WASHINGTON — The House won’t vote on several Republican-led pieces of legislation this week as the party remains in a state of paralysis over what to do with proposals to release files related to financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
The House Rules Committee won’t reconvene this week, committee members said, leaving the state of the chamber at a standstill as the panel is responsible for advancing bills to the floor for consideration. Without meeting, the House can’t vote on any of the bills originally up for consideration related to immigration.
The committee was scheduled to meet Monday afternoon to set the parameters for debate on a slew of bills this week. However, the panel adjourned without plans to return amid Democratic efforts to force a vote on releasing the Epstein files — something that has divided Republicans in recent weeks.
It’s a repeat of what happened last week when Republicans delayed votes on President Donald Trump’s spending cuts request due to concerns that Democrats would force them into uncomfortable votes related to the Epstein investigation.
House GOP leadership drafted a resolution last week calling for the release of the investigative materials as a way to provide Republican lawmakers with some political cover as Democrats hammer them on the subject. But that resolution is nonbinding and was not placed on the voting schedule for the week, prompting criticism from some rank-and-file members.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., confirmed there would not be an Epstein-related vote this week, dismissing efforts from Democrats and even some Republicans to pressure the Trump administration to share findings pertaining to its Epstein investigation. Instead, lawmakers will give the White House time to release documents at its own pace, Johnson said.
“There is no daylight between House Republicans … and the president on maximum transparency,” Johnson said. “My belief is we need the administration to have the space to do what it is doing, and if further congressional action is necessary or appropriate, then we’ll look at that. But I don’t think we’re at that point right now.”
The decision comes amid growing pressure within the Republican base to release files related to the Epstein investigation even as President Donald Trump has urged his followers to drop the story.
“If you tell the base of people, who support you, of deep state treasonous crimes, election interference, blackmail, and rich powerful elite evil cabals, then you must take down every enemy of The People,” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., said in a post on X. “If not, the base will turn and there’s no going back. Dangling bits of red meat no longer satisfies. They want the whole steak dinner and will accept nothing else.”
Meanwhile, a pair of lawmakers are pushing for a bipartisan resolution that would require the release of the Epstein files even as Trump and other GOP leaders push against it.
Reps. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., and Ro Khanna, D-Calif., filed a discharge petition last week that would force a vote on the matter, although that piece of legislation won’t be ready for consideration — or “ripened,” as the legislative process puts it — until after this week.
Massie told reporters he plans to bring that resolution up when lawmakers return in September, suggesting his Republican colleagues will be met with growing frustration back home.
The House is scheduled to leave for its annual August recess on Thursday, sending lawmakers home until after Labor Day. By that point, Republicans are hoping the Epstein news cycle will have died down — but Democrats appear likely to keep the pressure on.
“Once it has broken into the public domain, and there’s a clear desire on behalf of the American people to get more information, then the right thing to do is to present the facts and the evidence to the American people so that they can make an informed decision about what may or may not have happened and who may or may not be implicated in the Jeffrey Epstein matter,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., told reporters on Monday.
Trump has taken steps to quell the growing calls to release the Epstein files, announcing last week that he would direct Attorney General Pam Bondi to begin unsealing grand jury testimony related to the case. Johnson said GOP leaders would give the Trump administration the next few weeks to release that information, after which lawmakers will decide whether to take further action.
It’s not clear if the House will force votes on Epstein-related legislation when they return in September.