Republican Congressman Thomas Massie of Kentucky went against the most powerful leaders of his party to push forward with a vote to release more Jeffrey Epstein investigation files. That vote is expected to happen this week. House Speaker Mike Johnson, who for months has sought to avoid the politically charged issue, only agreed to schedule the vote after Massie helped lead a bipartisan coalition of House members to force his hand.
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The vote will be the culmination of months of growing demands from the public and within Congress demanding transparency about the disgraced financier’s ties to powerful figures. Trump himself tried and failed to pressure Massie and a handful of other Republicans to retract their support for releasing the files.
While Massie, 54, looks to many like an outcast in his own party, he tells TIME this potential win may give him momentum to make other things happen in Congress. “I think I’ve just demonstrated I can get something done with the Speaker against me, the President against me, the Vice President against me, and the FBI director against me,” says Massie, who has served in the House since 2012. “If you can get something done in the face of all that, then I think my prospects are pretty good.”
The bill before the House is called the Epstein Files Transparency Act. It would require the Justice Department to make public within 30 days all files, communications and investigative materials related to Epstein and his longtime associate Ghislaine Maxwell. It would allow the redaction of details identifying victims or interfering with ongoing investigations but prohibit the department from withholding information over concerns of “embarrassment, reputational harm, or political sensitivity.”
Epstein’s connections to Trump and other powerful figures exploded back into the news last week after the House Oversight Committee released 20,000 documents it obtained from the Epstein estate. Democrats on the committee highlighted three featuring Trump, including one in which Epstein alleged Trump “knew about the girls” and “spent hours” at Epstein’s house with one of them. But other emails showed Epstein mentioning or communicating with other powerful figures, including former President Bill Clinton and former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers. On Friday, Trump called on the Justice Department to investigate connections between Epstein and prominent Democrats like Clinton, as well as “many other people and institutions.”
It was the latest example of Trump promising to expose those connected to the late convicted sex offender, while stopping short of agreeing to release the full Epstein files in the government’s possession. Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI director Kash Patel were both vocal proponents of releasing more Epstein case files, before they got into office, as were other Trump campaign surrogates. More recently, Trump has decried the Epstein issue as a “hoax.”
The Epstein files have become an obsession for many, but particularly the MAGA base, Massie says, as an example of a broader problem—that there’s a separate set of rules for the wealthy and well-connected. Many Trump voters felt that they were sending Trump back to the White House to address exactly that. “And I think that’s why there’s such a disappointment now on this particular issue,” Massie says.
Massie insists Trump was never the target of the effort to get more of the Epstein files out in the open, and he doesn’t believe Trump is implicated in them. “My quest to force a vote on releasing the Epstein files is not about incriminating the President. I don’t think there’s anything in there that does,” Massie says.
Rather, Massie suspects Trump has been running interference for friends and donors who are known to have been friends with Epstein and may be embarrassed—or worse—if more comes to light. “I do think part of the reason he doesn’t want the Epstein files released is he’s trying to protect friends and donors in his social circle of the last four decades,” Massie says. “People in West Palm Beach and New York City.”
This week’s expected vote caps weeks of behind-the-scenes drama. Under ordinary circumstances, a bill like this would never reach the House floor without the blessing of party leadership. But Massie, and Ro Khanna, a California Democrat, sidestepped that barrier by deploying the rarely used discharge petition—a procedural end run that allows a majority of members to force a floor vote on legislation that leadership has blocked.
Their petition crossed the 218-signature threshold Wednesday afternoon, when Rep. Adelita Grijalva, a newly sworn-in Democrat from Arizona, added her name moments after taking the oath of office. Her signature locked the tally, preventing any member from withdrawing support—even as Trump and his allies mounted a last-minute lobbying blitz to persuade wavering Republicans to back away.
That pressure campaign included White House officials bringing Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado into the Situation Room last Wednesday to talk to her about her demands that Trump release more Epstein files. She ultimately kept her name on the discharge petition.
If every lawmaker who signed the petition votes for the measure, it will easily clear the House. While Democrats are expected to support it en masse, the level of Republican support remains a guessing game. Only four Republicans signed the discharge petition: Massie, Boebert and Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Nancy Mace of South Carolina. Another eight Republicans sponsored a similar bill in July. Massie expects they will all vote “yes” on the bill this week, and could be joined by many others. Late Sunday, Trump posted on social media that House Republicans should vote to release the Epstein files, “because we have nothing to hide,” though it remained unclear how many in his party would follow through.
Massie thinks Johnson should vote for it, given that he publicly called for a unanimous consent vote on it last week, once the discharge petition had enough signatures. Democrats blocked that vote in order to push forward with a roll call vote this week that would record the names of everyone voting “no.”
Still, the bill is not expected to become law. Even if it passes the House, it would face steep odds in the Senate, where it would require 60 votes to advance. Should it somehow clear both chambers, Trump would almost certainly veto it.
That makes next week’s vote largely symbolic—a show of frustration and political positioning rather than a step toward disclosure. But it will force Republicans to take a public stand on an issue the President would prefer to disappear.
And Massie’s not done being a fly in the ointment. He thinks he can use this momentum to pressure his party to tackle his other major project: cutting government spending and the deficit. He said spending and debt were why he previously voted against Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill, as well as last week’s continuing resolution that reopened the government..
Yet he also acknowledges that there may be a price to pay for going against his own party’s Speaker of the House. Massie says his relationship with Johnson is “not that great, if you can imagine. He’s got to eat a lot of crow.”
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