Congress
‘No longer in my hands’: How Hill Republicans stopped caring about DOJ releasing the Epstein files
One month after the congressionally mandated deadline to release all its files on convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, the Justice Department has made only a fraction of the files public — and it remains silent on its plans to fully comply with the law.
Also keeping quiet about the DOJ delays are congressional Republicans, almost all of whom voted in November to release the records after spending months heeding President Donald Trump’s opposition to the move.
Some of them are openly admitting it’s no longer a priority.
“I don’t give a rip about Epstein,” Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) said last week when she was asked to take stock of the month since the Dec. 19 deadline.
“Like, there’s so many other things we need to be working on,” she added. “I’ve done what I had to do for Epstein. Talk to somebody else about that. It’s no longer in my hands.”
Boebert was one of four House Republicans, alongside Thomas Massie of Kentucky, Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Nancy Mace of South Carolina, who joined with Democrats to force a House floor vote on the Epstein legislation when leadership resisted moving it.
The White House lobbied these lawmakers heavily to take their names off the discharge petition to compel the bill’s consideration, with administration officials at one point summoning Boebert to the Situation Room for a final plea.
Now Washington’s attention has since shifted to other political firestorms, from Trump’s military action in Venezuela to the shooting of a U.S. citizen by an ICE agent in Minnesota, and congressional Republicans are eager to move on — underscoring the extent to which the GOP remains wary of crossing swords with the president.
The public falling out between Greene and Trump was largely over Greene’s support for releasing the Epstein files — Trump called her a “traitor” — and ultimately culminated in Greene’s resignation from the House earlier this month. Trump vetoed a bill that would have supported a water infrastructure project in Boebert’s district, and administration officials privately warned Mace that her defiance would likely to cost her the president’s endorsement in the South Carolina governor’s race.
Mace has vowed on social media to “keep fighting” for justice for Epstein’s victims but has not otherwise continued the drumbeat against the Justice Department.
Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.), who has worked with Democrats on a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee investigation into the Epstein case, said in a recent interview she’s now more more focused on holding Bill and Hillary Clinton in contempt of Congressfor not honoring the panel’s subpoena to testify about Epstein.
Many of the photos released by the DOJ so far feature the former president consorting with Epstein, and the administration has sought to portray Bill Clinton as the real pariah, not Trump. Both men have denied wrongdoing, and neither has been implicated in Epstein’s crimes.
Pressed on the delays in releasing more records, Luna said the initial deadline was not “realistic” and that “I’m not going to rush the process on that — we’re going to get them.”
House Oversight Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) is also defending the administration.
“From my standpoint, the Department of Justice is cooperating,” he told reporters after Bill Clinton defied his subpoena to testify last week. “They are turning over documents. We would all like for them to turn documents over quicker, but at the end of the day, they are complying.”
Not only has the administration failed to fully release Epstein records in its possession — as mandated in the bill passed overwhelmingly in the House and unanimously in the Senate in November — it has also failed to give its rationales for redactions in the files, as mandated by the statute.
On Christmas Eve, the Justice Department said the U.S. attorney’s office in the Southern District of New York and the FBI have identified potentially more than a million documents related to Epstein that have yet to be made public, offering no updated timing beyond “a few more weeks” to complete an internal audit. In a recent court filing, the department said more than 500 people were involved in its review.
That leaves Massie, who has already burned his bridges with the president for championing the Epstein release effort among other perceived slights, as the lone House Republican now publicly agitating for DOJ compliance.
“They’re in clear violation of the law, and I don’t think they’ve allocated the necessary resources to release these files,” Massie said in an interview. “But I’m most concerned about the over-redaction of the files. … There’s a list of things they can redact and a list of things they can’t redact in our bill, and they’re violating that.”
In an effort to establish some oversight of the Justice Department’s actions, Massie and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), who together championed the bill to release the Epstein files, have asked a judge in New York to appoint an independent third party to oversee the documents’ release. The judge has since asked the Trump administration to respond to their motion.
Asked about the waning GOP appetite for accountability around the Epstein files release, Khanna signaled he wasn’t concerning himself with that, saying in an interview it was now irrelevant what his Republican colleagues are or are not doing.
“The law has passed,” he said. “Now it’s for the courts. Now it’s a legal matter.”
A Justice Department spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.
The conversation is due to pick back up on Capitol Hill in early February: Attorney General Pam Bondi is scheduled to testify before the House Judiciary Committee on Feb. 11, after a previous appearance was cancelled due to the prolonged government shutdown. She’ll surely face questions about the delays from Democrats, as well as from Massie, who sits on the panel.
“I’ll probably focus my five minutes on the Epstein files and her noncompliance with the law,” Massie said.
