The sponsor of the discharge petition searching for to publicize all the federal government information on Jeffrey Epstein mentioned Tuesday that he’s assured the movement will safe sufficient signatures to pressure a vote on his invoice.
“I’m not really engaged in a massive whipping effort. I just assume we’ll get the votes,” Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) advised reporters within the Capitol.
Hours earlier, Massie had launched a discharge petition designed to pressure a flooring vote on laws requiring the Division of Justice (DOJ) to launch nearly all of its information on the Epstein case. As of Tuesday night time, 4 Republicans had signed the petition: Reps. Nancy Mace (S.C.), Lauren Boebert (Colo.), Marjorie Taylor Greene (Ga.) and Massie.
To hit the magic variety of 218, two extra Republicans must endorse the measure, assuming all 212 Democrats signal on, as anticipated.
Massie’s assured prediction got here as Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and different GOP leaders are hoping to defuse the GOP outcry over the Epstein case — and to discourage Republican lawmakers from endorsing Massie’s petition.
With that in thoughts, Republicans on the Home Oversight and Authorities Reform Committee on Tuesday night launched a lot of paperwork and movies delivered by the DOJ below subpoena from the panel.
Democrats on the committee have dismissed that effort, arguing that nearly all of that materials had been made public beforehand. And Massie supplied an analogous evaluation, saying the paperwork he’s seen from that trove “were just completely redacted pages.”
“The DOJ’s curating all of that, and they’re releasing what they want to release. And I think it’s going to be like the binders that Attorney General [Pam] Bondi released [earlier in the year],” he mentioned.
“People are going to go through them and say, ‘Hey, wait. There’s nothing new here. This is stuff we already knew.’ And then that will only incite people to be more upset that there’s no transparency.”
There are 12 Republican co-sponsors of Massie’s underlying invoice to pressure the DOJ disclosures, which is sponsored with Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.). It’s unclear, nonetheless, what number of of these GOP lawmakers are keen to take the longer step in bucking President Trump by signing the discharge petition.
Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-N.J.), as an example, has co-sponsored the Massie-Khanna invoice however is rejecting the discharge petition, citing a priority that it might result in sloppy disclosures that might hurt individuals who had been related to Epstein however did nothing improper.
“There are good people that can be hurt, and we also have to protect the victims. So it should go through committee in a more careful and thoughtful way,” Van Drew mentioned. “I’m not going to sign the discharge petition, but I do support the bill. And that’s where I’ve been from the beginning.”
To advertise their effort, Massie and Khanna are staging a press convention Wednesday morning on the Capitol with a few of Epstein’s victims. Johnson and members of the Oversight Committee had additionally met with Epstein survivors on Tuesday, nevertheless it was finished behind closed doorways. Wednesday’s occasion, in contrast, shall be public.
Massie mentioned the distinction is important in dispelling the concept, superior by Trump, that the Epstein saga is a “hoax.”
“I do think the game changer here is the survivors speaking tomorrow. Because although I wasn’t in the meeting that they had in the Oversight Committee, I heard it was very emotional,” Massie mentioned.
“When they say those things publicly, there’s no way you can call this a hoax.”
