors to Jeffrey Epstein.
“President Trump could care less about the Epstein files or whatever, but he’s promised transparency,” said the senator.
Trump has repeatedly posted to Truth Social, the social media site he owns, asking people to stop worrying about Epstein documents. However, he did eventually instruct Bondi to begin working to release grand jury testimony, a move many criticized as insufficient.
“[All] these people want to talk about, with strong prodding by the Fake News and the success starved Dems, is the Jeffrey Epstein Hoax,” the president posted on July 16. “Let these weaklings continue forward and do the Democrats work, don’t even think about talking of our incredible and unprecedented success, because I don’t want their support anymore!”
Alabama Congresswoman Terri Sewell and other members of Congress have cosponsored resolutions requesting the Trump administration release more files relating to the Epstein cases. The resolution Sewell cosponsored demands the release of “all unclassified files, flight logs, correspondence, and evidence pertaining to Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell, and all known associates, with redactions only to protect the identities of minor victims and preserve ongoing prosecutions.”
Due to Johnson’s maneuver, the House will not meet again until after the end of its normally scheduled summer recess in September. Representative Thomas Massie, R-Kentucky, has said he will try to force a vote on releasing the Epstein files then.
