Congress
Looming Epstein vote has Republicans eager to leave Washington
House Republican leaders are under fierce internal pressure to send members home for the summer amid deepening anxiety over a possible vote on the Jeffrey Epstein controversy.
Many GOP lawmakers fear being cornered by an expected “discharge petition” that would force a House vote on publicizing Epstein-related records. Reps. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) and Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) launched the effort Tuesday, making it available for signatures and a possible floor vote as soon as next week.
Democrats have already forced Republicans to take tough Epstein-related procedural votes that have stoked a barrage of constituent calls into GOP offices, but they have not yet been able to force a clear up-or-down vote on releasing the so-called Epstein files.
Questions about the late convicted sex predator have exploded inside the GOP since the Justice Department announced earlier this month it had concluded there was no foul play involved in his 2019 death while in federal custody and there is no “client list” of powerful accomplices to be released.
Republicans want to leave town early for several reasons, but senior House Republicans acknowledge the calls for transparency around the Epstein case is becoming a bigger problem for the party.
President Donald Trump’s insistence that the controversy is a “Jeffrey Epstein Hoax” concocted by Democrats — while eviscerating some of his own supporters as “weaklings” who have fallen prey to his political opponents’ “bullshit” — has done little to tamp down the fury.
“It’s all Epstein, all day,” said one frustrated House Republican who was granted anonymity to speak candidly about the controversy. “We can’t ignore this.”
The hope, according to more than a dozen GOP members and aides, has been that Speaker Mike Johnson and Majority Leader Steve Scalise decide to cancel next week’s scheduled House session and instead send members home for an extended summer recess once voting concludes Thursday or Friday.
The thinking, the members and aides said, is that members won’t have to face questions at home about whether or not they have signed on to the Massie-Khanna effort — and that the issue will have died down by the time members return to Washington in September.
Scalise said Tuesday there are no plans to change the House schedule, which has members staying in Washington through July 24. An aide to the majority leader reiterated Thursday that plan “is not changing.”
Leaving early would spark intense anger from appropriators who are already livid over delays in government funding work ahead of the Sept. 30 shutdown deadline. GOP leaders have discussed changing next week’s schedule, but senior Republican aides acknowledge it would not look good to leave for the traditional August recess in mid-July, with plenty more work to do.
Democrats are expected to create more headaches for the GOP Thursday, by seeking to attach an Epstein-related amendment to the Trump administration’s funding clawbacks package in the House Rules Committee. A similar effort failed earlier this week, but not before one GOP member of the panel broke ranks.
Massie said in an interview he was confident the Epstein issue would remain ripe through the summer. He recalled how conservative hard-liners moved a decade ago to remove former Speaker John Boehner right before the August recess — and then Boehner resigned after members came back in September.
“They probably want to let the steam out, but this will build momentum over August,” Massie said. “They can’t sweep it under the rug.”
The Epstein saga has been a subject of deep fascination for many Trump supporters, who see it as emblematic of a deeply corrupt cabal of political elites preying on vulnerable Americans. Trump, who associated with Epstein in the past and has denied any wrongdoing, discussed the controversy on the campaign trail and pledged to root out any coverup.
But after the Justice Department essentially announced there’s no there there, the pressure broke out into a full crisis this week. Some Republican lawmakers have reported an onslaught of calls from constituents. Others are calling for Epstein accomplices and others to testify before Congress.
Some House Republicans have raised the matter in private floor conversations with party leaders, begging them to do something.
The level of alarm exploded after Massie, a dissident Republican, unveiled his discharge effort with Khanna. It would tee up a floor vote on legislation giving Attorney General Pam Bondi 30 days to release a broad array of files related to Epstein, his onetime girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell and other associates.
Notably, it would provide for the release of investigative files without regard for “[e]mbarrassment, reputational harm, or political sensitivity, including to any government official, public figure, or foreign dignitary.”
Under House rules, the measure becomes available for discharge signatures after seven legislative days.
Trump’s effort Wednesday to tamp down the controversy — suggesting his own supporters had “bought into this ‘bullshit,’ hook, line, and sinker” — only triggered more alarm across the GOP conference.
“People are like, ‘What the fuck is the president doing?’” said a second House Republican, also granted anonymity to speak candidly.
The lawmaker added that “people are freaking out” and the issue is “only getting worse.”
Asked by reporters Thursday if he supports using congressional authority to investigate the Epstein matter, Johnson replied, ”Look, we’ll see how it all develops.”
“We’re for transparency. I’ve said that repeatedly, so has the president,” Johnson said. “And all the credible information needs to come out and the American people need to make their own decisions.”
Rep. Suzanne Bonamici (D-Ore.) is jumping into the race to lead House education committee Democrats.
The Oregon Democrat officially declared she will run to be the top Democrat on the House Education and Workforce Committee in a Dear Colleague letter sent to members of the Democratic caucus Tuesday and shared with Blue Light News.
