The House of Representatives will vote next week on a bill to release Justice Department files related to Jeffrey Epstein, Speaker Mike Johnson said Wednesday, after a discharge petition gained enough signatures to force action. Newly sworn-in Rep. Adelita Grijalva (D-Ariz.) was the last to sign. Johnson's move accelerates the process, eliminating waiting periods which would've otherwise delayed a vote until December. After failing to persuade two Republican signatories, Reps. Lauren Boebert and Nancy Mace, to withdraw their support from the petition, Republicans now appear to be "ripping the Band-Aid off a vote that neither Johnson nor President Trump wanted," the Hill reports.
Johnson said a vote could've occurred immediately after Grijalva's signature, but claimed "Democrats shockingly opposed it," then claimed "they did not object." "So we're going to put that on the floor for a full vote next week, soon as we get back," he said. Republicans are expecting 100 or more defections on the vote, per Politico. Yet Johnson said the petition was unnecessary since the House Oversight Committee is already investigating the Epstein case, which includes reviewing documents from the Justice Department and the Epstein estate. The committee released some 20,000 pages of documents from the Epstein estate on Wednesday after Democrats shared emails in which Epstein claimed Trump "knew about the girls" and spent hours with a victim at Epstein's house.
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