{"id":17927,"date":"2026-01-19T11:01:44","date_gmt":"2026-01-19T11:01:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/no-longer-in-my-hands-how-hill-republicans-stopped-caring-about-doj-releasing-the-epstein-files\/"},"modified":"2026-01-19T11:01:44","modified_gmt":"2026-01-19T11:01:44","slug":"no-longer-in-my-hands-how-hill-republicans-stopped-caring-about-doj-releasing-the-epstein-files","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/no-longer-in-my-hands-how-hill-republicans-stopped-caring-about-doj-releasing-the-epstein-files\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018No longer in my hands\u2019: How Hill Republicans stopped caring about DOJ releasing the Epstein files"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

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 \u2014 and it remains silent on its plans to fully comply with the law.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Some of them are openly admitting it’s no longer a priority.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t give a rip about Epstein,\u201d Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) said last week when she was asked to take stock of the month since the Dec. 19 deadline.<\/p>\n

\u201cLike, there\u2019s so many other things we need to be working on,\u201d she added. \u201cI\u2019ve done what I had to do for Epstein. Talk to somebody else about that. It\u2019s no longer in my hands.\u201d<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

The White House lobbied these lawmakers heavily to take their names off the discharge petition to compel the bill\u2019s consideration, with administration officials at one point summoning Boebert<\/u><\/a> to the Situation Room for a final plea.<\/p>\n

Now Washington\u2019s 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 \u2014 underscoring the extent to which the GOP remains wary of crossing swords with the president.<\/p>\n

The public falling out between Greene and Trump was largely over Greene\u2019s support for releasing the Epstein files \u2014 Trump called her a \u201ctraitor\u201d \u2014 and ultimately culminated in Greene\u2019s resignation from the House earlier this month. Trump vetoed a bill that would have supported a water infrastructure project in Boebert\u2019s district<\/u><\/a>, and administration officials privately warned Mace that her defiance would likely to cost her the president’s endorsement in the South Carolina governor\u2019s race.<\/p>\n

Mace has vowed on social media to \u201ckeep fighting<\/u><\/a>\u201d for justice for Epstein’s victims but has not otherwise continued the drumbeat against the Justice Department.<\/p>\n

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 Congress<\/a>for not honoring the panel\u2019s subpoena to testify about Epstein.<\/p>\n

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<\/a>, not Trump. Both men have denied wrongdoing, and neither has been implicated in Epstein\u2019s crimes.<\/p>\n

Pressed on the delays in releasing more records, Luna said the initial deadline was not \u201crealistic\u201d and that \u201cI’m not going to rush the process on that \u2014 we’re going to get them.\u201d<\/p>\n

House Oversight Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) is also defending the administration.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom my standpoint, the Department of Justice is cooperating,\u201d he told reporters after Bill Clinton defied his subpoena to testify last week. \u201cThey 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

Not only has the administration failed to fully release Epstein records in its possession \u2014 as mandated in the bill passed overwhelmingly in the House and unanimously in the Senate in November \u2014 it has also failed to give its rationales for redactions in the files, as mandated by the statute.<\/p>\n

On Christmas Eve, the Justice Department said the U.S. attorney\u2019s 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 \u201ca few more weeks<\/u><\/a>\u201d to complete an internal audit. In a recent court filing, the department said more than 500 people were involved in its review.<\/p>\n

That leaves Massie, who has already burned his bridges<\/a> with the president for championing the Epstein release effort among other perceived slights, as the lone House Republican now publicly agitating for DOJ compliance.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey’re in clear violation of the law, and I don’t think they’ve allocated the necessary resources to release these files,\u201d Massie said in an interview. \u201cBut I’m most concerned about the over-redaction of the files. \u2026 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

In an effort to establish some oversight of the Justice Department\u2019s 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<\/a> to oversee the documents\u2019 release. The judge has since asked the Trump administration to respond to their motion.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe law has passed,\u201d he said. \u201cNow it’s for the courts. Now it’s a legal matter.\u201d<\/p>\n

A Justice Department spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n

The conversation is due to pick back up on Capitol Hill in early February: Attorney General Pam Bondi is scheduled to testify<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cI’ll probably focus my five minutes on the Epstein files and her noncompliance with the law,\u201d Massie said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 \u2014 and it remains silent on its plans to fully comply with the law. Also keeping quiet about the DOJ delays are congressional Republicans, almost […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17927","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-congress"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17927","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17927"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17927\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17927"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17927"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17927"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}