Congress

Johnson says he won’t block a floor vote to release the Epstein files

Published

8 months ago

October 21, 2025

Speaker Mike Johnson said in an interview Tuesday morning he would allow a floor vote a bipartisan bill compelling the full release of the Jeffrey Epstein files — once the House comes back into session following the end of the government shutdown.

“If it hits 218, it comes to the floor,” Johnson said of the discharge petition, a procedural maneuver that allows members to bypass leadership to force a floor vote on legislation if it receives that requisite number of lawmaker signatures.

The discharge petition, led by Reps. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) and Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), will reach that threshold once Johnson swears in Rep.-elect Adelita Grijalva, the Arizona Democrat who won a special election weeks ago to succeed her late father, Raúl Grijalva. Johnson, however, has said he will not officially seat her until Democrats in the Senate vote on House-passed legislation to fund the government — a decision Democrats say is driven by his desire to keep a vote on the Epstein files at bay.

Johnson also insisted he would not stand in the way of allowing the bill to come to the floor, as he has done in recent months. “No, we’re not — that’s how it works: If you get the signatures, it goes to a vote.”

That he won’t seek to a block a vote on the discharge petition if it gets 218 signers echoes comments he has made privately to fellow House Republicans for months. But Johnson also has in the past worked with senior House GOP leaders to circumvent that outcome, including by adjourning the House early for the August recess and shutting down the Rules Committee, which sets parameters for much of the chamber’s floor activity.

White House officials and senior Republicans also have, for weeks, been waging a quiet pressure campaign to get the three female Republicans to remove their names from the discharge petition — without success.

In any event, Johnson added, the Massie-Khanna vote was now “totally superfluous … All this work’s been done and will continue to be done.”

His comments follow lengthy remarks at a press conference earlier Tuesday morning, where Johnson praised the work of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee for leading an investigation into the late, convicted sex offender. So far, he said, the panel has released 43,000 pages of documents, issued many deposition subpoenas and received suspicious activity reports from the Treasury Department’s financial records.

Among the files now public are Epstein’s personal phone logs, financial ledgers and daily calendars.

“The bipartisan House Oversight Committee is already accomplishing what the discharge petition, that gambit, sought and much more,” Johnson said, at the press conference, adding that all “credible information” would be released to the public as part of panel’s months-long probe into the matter, while taking precautions to protect Epstein’s accusers.

“I’ve met with some of the Epstein victims,” Johnson said. “We’re working around the clock to ensure that justice is served and also as part of the oversight to figure out why justice has been delayed for so long.”

Still, Johnson lamented, “some Democrats and sadly even a couple Republicans have tried to make this a political issue.”

House Oversight chair James Comer (R-Ky.), also on hand for the press conference Tuesday, said his committee’s work has demonstrated that President Donald Trump was not implicated in the Epstein case, despite Trump’s admitted relationship with Epstein years ago.

Comer added that the panel was working to bring former President Bill Clinton, whose relationship with Epstein has also been long chronicled, in for a deposition. He later told reporters that Clinton’s legal team has been cooperating with his office toward that end.

The Justice Department, though, has signaled it will only resume cooperation with the committee to transmit information to Capitol Hill once the government shutdown ends.

Congress

House votes to disclose which members settled sexual misconduct allegations with taxpayer funds

Published

8 hours ago

June 30, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

The House approved a measure Tuesday compelling the public release of records showing which House members have used taxpayer dollars to settle sexual misconduct charges levied against them and how much money was spent.

The resolution, offered by Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), directs the House Ethics Committee and the Office of Congressional Workplace Rights — which also handles claims of misconduct — to produce such information within 60 days. It passed nearly unanimously, 420-0, with only Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) — an outspoken advocate for victims of sexual harassment and assault — voting present.

“We need to know what’s been going on here in the House of Representatives in order to convince the people and assure the people that we are conducting the people’s business with the utmost integrity and treating the officers and employees of this institution with the respect that they deserve,” said Massie, in remarks on the chamber floor imploring his colleagues to support the measure.

Massie’s effort comes after Reps. Tony Gonzales (R-Texas) and Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) were, earlier this year, forced to resign under the cloud of serious sexual misconduct allegations. The incidents forced a reckoning in the House, where members have historically struggled to show they take sexual assault allegations within their ranks seriously and to show they are prepared to root out bad behavior when necessary.

Facing such renewed public pressure, the House Ethics panel publicly reiterated its commitment to investigating claims of sexual misconduct among lawmakers. But in a statement in April, the committee also noted that it “does not handle sexual harassment lawsuits or have any involvement in settlements of such claims.”

In March, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee voted to subpoena the Office of Congressional Workplace Rights for related settlements, and those materials revealed that the federal government paid more than $300,000 to settle claims against House lawmakers or their offices.

Congress ended the practice of the government footing the bill on members’ behalf in 2018, and the Ethics Committee has said it has, since that time, “not been notified of any awards or settlements relating to allegations of sexual harassment by a Member.”

In an interview during the vote Tuesday, Ethics chair Michael Guest (R-Miss.) said he believed the information compelled by the resolution had already been shared. But he would still support the measure, he added, because there was “nothing problematic” about Massie’s proposal.

