WASHINGTON — Congress could be forced to vote on whether to release the Epstein files, putting Republicans in the hot seat by one of their own party members.
Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., followed through with previous promises to pressure GOP leaders on the issue by filing what is known as a discharge petition when Congress returned from August recess on Tuesday. The procedure allows lawmakers to bring legislation to the House floor even without leadership’s approval — so long as they get a majority of House members to sign on.
“The more they push back, and the more billionaires spend running ads against me in Kentucky — yes, the more suspicious I get," Massie told reporters on Tuesday.
By filing the petition, it is now eligible for lawmakers to sign on. If it hits the majority signature threshold, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and other GOP leaders would be forced to bring it to the floor within two legislative days.
That process could be easier said than done. In order to force a vote, 216 House members will need to sign on, meaning four Republicans will need to join all Democrats. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., has already indicated she would sign on with Massie, but it’s unclear who else might be willing to buck party leadership.
However, Massie signaled that he’s confident he’ll get the signatures needed — especially if leadership continues efforts to squash a vote.
Meanwhile, top House Republicans are looking at other off-ramps to avoid a question on releasing the full files.
GOP leaders scheduled a vote on a resolution to encourage the House Oversight Committee to continue its current investigation into convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein — an inquiry that has already resulted in the Justice Department handing over thousands of pages to lawmakers last month.
Doing so would only require the Oversight Committee to publish the documents that are handed over by the DOJ — whereas Massie is pushing for the DOJ itself to release all documents in its possession.
The resolution would be mostly symbolic and serve as a political cover for Republicans who have faced accusations from their Democratic counterparts that they are shielding prominent celebrities or politicians who were linked to Epstein.
Massie called Johnson’s effort a “meaningless vote,” claiming it’s a cop-out to avoid supporting his bipartisan legislation.
Johnson pushed back against that characterization on Tuesday, telling reporters in a rare retort: “I would describe virtually everything Thomas Massie says related to this issue as meaningless.”
Massie chuckled at the comment moments later when it was relayed to him by reporters, arguing the speaker used some of his petition’s language to craft his watered-down resolution.
“I think he copied three pages of my document into his so I don’t think it’s meaningless,” Massie said. “I mean, I was very flattered. Why reinvent the wheel? He just took what I wrote and took the teeth out of it.”
To increase the pressure, Massie also plans to bring Epstein victims to Capitol Hill on Wednesday to address reporters — some for the first time publicly. It’s not clear how much information the survivors or their attorneys will share at the press availability.
The House Oversight Committee met with Epstein victims separately on Tuesday as part of its investigation. The panel later published the documents it received from the Justice Department, totaling more than 33,000 individual pages and hours of video footage.
House Oversight Republicans argued those documents would be sufficient, and said there would be no need to vote on Massie’s petition. However, Massie said it’s likely the DOJ-released files are not all that are there.
Instead, he compared it to when Attorney General Pam Bondi gave out binders with the files earlier this year that he said turned out “to be a nothingburger.”
“They go home, they read the binder, and they’re like, ‘We already had all this. This is already on the internet,’” he said. “And then they get more upset because somebody insulted their intelligence by giving them things they already knew. I think that’s the danger that the speaker and the Oversight Committee are running here right now.”