When House Republican leaders rushed to leave Washington for a long August break, they seemed desperate to quell the anger among their supporters about the Trump administration’s backtracking on a promise to release files related to its investigation of the accused sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.
But halfway through a five-week congressional recess, the clamor shows little sign of quieting. While Republicans had hoped that legal rulings might insulate them from having to confront the issue, the courts have yet to intervene. Back in their districts, lawmakers have continued to face questions about the Epstein investigation from their constituents. And the Justice Department, which ignored a Friday deadline from Senate Democrats and faces another on Tuesday to comply with a bipartisan subpoena to provide the materials to Congress, has yet to release anything.
At the same time, Democrats, in some cases with the help of Republicans, have laid a series of procedural traps that will make it all but impossible for the G.O.P. to avoid confronting the Epstein issue again when Congress reconvenes in September.
“We’re going to keep the pressure up — 100 percent,” Senator Ruben Gallego, Democrat of Arizona, said at an event in Iowa this month. “As often as we can, until we know exactly what happened, why it happened.”
Even with Congress in recess, the issue continues to generate attention in Washington. On Monday, William P. Barr, who was President Trump’s attorney general when Mr. Epstein died, testified in a closed-door deposition for the House Oversight Committee.
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