Emerging from a more than two-hour meeting between Jeffrey Epstein victims and bipartisan group of members of the House Oversight Committee, Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters Tuesday Republicans are committed to transparency and justice — despite fractures within his conference on how to address the Epstein issue.
“There were tears in the room. There was outrage. It was both heartbreaking and infuriating that justice has been delayed so long,” Johnson said.
Oversight Chair Rep. James Comer told reporters he intends to expand the scope of the investigation after hearing from the victims, including new witnesses.
“We’re going to do everything we can to give the American public the transparency they seek, as well as provide accountability in memory of the victims who have already passed away, as well as those that were in the room and many others who haven’t come forward,” Comer, R-Ky., said.
Earlier on the House floor on Tuesday, Republican Rep. Thomas Massie formally filed a discharge petition — a procedural tool to bypass GOP leadership and force a vote on a measure to compel the Justice Department to publicly release the Jeffrey Epstein files.
The Kentucky congressman, who co-sponsored the resolution with Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna, can now begin collecting support for the petition, needing 218 signatures to trigger a vote on the floor. If all Democrats sign the petition, only six Republicans are needed to reach the magic number.
Massie told ABC News Capitol Hill Correspondent Jay O’Brien on Tuesday that he’s fighting for transparency and to help fulfill a campaign promise President Donald Trump made to the American people to release the records. Massie said Trump is “at 180 degrees with his base” on the Epstein issue and that Trump’s supporters are clamoring for the Justice Department records to be released.
“I think he thinks he can just make this go away by telling people there’s nothing here,” Massie told O’Brien.
Massie told O’Brien that he believes he has the numbers, despite Trump pressuring Republicans to move on from Epstein.
“That is why I think that my Republican colleagues will ultimately sign this discharge petition, at least six of them, because even though on this issue, they might be against what the president’s saying, they’re actually with the president’s base,” Massie said.
Johnson reiterated his opposition to Massie and Khanna’s discharge petition.
“It does not adequately protect the innocent victims, and that is a critical component,” Johnson said.
Asked about criticism from Massie and others that he is pushing back against a vote to protect President Donald Trump, Johnson called that “obvious nonsense.”
“We are demonstrating here that this is being done, but I’m going to emphasize again, it has to be done in the right way,” he told O’Brien.
Johnson argued the Oversight investigation, which has subpoenaed records from DOJ and the Epstein estate, is the better path because committee investigators will pore over the files and redact any identifying or otherwise confidential information.
“I think the [discharge] petition itself is effectively a moot point now, because all of this is happening, what the House Oversight Committee is doing, what they are actually gathering is everything that was requested in the discharge petition, plus even more,” Johnson added.
Massie and Khanna’s bipartisan effort is the latest as House members returned to Capitol Hill on Tuesday, picking up where they left off with the saga surrounding the Epstein files, and with some survivors of Epstein’s sexual abuse and alleged trafficking taking meetings with lawmakers this week.
The survivors are also slated to join a press conference on Capitol Hill with Khanna and Massie on Wednesday.
Lawmakers are returning to work with the same problem they had when they jetted home a day early back in July to embark on their recess.
Before the recess, Johnson laid blame on the Democrats for creating the Epstein files controversy, and echoed statements made by Trump that if the Department of Justice has credible evidence, they should release it.
GOP leaders are now returning with plans to tee up a vote on a separate Epstein resolution, which formally directs the House Oversight Committee to undertake its Epstein inquiry.
Democrats, on the other hand, are expected to resume their pressure campaign where it left off — at the House Rules Committee — where disarray prompted Johnson to send the House on its summer recess a day early.
In July, the GOP-led Rules Committee — which was working on advancing a slate of unrelated bills — came to a halt because Democrats announced their plan to force a committee vote on bipartisan legislation that would call for the release of the Epstein files.
“We’re gonna keep on pushing it, and so I intend to offer an amendment at Rules tonight,” Rep. Jim McGovern, the ranking Democrat on the House Rules Committee, told ABC Tuesday afternoon. “They can do all kinds of things to try to provide their members cover, but at the end of the day people will see through it, and they’re either going to release the files or they’re not.”
As a dozen of the Epstein survivors meet with lawmakers this week, McGovern said their presence should remind Republicans “that there are real victims in this” who “clearly don’t believe that justice has been done in this matter.”
“Having the victims come up to the Hill, I think, makes it more difficult for the Republicans to weasel out of releasing the files, but this isn’t going away, and we’re going to keep on pushing it, and Republicans can keep on voting against our amendments and voting to cover this up, but that’s their choice,” McGovern said.
Epstein was arrested in July 2019 and charged in a federal indictment with conspiracy and child sex trafficking. He died in custody a month later, while awaiting trial. His death was ruled a suicide by hanging.
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