WASHINGTON — After a weeks-long delay, Reps. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., and Ro Khanna, D-Calif., on Wednesday are on the cusp of securing sufficient signatures to bypass GOP leaders and pressure a flooring vote to compel the Justice Division to launch all the information in its investigation into Jeffrey Epstein.
Rep. Adelita Grijalva, D-Ariz. — who received the seat of her late father in a September particular election — has vowed she’ll be the 218th signature on Massie and Khanna’s “discharge petition” after she is sworn into workplace at round 4 p.m. ET Wednesday.
That quantity represents a easy majority of the complete 435-member Home chamber.
Below Home guidelines, as soon as a discharge petition hits that magic variety of 218 signatures, the Home should act on it, although seven legislative days should move earlier than a vote might be known as.
“It’s unbelievable that for seven-plus weeks, Consultant-elect Adelita Grijalva … decisively has been denied the flexibility to serve greater than 800,000 folks in Arizona. And why is that the case? It’s as a result of Republicans are operating a pedophile safety program. They’re deliberately hiding the Jeffrey Epstein information,” Home Minority Chief Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., instructed reporters Tuesday night time.
“However these days are over, as a result of as quickly as Consultant-elect Adelita Grijalva turns into Congresswoman Grijalva, her first act … goes to be to signal that discharge petition,” he added. “It’s going to pressure a vote on the Home flooring, and the American persons are going to get the transparency that they deserve.”
The Massie-Khanna invoice, referred to as the Epstein Recordsdata Transparency Act, would require the Justice Division to “publicly disclose all unclassified information, paperwork, communications, and investigative supplies in its possession that relate to Epstein,” the convicted intercourse offender who died in jail in 2019 or his co-conspirator, Ghislaine Maxwell, who’s presently serving a jail sentence.
The invoice incorporates some restricted exemptions, together with for personally identifiable data of victims and for labeled data.
It’s anticipated to move the Home, however it nonetheless would wish to clear the GOP-controlled Senate and be signed by the president to turn out to be legislation, which is unlikely.
Grijalva was purported to take the oath of workplace shortly after her Sept. 23 election victory. However the authorities shut down per week later, and Home Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., refused to swear in Grijalva till a handful of Senate Democrats joined Republicans in voting to reopen the federal government.
They did so on Monday, and the Home is ready to move the funding invoice later Wednesday.
The seven-week delay sparked Democratic protests exterior the speaker’s workplace; on one event, Democrats verbally sparred with Johnson himself.
Grijalva turning into the 218th signature on the discharge petition marks a dramatic improvement within the Epstein saga, which has dogged President Donald Trump and his administration since July, when the Justice Division and FBI printed a brief memo stating that their Epstein information contained no “incriminating ‘consumer record’” or proof that will result in extra prosecution of third events.
That data was at odds with what Kash Patel himself had mentioned concerning the existence of a consumer record earlier than he grew to become Trump’s FBI director this 12 months. And the struggle over the Epstein information has pushed a wedge between Trump and a few in his MAGA base who say they need justice for Epstein’s victims.
“What the hell are the Home Republicans doing?” Patel instructed conservative media persona Benny Johnson on his podcast in 2024. “They’ve the bulk. You may’t get the record? … Put in your massive boy pants and tell us who the pedophiles are!”
After the Trump administration’s memo, Massie and Khanna started constructing bipartisan help for his or her discharge petition. As lawmakers returned from their five-week summer season recess in early September, the pair held a information convention exterior the Capitol with greater than a half dozen ladies who mentioned Epstein and Maxwell had abused them after they have been minors. Some mentioned that they had been trafficked to Epstein’s island within the Caribbean or his ranch in New Mexico.
4 Republicans — Massie, together with Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., Lauren Boebert, R-Ga., and Nancy Mace, R-S.C. — signed on to the discharge petition, as did all 212 Democrats.
However Speaker Johnson has slammed the discharge effort as “reckless” and pointless. The Home Oversight Committee is already investigating the matter, he mentioned, and has been releasing troves of information from each the federal government and the Epstein property. Lots of the first batch of information launched by the committee had already been made public. It then launched a 2003 guide of congratulatory letters to mark Epstein’s fiftieth birthday, supplied to the committee by his property. The guide included a lewd message allegedly from Trump, who has denied its authenticity.
Johnson has warned that releasing all of the information might danger making public “harmless folks’s names and reputations,” in addition to disclosing the identities of Epstein victims who don’t wish to come ahead. However the laws states the lawyer basic could withhold or redact information that “comprise personally identifiable data of victims or victims’ private and medical information … the disclosure of which might represent a clearly unwarranted invasion of private privateness.”
In the meantime, Trump and high White Home officers final month started burning up the telephone traces and whipping on-the-fence Republicans to make sure they did not signal the discharge petition.
Trump himself has dismissed efforts in Congress to pressure the discharge of the information as a “Democrat Epstein Hoax,” and a White Home official mentioned it might be seen as a “hostile act” to the president if Republicans help it.
In early September, Massie and Khanna had appeared to hit an deadlock, caught at 216 signatures and unable to persuade every other Republicans to get on board.
However they bought their 217th signature on Sept. 10 after Democrat James Walkinshaw received a particular election to exchange his former boss, Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., who died earlier this 12 months.
Grijalva will put Massie and Khanna excessive with the 218th signature after profitable one other particular election to succeed her father, longtime Rep. Raul Grijalva, D-Ariz., who died in March.
