A top House committee released more than 33,000 pages of records on Tuesday that the Justice Department had turned over last month in connection with its investigation of the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, as Republican leaders toiled to tamp down pressure in their ranks for more transparency.
The release of the files by the House Oversight Committee, the chamber’s chief investigative panel, had been expected. Many of the documents were public court filings, and it was not immediately clear whether they included any material the Trump administration had not already made public.
Mr. Epstein, whose rich and powerful friends included President Trump, died by suicide in prison in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.
After years of alluding to a potential cover-up in the case, Mr. Trump has faced a backlash from his right-wing base over the Justice Department’s decision to close the investigation without revealing all of what was discovered. The Oversight panel subpoenaed all the files, but the department has turned over only a portion of them.
The publication of what it received came as Congress returned from a five-week recess that House Republican leaders had hoped might dissipate the fervor over the Epstein files, only to find that pressure had intensified.
On Tuesday afternoon, Representative Thomas Massie, Republican of Kentucky, pushed forward with a bipartisan measure that would force a vote on the House floor on whether to demand that the administration publicly release all of its investigative material on Mr. Epstein.
Representative Robert Garcia of California, the top Democrat on the Oversight Committee, said in a statement that 97 percent of the documents published on Tuesday had been previously released, and he accused Republicans of trying to “give cover” to Mr. Trump by feigning transparency.
Republican leaders are laboring to kill Mr. Massie’s effort by persuading members of their party not to sign on to it. If he can collect the signatures of 218 members of the House — a majority of the body — demanding to bring his measure to the floor, it will force a vote on the matter.
To do so, he would need at least a small bloc of Republicans to join Democrats in backing the effort. Such a move would be a striking rebuke of Mr. Trump and his administration, which has been buffeted by criticism from some core supporters for failing to fulfill promises to release all files connected to Mr. Epstein’s case.
As the committee prepared to release the files on Tuesday evening, Speaker Mike Johnson declared Mr. Massie’s effort as unnecessary, saying it was “effectively a moot point now because all of this is happening, what the House Oversight Committee is doing.”
But G.O.P. leaders’ efforts to squelch the move appeared to be falling flat. By Tuesday night, only hours after Mr. Massie submitted his petition for signatures, three Republicans had signed on: Representatives Nancy Mace of South Carolina, Lauren Boebert of Colorado and Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia.
In another bid to head off defections, Republican leaders moved on Tuesday to set up a vote for later in the week on a measure that would direct the Oversight Committee to continue the investigation it has already been conducting for weeks into Mr. Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, a longtime associate currently serving 20 years in prison on federal sex-trafficking charges.
That measure would be little more than a political gesture: No vote by the full House is needed for the committee to continue its work. The panel issued the subpoena for the full Epstein files last month after Democrats forced a vote on the issue. It has already scheduled depositions on the matter in the coming weeks. And its Republican chairman, Representative James R. Comer of Kentucky, has since expanded the scope of the investigation, signaling his intent to push forward.
Mr. Comer has previously said that the Justice Department will continue to provide records to the committee in the coming months, though neither he nor the department have provided details on the timing of any new releases. Mr. Massie’s measure would require that the department release its files within 30 days after passage.
On Tuesday, Mr. Comer, Mr. Johnson and members of the Oversight Committee from both parties met behind closed doors with six of Mr. Epstein’s victims for more than two hours. Some of the victims are also scheduled to participate in a news conference on Wednesday morning with Mr. Massie and Representative Ro Khanna, Democrat of California, who is cosponsoring his bill.
As they left the meeting, several lawmakers described emotional conversations with victims. Ms. Mace, who has spoken publicly about being sexually assaulted, appeared visibly shaken as she exited, declining to speak to reporters.
After the meeting, Mr. Johnson said that Republican leaders were committed to uncovering wrongdoing and investigating the Epstein case. But he dismissed Mr. Massie’s measure as “inartfully drafted” and contended that it did not sufficiently protect victims, even though it would provide for similar redactions as the Oversight Committee’s subpoenas.
Democrats in the meeting said that the victims welcomed greater transparency around the Epstein investigation. Representative Jasmine Crockett of Texas dismissed Mr. Johnson’s concerns.
“This is nothing more than an excuse for him not to push forward and try to say that it’s on behalf of the victims,” she said. “But if the speaker knows his job, then he knows how to fix legislation that has problems.”
Megan Mineiro contributed reporting.
Michael Gold covers Congress for The Times, with a focus on immigration policy and congressional oversight.
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