Speaker Mike Johnson Ends House Session Early, Blocking Vote on Epstein Files

Speaker of the House of Representatives Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) has canceled chamber votes scheduled for Thursday, shortening the length of the House’s work this week in order to prevent a potential vote pressuring the Trump administration to release more files on Jeffrey Epstein.

Johnson had previously promised that he wouldn’t cut the House’s work short this week, but abruptly changed his mind after demands for the Epstein files intensified, including within his own Republican conference.

For years, right-wing figures within the MAGA-sphere have suggested that Epstein, the disgraced financier who died in his jail cell in 2019, kept a list of co-conspirators in his child sex trafficking ring. President Donald Trump, who was once friends with Epstein, implied on the 2024 campaign trail that he would release more files, including the “Epstein list,” claiming without evidence that the Biden administration had purposely concealed files from the public.

After Attorney General Pam Bondi released a short, two-page report denying the existence of an “Epstein list” (months after previously claiming she had the list on her desk), Trump’s MAGA base splintered, with many openly criticizing the administration for failing to live up to its promises to release more of the files. Trump lashed out at those supporters, calling them “weaklings” and stating that he didn’t “want their support anymore.”

Amid continued pressure, however, Trump later acquiesced and called for the Department of Justice (DOJ) to request a New York court to release transcripts of grand jury witness testimony in Epstein’s case and the case involving his girlfriend and child sex trafficking cohort, Ghislaine Maxwell.

Johnson, a staunch ally of Trump’s, is blocking efforts by House lawmakers to pass a resolution calling on the administration to release more files by preventing the House Rules Committee from taking any more consideration for votes, in general, for the rest of the week. That means that the last day of business for the House, ahead of its monthlong August recess, will be on Wednesday, and that the earliest the House could compel a vote on the Epstein files would be in September.

During a press conference on Tuesday, the speaker complained about such efforts, which are being pushed by Democrats along with some Republican lawmakers who have peddled Epstein conspiracy theories over the years.

“The president has said clearly, and he has now ordered his DOJ to do what it is we’ve all needed DOJ to do for years now, and that is to get everything released. So they’re in the process of that,” Johnson stated, adding that Congress pushing the subject would have “no purpose” and would amount to “political games” and “gotcha politics.”

Despite his assertions, Johnson is wrong — requesting grand jury testimonies would not “get everything released” relating to the DOJ’s files on Epstein.

“The president is trying to present himself as if he’s doing something here and it really is nothing,” said Sarah Krissoff, a former assistant U.S. attorney in Manhattan, speaking to The Associated Press over the weekend.

“People want the entire file from however long. That’s just not what this is,” said Joshua Naftalis, a former Manhattan federal prosecutor, adding that the transcripts are “not going to be everything the FBI and investigators have figured out about Maxwell and Epstein.”

The vast majority of Americans are frustrated with the Trump administration’s handling of the Epstein files, new polling from CBS News shows, with 75 percent saying they’re dissatisfied with the White House’s inaction. Among MAGA supporters, 4 in 10 said they were dissatisfied with Trump’s handling of the files.