GOP’s Thomas Massie Pushes Discharge Petition to Force House Vote on Epstein Records
WASHINGTON – Representative Thomas Massie, Republican of Kentucky, introduced a motion to exonerate the legislator on Tuesday to force the House of Representatives to vote on the release of records relating to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, bringing the issue back to the forefront when Congress returns.
Massie and Representative Ro Khanna, Democrat of California, introduced a bill in July requiring the Justice Department to release Epstein’s records within 30 days. Their goal was to force a vote on the bill as soon as lawmakers return from their long August recess.
Although House leadership controls the agenda and determines which laws are passed, lawmakers can “exonerate” bills pending in committee. A motion to exonerate allows 218 members, a majority of the lower chamber, to sign on and bypass leadership to bring a bill to a vote in the full House.
On Tuesday, Khanna told NPR News he was “very confident” that all 212 Democrats would support the petition, along with more Republicans than needed to force a vote in the House.
Before lawmakers left Washington, Democrats and some House Republicans pushed for a vote to force the release of the records, but House Speaker Mike Johnson chose to adjourn early in the face of pressure. Upon returning to Washington on Tuesday, House Republican leaders added a bill to the House agenda for this week that would direct the House Oversight Committee to “continue its ongoing investigation into potential federal misconduct involving Mr. Jeffrey Epstein and Ms. Ghislaine Maxwell,” Epstein’s accomplices, who are serving 20-year prison sentences.
Massie criticized the decision, calling it a “meaningless vote aimed at providing political cover for members who do not support our bipartisan legislation to compel the release of the Epstein files.”
In response, Johnson told reporters he would dismiss “virtually everything Thomas Massie says on this matter” as meaningless. The House Speaker defended the administration’s and Congress’s handling of the documents so far, telling CBS News, “A lot of things happened during the August session.”
“The Oversight Committee is working hard, and the administration is determined. The Justice Department has complied with all subpoenas received and is already processing 34,000 documents,” Johnson said. “We’re going to do this as quickly as possible so that all of this is made public and the American people can make their own decisions.”
Epstein was convicted of sex trafficking and died in federal custody in 2019, in what many investigators called a suicide. But pressure to release the Epstein files reached fever pitch, including from within President Trump’s inner circle, after the Justice Department released the results of an internal investigation in July, which found no “client lists” or evidence that Epstein blackmailed influential figures. This development has prompted calls for greater transparency from both sides.
Members of the House Oversight Committee are meeting Tuesday with survivors of Epstein’s abuse. Massie and Khanna are scheduled to hold a press conference on Capitol Hill Wednesday alongside the survivors.
These developments follow the Trump administration’s release of transcripts of a two-day interview with Maxwell late last month. The Oversight Committee also announced its intention to release redacted documents about Epstein received from the Justice Department.
“We’re going to release this information; that’s what the American people want,” Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, a Kentucky Republican, told Fox News on Sunday. “It’s very complicated because there are victims involved in the Epstein files, and we want to hear from those victims, their families, and their attorneys to determine the best way to present this information.”