Push for House Vote on Epstein Files Release Seen as Losing Momentum

House lawmakers backing a petition to advance a vote on releasing additional files on now-deceased convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein gathered Wednesday at the Capitol—alongside several of his accusers.

The petition’s support among Republican lawmakers has appeared to falter in recent days.

“I hope my colleagues are watching this press conference. I want them to think, ‘What if this was your sister? What if this was your daughter?’ when these survivors speak,” said Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky.

Massie, along with Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., has spearheaded a petition to force a vote on requiring the federal government to release additional files. Currently, the petition has three Republican signatories other than Massie: Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, Lauren Boebert of Colorado, and Nancy Mace of South Carolina. 

In order to get the 218 votes necessary to force the consideration of the Massie-Khanna bill, every House Democrat and two additional GOP representatives would have to sign on.

The problem? Support for the measure appears to have dropped off over the August recess.

Rep. Keith Self, R-Texas, told The Daily Signal on Tuesday that, due to the White House’s work on the issue, he would not sign onto the discharge petition, despite previously having been a co-sponsor.

“I have agreed that I will not actually sign the discharge petition, because I believe that there are some satisfactory things moving forward,” he said, adding: 

But I have also said that we are going to watch to see the transparency is still there. I have been assured that it will be, but I will be watching very carefully to see the transparency, because that’s what we need in this case, is transparency.

We want to expose the criminals. We want to protect the victims and protect the innocent. That’s transparency.

On Tuesday, the House Oversight Committee released tens of thousands of pages of documents transferred from the executive branch in compliance with a subpoena. 

Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., contended that that eliminates the need for a discharge petition, writing on the social media platform X, “I don’t think the vote to release the Epstein files will even come to the floor, being that they will all be made public.”

Additionally, House leadership has scheduled a vote on a resolution directing the Oversight Committee to continue its investigation into the Epstein case.

Nevertheless, the backers of the discharge petition argue that their measure remains necessary.

“Now, the Speaker of the House just offered a fig leaf to my colleagues. They’re going to vote on a nonbinding resolution today that does absolutely nothing,” said Massie.

He added, “I appreciate the efforts of my colleagues, [Rep.] James Comer [of Kentucky], who’s leading the Oversight Committee. They may find some information, but they’re allowing the [Justice Department] to curate all of the information … . If you’ve looked at the pages they’ve released so far, they’re heavily redacted … and 97% of this is already in the public domain.”

The Massie-Khanna measure also faces opposition from the White House.

On Tuesday, a White House spokesperson said that “[h]elping Thomas Massie and Liberal Democrats with their attention-seeking, while the DOJ is fully supporting a more comprehensive file-release effort from the Oversight Committee, would be viewed as a very hostile act to the administration.”

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