Mike Johnson To Fast-Track Vote To Release Epstein Files

Speaker Mike Johnson said the House will vote on a bill to release all files related to the late financier and convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein next week.

Johnson said on Wednesday that a discharge petition to bypass leadership and force a vote on the bill hit the benchmark for needed signatures. He has decided to expedite the vote for the bill, which under current rules could have been delayed until at least early December, according to The Hill.

The discharge petition received the final signature it needed after Johnson swore in Democrat Adelita Grijalva on Wednesday evening. Grijalva won a special election in Arizona seven weeks ago to fill the seat of her father, Rep. Raul Grijalva, who died in March from complications of treatment he was undergoing for cancer.

“As soon as the discharge petition received the 218th signature, we brought it up on unanimous consent, and that would, as you know, make it — would get it through the process immediately. The Democrats shockingly opposed it,” said the speaker. “It was a staggering level of hypocrisy. I think some of them regretted it, because within about a half hour of that, there was a lot of confusion, and some of them claim that they did not object, but they did, and that’s what happened on the floor.”

“We’re going to put that on the floor for a full vote next week, soon as we get back,” he added.

Grijalva’s swearing in brings the partisan split in the House to 219 Republicans to 214 Democrats. Johnson had put off Grijalva’s swearing in for weeks, prompting a lawsuit from Arizona’s attorney general. Johnson has said he was waiting until the House was back in session after Senate fights over the government shutdown had been resolved.

Four Republicans joined every Democrat to force a vote on the release of the Epstein files.  Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie sponsored the bill. Reps. Lauren Boebert of Colorado, Nancy Mace of South Carolina, and Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia joined Massie and the Democrats in supporting the discharge petition to force a vote.