Congress
Platner raised $4 million, but Collins retains cash advantage
Progressive political newcomer Graham Platner outraised both Democratic Gov. Janet Mills and Sen. Susan Collins in the first fundraising quarter in Maine’s key Senate race.
But Collins, seeking her sixth term, maintains a formidable cash advantage over both of her Democratic opponents that could give her a head start against whichever Democrat emerges from the June primary.
Platner raised $4.1 million in the first quarter, down from $4.6 million he had raised the prior quarter, while Mills brought in $2.6 million, down from $2.7 million in the final quarter of 2025, which had also included her campaign launch.
Collins brought in just over $3 million and had just over $10 million in the bank. She is also expected to be buoyed by a wave of outside money, with a super PAC supporting her, Pine Tree Results, reporting another $11.5 million cash on hand. Platner had $2.7 million in the bank, while Mills had just over $1 million.
Maine is one of national Democrats’ top targets as they seek to take back the Senate, with Collins the only Republican senator representing a seat won by Kamala Harris in 2024.
But it is one of the few battleground states where Democrats do not have a clear cash advantage. The comparatively lower fundraising totals for Platner and Mills compared to Democratic Senate candidates in states such as Ohio and North Carolina may reflect that some donors are still waiting on the sidelines to see which of the pair emerges to face Collins, while others are choosing sides.
Both Platner and Mills have faced challenges, albeit very different ones, in the primary. Mills, a two-term governor who entered the race with the backing of national Democrats, has trailed in recent public polling despite her near-universal name recognition. Platner, an oysterman and military veteran, quickly caught national attention and has drawn large crowds in the state. But he has been beset with a string of controversies involving old Reddit posts that began in mid-October, near the beginning of the previous fundraising quarter.
Congress
Rogers holds slim cash advantage in Michigan over Dem opponents
Former GOP Rep. Mike Rogers has opened up a small cash advantage over his Democratic rivals in Michigan’s open Senate race as they battle through a competitive primary. But he hasn’t taken full advantage of the hard-fought contest on the other side to build a big financial edge.
Rogers raised $2.2 million over the first three months of the year and began April with $4.2 million in cash on hand, according to his federal campaign finance filing.
It’s a small cushion, however, especially considering that he has no serious primary competition, with two of his three Democratic potential opponents outraising him for the quarter.
State Sen. Mallory McMorrow raked in $3 million and had nearly $3.7 million in cash on hand. Abdul El-Sayed raised just under $2.3 million and had $2.5 million in the bank. And Rep. Haley Stevens brought in $2 million and had nearly $3.4 million in her coffers.
Still, Rogers is in a better financial position now than at this point in his last Senate run, when he had less than $1.4 million in cash on hand compared to now-Sen. Elissa Slotkin’s $8.6 million. Slotkin beat Rogers in that race by just 19,000 votes as Trump won the state by an 80,000-vote margin.
Rogers is in line for some significant outside aid. The Senate Leadership Fund, a top Republican super PAC, said earlier this month that it would pour $45 million into flipping the seat that will be critical to determining control of the chamber.
Congress
House Transportation chair reveals markup date for highway bill
House Transportation Chair Sam Graves (R-Mo.) is targeting April 29 as the markup date for the surface transportation reauthorization bill and is negotiating a topline number between $500 and $550 billion, he told Blue Light News Wednesday.
While a final topline number has yet to be agreed on, Graves said he has a ballpark figure.
“I’m gonna say it’s gonna be somewhere in the neighborhood of $550 billion or $500 billion — somewhere in there. That will be our number. We’re still actually — believe it or not — negotiating that,” Graves said.
That $550 billion total number being discussed for what is also known as the highway bill would be a combination of authorizations and contract authority for a five-year span.
If that number holds, the bill would be well below the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law, which totaled $1.2 trillion, with $550 billion of that going to new federal spending for roads, bridges, transit, broadband, resilience and water infrastructure. Graves has said he wants the upcoming bill to be more traditional than the previous one with more focus on roads and bridges.
He added that he is in active talks with ranking member Rick Larsen (D-Wash.) and that he thinks Larsen “wants a little bit more” in funding. Peter True, a spokesperson for Larsen, confirmed Larsen wants a higher number than $550 billion.
Graves said there will be a registration fee for electric vehicles in the surface bill, a long-sought goal of his. Last year, he succeeded in inserting a $250 registration fee for EVs and $100 for hybrids in the House version of the GOP-led budget reconciliation bill, but those provisions never made it into law. He said the EV fee will be different this time around.
“We lowered it a little bit,” Graves said of the EV fee, though he did not provide an exact figure.
As for a registration fee on hybrid cars, he was less clear: “We’re not sure yet, but yes, probably.”
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