Congress
House plans to vote Tuesday on releasing Epstein files
House Republican leaders are planning to hold a vote Tuesday on legislation to force the release of federal files related to Jeffrey Epstein, according to three people granted anonymity to discuss internal plans ahead of a public announcement.
The tentative scheduling decision follows a successful effort by Reps. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) and Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) to sidestep Speaker Mike Johnson and force a floor vote on their bipartisan bill to compel the Justice Department to release all of its records related to the late convicted sex offender.
President Donald Trump has made repeated attempts to kill the effort, which continued in a series of Truth Social posts Friday. But Johnson said Wednesday he intends to move quickly to hold the vote and put the matter to bed.
Under the current GOP plan, the House Rules Committee would approve a procedural measure Monday night to advance eight bills for floor consideration, including language to tee up the Epstein legislation. If that measure is approved on the floor, likely early Tuesday afternoon, debate and a final vote on the Epstein bill could immediately follow. GOP leaders are considering whether to postpone the Epstein vote until Tuesday evening.
Scores of Republicans are expected to break ranks and support the bill, which would then have to be approved by the Senate and signed by Trump to take effect. Neither is likely, but the process could drag out for weeks, extending the controversy over Trump’s ties to Epstein.
Epstein said in a 2019 email released by the House Oversight Committee this week that Trump “knew about the girls” he was trafficking, but Trump has denied wrongdoing and there is no evidence has suggested that Trump took part in Epstein’s trafficking operation.
The four Republicans who signed on to the discharge petition forcing the vote — Massie, plus Reps. Lauren Boebert of Colorado, Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Nancy Mace of South Carolina — are likely to examine Johnson’s moves very closely. They could together block any procedural measure that would undercut the Epstein legislation, postpone it or otherwise alter it.
That would freeze the House floor just as GOP leaders are trying to bring the House back for an aggressive work schedule following a seven-week recess ordered by Johnson amid the record government shutdown.
Congress
Mike Johnson coy on next steps for DHS funding: ‘Stay tuned’
Speaker Mike Johnson declined to say Friday whether he will keep the House in over the weekend to pass the Department of Homeland Security funding agreement the Senate approved hours earlier.
“Stay tuned,” the Louisiana Republican told reporters when asked if he was committed to passing the Senate bill, which would fund all of DHS except for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection.
Johnson said he would talk through options and work the “will of the conference.” But every path before him is fraught.
Johnson, who said he has not decided on how to advance the bill, has several options.
He could move it through a party-line “rule” vote that would require broad GOP support — an unsure bet at this stage as GOP leaders expect a backlash from ultra-conservatives. His alternative would be to expedite passage through a so-called suspension of the rules, which requires a two-thirds majority vote — a move that could enrage GOP hard-liners.
Johnson is also hamstrung by the fact that procedural rules that House members approved at the start of the 119th Congress does not allow the House to vote on suspension bills on Thursday, Friday, Saturday or Sunday.
House Rules Chair Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.) and Rep. Richard Hudson, chair of the House GOP’s campaign fundraising arm, met with the speaker Friday and other senior Republicans to plot a path forward.
Conservative House Republicans are livid that the Senate passed the funding deal absent ICE funding and then left town, also without passing the elections overhaul known as the SAVE America Act. GOP hard-liners are pushing for Johnson to attach SAVE and send it back to the Senate.
“We want to solve these problems as quickly as possible, but we also understand this dangerous gambit about not funding the border, securing the border and the ability to deport criminal illegal aliens is a serious problem,” Johnson said.
Centrist House Republicans are itching for the chamber to pass the deal Friday.
“I hope they do,” Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.) said.
Congress
Florida Democrat found guilty of House Ethics violations
Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick illicitly funneled millions of dollars to her campaign and committed various campaign finance infractions, a bipartisan House Ethics subcommittee determined Friday — likely laying the groundwork for a vote by the full legislative body to expel the embattled Florida Democrat.
The panel’s adjudicatory subcommittee, led by House Ethics Chair Michael Guest (R-Miss.), deliberated for well past midnight following an hours-long hearing that served as the panel’s first public “trial” in nearly 16 years. It found “clear and convincing” evidence that Cherfilus-McCormick was guilty of all but two of the 27 counts that had been brought against her.
Also facing related federal criminal charges in her home state, the three-term lawmaker is poised to come before the Ethics Committee again soon, when members of the committee will convene to consider what penalty to recommend to the full House.
Congress
Capitol agenda: DHS shutdown now in House’s hands
Congress could finally be on track to end the nearly six-week DHS shutdown.
The Senate called an end to weeks of tortured negotiations and voice-voted a bill funding all of DHS except ICE and parts of CBP around 2:30 Friday morning — essentially delivering exactly what Democrats had asked for in recent days.
But Republicans are promising to come back and fund immigration enforcement with a vengeance in an upcoming reconciliation bill — not just for fiscal 2027, but for many years to come.
“What’s coming next will supercharge deportations,” Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.) said early Friday morning. “The filibuster cannot save you.”
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer took a victory lap, saying Democrats “held firm in our opposition” that there should be no “blank check” for ICE and CBP.
It’s not a done deal yet, however. The Senate-passed agreement faces a treacherous path in the House, which could act on the bill and send it to President Donald Trump Friday.
But many House Republicans will not be happy about the prospect of voting on a DHS bill that does not include enforcement funding — especially after Trump moved unilaterally Thursday to start paying TSA agents.
House GOP leaders went to bed Thursday night not knowing what the Senate would do, waiting to see what they might pass before formulating a plan.
The usual path for a broadly bipartisan bill — passing it under suspension of the rules with a two-thirds majority — is tricky. Suspension motions aren’t allowed on Fridays under the standing rules, and changing that would require unanimous consent.
The other path is Speaker Mike Johnson convincing his conference to unite behind a rule and put the bill directly on the floor.
He has a case to make to skeptical hard-liners: Democrats didn’t get most of the additional constraints they wanted on the two unfunded immigration agencies. And ICE and CBP can operate indefinitely on what remains of the nearly $140 billion windfall they received under last year’s megabill.
The notion of piling on even more enforcement and deportation money could also give Republicans a powerful goal to rally around as they cook up a new reconciliation bill — much as the promise of big tax cuts made the megabill work.
They can also rest assured that DHS is now in the hands of one of their own: former House and Senate member Markwayne Mullin, who is under fierce pressure to bring a steady hand to the embattled department.
“He didn’t exactly walk into the Pacific Ocean on a calm day,” said Rep. Mark Amodei (R-Nevada).
Jordain Carney, Jennifer Scholtes and Eric Bazail-Emil contributed to this report.
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