Bonamici’s jump into the race marks another challenger for Rep. Bobby Scott (D-Va.), the panel’s current ranking member. Rep. Jahana Hayes (D-Conn.) is also running for the panel’s top spot.
Bonamici wrote in the letter that she is “ready to bring a fresh and collaborative approach to invigorate this Committee with a plan to champion the education and labor priorities of our Caucus. With my legal background, I’m prepared to use all of the power of Congress to hold Trump and his cronies, including Secretary Linda McMahon, accountable for the harm they have caused.”
Bonamici introduced a resolution to impeach the Education secretary because of McMahon’s efforts to dismantle the department without the approval of Congress.
Tuesday’s announcement comes after Bonamici told POLITICO last month that she was not ruling out a run for committee leadership and was having conversations about it. Her leadership run now comes as Democrats believe they will win the House majority in November.
The Oregon Democrat, who currently serves as top Democrat on the K-12 subcommittee, said the whole panel “must provide a bold and visionary approach while fighting Trump’s corruption and assault on public education, unions, and working families” if they take the majority.
BETHLEHEM, Pennsylvania — Speaker Mike Johnson defended President Donald Trump’s use of taxpayer funded political-themed ads ahead of the election, but he said it was “good” that MAGA Inc. would pay for them going forward.
Johnson said Tuesday that he’s only seen one of the Trump ads and that it “looked like a public service announcement.”
“It was talking about America’s greatness and the economy coming back, and it wasn’t a plea to vote for anybody. It was just — it was pro Americana,” Johnson told Blue Light News during a campaign stop in Pennsylvania.
But he added: “If the Super PAC’s funding them, that’s good.”
Trump said Monday that he or his aligned super PAC would pay for the series of taxpayer-funded ads featuring him in the final few weeks of the midterms. His decision came after bipartisan backlash, including from some GOP candidates like Brinker Harding in Nebraska’s 2nd District publicly broke with the president and said they shouldn’t be paid for with taxpayer money.
Still, asked if Trump should refund taxpayers the money already spent on the ads, Johnson demurred. He said previous Democratic administrations have run PSAs as well, though Democrats argue these ads violate federal laws against using taxpayer money for “publicity or propaganda purposes.”
“Look, they’re making their decisions on funding campaigns and the content of all of it,” Johnson said of the president’s team.
“I’m going to tell you the president is deeply vested,” Johnson added, noting Trump was out on the campaign trail for Republicans.
Johnson spoke alongside Rep. Ryan Mackenzie (R-Pa.) during a law enforcement event in the perennial bellwether of Pennsylvania’s 7th District. He called Mackenzie’s race one of the “top three in the country” and warned it would be “enormously expensive.”
He later argued that Democrats, if they win the House majority, would roll back GOP work on the economy and “empower our enemies around the world at the worst possible time.”
“That would roil the markets … if Democrats turned Congress into lawfare on steroids,” Johnson said.
Pennsylvania is the first of seven states that Johnson plans to visit this week as he continues his midterm campaign blitz.
Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito said he plans to stay on the court through next year, brushing aside speculation that he could retire early and let President Donald Trump fill his seat after the election but before a new Congress is sworn in next year.
“I intend to stick around through this term,” Alito, 76, said in an interview with Bloomberg News. “I made that decision many months ago.”
The Supreme Court began its new term on Monday, which will last through next June.
Alito, the second-oldest justice on the bench, was in the news last week after telling CBS News that he considered retiring this year and will do so again in 2027.
His comments come as the fight over control of the Senate is in a dead heat. Democrats would have to flip at least four seats, but recent polls show several races, including in states Trump carried easily two years ago, remain competitive.
Several Senate Democratic candidates are already running on the prospect of filling a seat on the Supreme Court or, at least, denying Trump’s ability to do so. Senate Republicans successfully blocked a Democratic nominee in 2016, allowing Trump to fill the seat after he came into the White House.
“Our race to decide Ohio’s next Senator could not only determine control of the U.S. Senate, but also who fills a lifetime seat on the highest court in the land,” Sherrod Brown, the Democratic nominee in Ohio, wrote in a blog post Monday. “Ohio’s next senator could be our first line of defense against another partisan Supreme Court Justice — or rubber stamp a Trump nominee.”
-
Politics2 years agoFormer ‘Squad’ members launching ‘Bowman and Bush’ YouTube show
-
Uncategorized2 years ago
Bob Good to step down as Freedom Caucus chair this week
-
The Josh Fourrier Show2 years agoDOOMSDAY: Trump won, now what?
-
The Dictatorship2 years agoPete Hegseth’s tenure at the Pentagon goes from bad to worse
-
Politics2 years agoFormer Kentucky AG Daniel Cameron launches Senate bid
-
The Dictatorship2 years agoLuigi Mangione acknowledges public support in first official statement since arrest
-
Politics2 years agoBlue Light News’s Editorial Director Ryan Hutchins speaks at Blue Light News’s 2025 Governors Summit
-
The Dictatorship1 year agoMike Johnson sums up the GOP’s arrogant position on military occupation with two words