“Anything we can do to make sure that that information is readily available, we want to make that happen,” Guest said.

The House previously rejected a related measure from Mace that would have forced the Ethics Committee to release information on its investigations of lawmakers who have been accused of sexual misconduct. The top Republican and Democrat on the Ethics panel — Guest and Mark DeSaulnier (D.Calif.) at the time released a rare public statement to condemn the resolution, arguing it would have a chilling effect on victims.

In a video posted on X Tuesday afternoon, Mace questioned why the House was voting on Massie’s resolution, when the Oversight subpoena she championed had already compelled materials about the settlements to be shared with Congress.

“I guess it’s just political theater,” she said.

Congress

Shouting match erupts between Lawler and Raskin at immigration hearing

Published

8 hours ago

June 30, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

A House hearing on immigration policy devolved into a chaotic shouting match Tuesday, illustrating the tension over an issue that has defined the Trump era.

Republican Rep. Mike Lawler and Democrat Jamie Raskin erupted at each other during a House Judiciary subcommittee hearing on the “sanctuary” policies in some jurisdictions that limit cooperation between local law enforcement and immigration authorities.

Lawler drew the ire of Raskin as he introduced as a witness the mother of Sheridan Gorman, an 18-year-old college student from his home state who was killed in March in Chicago — allegedly by a Venezuelan with no legal status in the U.S.

The New York lawmaker accused Democratic lawmakers of having more sympathy for Renee Good and Alex Pretti, U.S. citizens who were shot to death by immigration agents in Minneapolis, than people like Gorman and Laken Riley, who was killed in Georgia in 2024 by a Venezuelan without legal status.

“While some of my colleagues may not want to hear the truth, the same outrage you feel about Renee Good and Alex Pretti, you should feel about Sheridan Gorman and Laken Riley and every angel family in this country,” Lawler said.

That drew an outburst from Raskin:

“I do feel that outrage,” Raskin said, prompting Lawler to shout back, “You do not!”

The Maryland lawmaker then challenged Lawler: “Do you feel the outrage for Alex Pretti and Renee Good?”

Then came the chaos: Democrat Rep. Pramila Jayapal, the ranking member of the committee, told Lawler he was reading a statement, not an introduction, then called on Republican Rep. Tom McClintock, the chair, to suspend Lawler’s comments.

Still, Lawler and Raskin continued to yell at each other.

“You don’t belong in this committee. You should get the hell out of here!” Raskin told Lawler. “You don’t understand the rules of the committee. You don’t understand the Constitution. You’re full of it!”

Lawler responded by yelling that Raskin should be “ashamed” of himself for not opposing sanctuary city policies.

Neither Raskin nor Lawler’s office immediately responded to requests for comment.

“Thanks to Mr. Lawler’s outrageous outburst, we will not allow this to happen again,” Jayapal said following the verbal altercation. “This was an agreement between the chair and the ranking member. And unfortunately, you’re not able to control your members.”

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this report misspelled Renee Good’s name.

Congress

House floor is frozen after GOP holdouts reject Johnson’s election-bill plan

Published

11 hours ago

June 30, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

A handful of House Republicans angry about the Senate’s failure to act on a GOP elections bill and other grievances with party leaders rejected a procedural measure Tuesday, effectively halting progress on the annual defense policy bill and other legislation.

The hard-liner rebellion Tuesday at least temporarily extends a freeze on most floor business that began last week amid conservative frustrations over the stalled SAVE America Act, which President Donald Trump has called his No. 1 legislative priority.

The “rule” setting up further House votes this week failed 224-198, with 14 Republicans voting with Democrats against the measure. Those Republicans included Majority Leader Steve Scalise, who immediately moved to reconsider the vote at a later time. Leaders also faced absences from several Republicans.

If Speaker Mike Johnson can’t placate the holdouts, he will be unable to move the annual Pentagon bill or the fiscal 2027 spending bill for the State Department and other agencies as planned before a scheduled weeklong July 4 recess begins. Also set to be left behind is a ceremonial resolution commemorating the one-year anniversary of tax-cut legislation that remains the GOP’s major legislative triumph of President Donald Trump’s second term.

Johnson told reporters Republicans would work for the “next day-and-a-half” to settle the disputes and move on with the scheduled business.

Rep. Anna Paulina Luna of Florida demanded Tuesday that Johnson attach the SAVE America Act to the Pentagon bill as an amendment — even after Johnson moved to attach the bill as part of the procedural vote that failed Tuesday.

Divisions among Republican senators have stalled the bill in the other chamber, where it faces a certain Democratic filibuster.

Trump has amped up pressure on congressional Republicans, canceling the signing of a major housing bill last week to put pressure on the Senate to pass the bill. Later, after meeting with Johnson at the White House Thursday, the president instructed GOP members not to blockade the floor.

Luna and others did not heed him Tuesday.

Rep. Jim McGovern of Massachusetts, the top Democrat on the House Rules Committee, called the situation “unhinged” on the floor Tuesday.

“What on earth are we doing here?” McGovern said. “Every week, wondering if someone’s going to throw a fit, if Donald Trump is going to post something crazy and blow everything up, if Mike Johnson is going to bring something to the floor when he doesn’t have the votes.”