WASHINGTON\u00a0\u2014\u00a0President Trump said House Republicans should vote to release files involving the Jeffrey Epstein case, a startling reversal after months of fiercely fighting the proposal.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have nothing to hide, and it\u2019s time to move on from this Democrat Hoax perpetrated by Radical Left Lunatics in order to deflect from the Great Success of the Republican Party,\u201d Trump wrote on social media shortly after landing at Joint Base Andrews on his return to Washington after a weekend in Florida.<\/p>\n
Democrats and some Republicans have been pushing a measure that would force the Justice Department to make public more documents from the case.<\/p>\n
The president\u2019s shift is an implicit acknowledgment that supporters of the measure have enough votes to pass the House, although it has an unclear future in the Senate.<\/p>\n
His remarks came hours after Republican proponents of releasing the files predicted that \u201ca deluge of Republicans\u201d would be joining Democrats in voting for a bill to do so, despite what had been persistent opposition by Trump and GOP leadership. <\/p>\n
The bill would force the Justice Department to release all files and communications related to Epstein, as well as any information about the investigation into his death in federal prison. Information about Epstein\u2019s victims or ongoing federal investigations would be allowed to be redacted.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere could be 100 or more\u201d votes from Republicans, said Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), among the lawmakers discussing the legislation Sunday news show appearances. \u201cI\u2019m hoping to get a veto-proof majority on this legislation when it comes up for a vote.\u201d<\/p>\n
Massie and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Fremont) introduced a discharge petition in July to force a vote on their bill. That is a rarely successful tool that allows a majority of members to bypass House leadership and force a floor vote.<\/p>\n
Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) had panned the discharge petition effort and sent members home early for their August recess when the GOP\u2019s legislative agenda was upended by the clamoring for an Epstein vote. <\/p>\n
Democrats also contend that the seating of Rep. Adelita Grijalva (D-Ariz.) was stalled to delay her becoming the 218th member to sign the petition and gain the threshold needed to force a vote. She became the 218th signature moments after taking the oath of office last week.<\/p>\n
Massie said Johnson, Trump and others who had been critical of his efforts would be \u201ctaking a big loss this week.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not tired of winning yet, but we are winning,\u201d Massie said.<\/p>\n
The view from GOP leadership<\/p>\n
Johnson seemed to expect that the House would decisively back the Epstein bill. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ll just get this done and move it on. There\u2019s nothing to hide,\u201d the speaker said. He continued to deride the Massie-Khanna effort, however, asserting that the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee has been releasing \u201cfar more information than the discharge petition, their little gambit.\u201d<\/p>\n
The vote comes at a time when new documents are raising fresh questions about Epstein and his associates, including a 2019 email that Epstein wrote to a journalist that said Trump \u201cknew about the girls.\u201d The White House has accused Democrats of selectively leaking the emails to smear the Republican president, though lawmakers from both parties released emails last week. <\/p>\n
Johnson said Trump \u201chas nothing to hide from this.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re doing this to go after President Trump on this theory that he has something to do with it. He does not,\u201d Johnson said.<\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s former friendship and association with Epstein is well-established, and the president\u2019s name was included in records that his Justice Department released in February as part of an effort to satisfy public interest in information from the sex-trafficking investigation.<\/p>\n
Trump has never been accused of wrongdoing in connection with Epstein and the mere inclusion of someone\u2019s name in files from the investigation does not imply otherwise. Epstein, who killed himself in jail in 2019 while awaiting trial, also had many prominent acquaintances in political and celebrity circles besides Trump.<\/p>\n
Khanna voiced more modest expectations on the vote count than Massie. Still, Khanna said he was hoping for 40 or more Republicans to join the effort. <\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t even know how involved Trump was,\u201d Khanna said. \u201cThere are a lot of other people involved who have to be held accountable.\u201d<\/p>\n
Khanna also asked Trump to meet with some of Epstein\u2019s victims. Some will be at the Capitol on Tuesday for a news conference, he said. <\/p>\n
Massie said Republican lawmakers who may have feared losing Trump\u2019s endorsement because of how they vote would have a mark on their record if they voted \u201cno,\u201d which could hurt their political prospects in the long term.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe record of this vote will last longer than Donald Trump\u2019s presidency,\u201d Massie said. <\/p>\n
A MAGA split<\/p>\n
On the Republican side, three members joined with Massie in signing the discharge petition: Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, Nancy Mace of South Carolina and Lauren Boebert of Colorado.<\/p>\n
Trump publicly broke with Greene last week and said he would endorse a challenger against her in 2026 \u201cif the right person runs.\u201d<\/p>\n
Greene, a MAGA stalwart throughout her time in Congress, attributed her fallout with Trump to the Epstein debate. \u201cUnfortunately, it has all come down to the Epstein files,\u201d she said, adding that the country deserves transparency on the issue and that Trump\u2019s criticism of her is confusing because the women she has talked to say he did nothing wrong. <\/p>\n
\u201cI have no idea what\u2019s in the files. I can\u2019t even guess. But that is the question everyone is asking: … \u2018Why fight this so hard?\u2019\u201d Greene said.<\/p>\n
Even if the bill passes the House, there is no guarantee that Senate Republicans will go along. Massie said he just hopes Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) \u201cwill do the right thing.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe pressure is going to be there if we get a big vote in the House,\u201d said Massie, who thinks \u201cwe could have a deluge of Republicans.\u201d<\/p>\n
Massie appeared on ABC\u2019s \u201cThis Week,\u201d Johnson was on \u201cFox News Sunday,\u201d Khanna spoke on NBC\u2019s \u201cMeet the Press,\u201d and Greene was interviewed on CNN\u2019s \u201cState of the Union.\u201d<\/p>\n
Freking and Megerian write for the Associated Press and reported from Washington and West Palm Beach, Fla., respectively.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON\u00a0\u2014\u00a0President Trump said House Republicans should vote to release files involving the Jeffrey Epstein case, a startling reversal…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":56672,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[3653,34961,4416,34957,34573,34959,1776,18654,34960,48,52,51,7834,47,50,49,34958,34962,3020,1519,4486],"class_list":["post-56671","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-bill","tag-discharge-petition","tag-effort","tag-epstein","tag-epstein-file","tag-house-republicans","tag-information","tag-johnson","tag-khanna","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-lawmaker","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-massie","tag-office-last-week","tag-president-trump","tag-trump","tag-vote"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56671","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56671"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56671\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/56672"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56671"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56671"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56671"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}