Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) formally filed a long-promised discharge petition Tuesday to drive motion on his invoice with Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) to require the Trump administration to publicly disclose information and data associated to convicted intercourse offender Jeffrey Epstein.
The petition, if it reaches 218 signatures, would circumvent Home GOP management to drive motion on the decision.
It might take a handful of Republicans signing on to the petition to achieve that threshold — and Massie instructed reporters he’s assured it is going to get there, regardless of what he mentioned is a stress marketing campaign from GOP management and the White Home telling Republicans to not signal on.
The underlying decision, launched in July following furor over the Justice Division memo asserting there can be no additional disclosures within the Epstein case, has been co-sponsored by 11 different Republicans.
However since that unique outrage that roiled the decrease chamber, the Home Oversight and Authorities Reform Committee has opened a probe into the matter, and Home GOP leaders on Tuesday scheduled a competing vote this week for one more Epstein decision — directing the Oversight Committee to proceed its investigation into Epstein.
Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) mentioned the Home is searching for “maximum transparency” into the difficulty and disregarded Massie’s effort, making the remarks whereas on his option to meet with a bunch of Epstein’s accusers in a bipartisan assembly.
“I would describe virtually everything Thomas Massie says as related to this issue as meaningless,” Johnson instructed reporters on Tuesday.
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The Oversight panel kicked off an investigation into Epstein after a bipartisan uproar following a July memo from the Division of Justice and FBI saying they might not launch any extra details about the Epstein matter. The committee’s probe was prompted partly by a profitable Democratic-led movement to subpoena the Justice Division for the “Epstein files.” The division handed over 1000’s of pages of paperwork in response to that request in August, however Democrats on the panel mentioned the fabric was largely already public.
Massie known as the competing measure a “placebo” decision.
“Using that Oversight investigation as a placebo for the full release of these files, you run into the same situation that [Attorney General] Pam Bondi did when she gave everybody a binder. They go home, they read the binder, and they’re like, ‘We already had all this. This is all still already on the internet.’ And then they get more upset because somebody insulted their intelligence by giving them things they already knew,” Massie mentioned.
“I think that’s the danger that the Speaker and the Oversight Committee are running right now, is that when people find out it’s a nothingburger, they’re going to be even more mad,” Massie mentioned.
Massie mentioned Home Guidelines Committee rating member Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) was the primary member to signal his petition after he filed.
