“We’re going to put that on the floor for a full vote next week, soon as we get back,” Mike Johnson said.
By Catholics for Catholics
The full Jeffrey Epstein files could be released sooner than expected.
The House will vote on a bill to distribute all files related to Epstein, the late financier and convicted child sex offender next week, said Speaker Mike Johnson.
On Wednesday, Johnson said that a discharge petition to circumvent leadership and force a vote on the bill hit the benchmark for needed signatures. He has chosen to fast-track the vote for the bill, which under current rules could have been postponed until at least early December, according to The Hill.
Adelita Grijalva, who was just sworn in on Wednesday, gave the last signature needed so the bill could proceed. Seven weeks ago, Grijalva, who belongs to a powerful Southern Arizona political dynasty, won a special election 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 claimed 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.
With Grijalva on board on the Democrat side, it brings the partisan split in the House to 219 Republicans to 214 Democrats. Johnson had delayed Grijalva’s swearing in for weeks, producing 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.
Joining the votes to compel the release of the Epstein files, four Republicans joined every Democrat on the matter. 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.
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